Is hunting under attack?

If you have ever doubted that hunting is under attack, you only have to take a quick look back over our social media posts from the last two months that show numerous examples of inflammatory media headlines, government legislation discriminating against hunters and woke decisions by commercial businesses all aimed at lawful recreational hunting and shooting.  

Here’s a brief recap of some of those posts: 

• Transport giant TNT (owned by FedEx) will cease to transport firearms, weaponry or ammunition in Australia. This will take effect from 9 August 2021. 

• The Herald Sun ran an article last week with the headline: Hunters put lives at risk. See the image of this post in the photo above. The issue was not with the content – what the people did was wrong and should rightfully have been brought to attention. However, the headline did nothing to suggest that these actions were already illegal. (NOTE: we have since noticed that the Herald Sun did amend their headline to read Illegal hunters put lives at risk. This is a perfect example how standing up for what is right is worth the time and effort). 

• In a move straight out of an Orwell novel, QLD’s Weapons Licensing Branch have announced they can now use your social media posts to determine whether to issue or renew firearm’s licenses. If you say something online that they don’t agree with, chances are they will reject your application. 

• The Greens in Tasmania table legislation calling for an end to native duck shooting, egged on by the success the Victorian branch has had in limiting duck hunting.

• The Victorian government entered into secret discussions with Animal Justice Party and The Greens to permanently extend emergency powers – a move that will likely have negative consequences for hunters.  

• A NSW hunter had his firearm’s license suspended on the testimony of a third party and was given no ability to defend himself. 

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Almost every day we are seeing more and more proof that our traditional ways of life are under attack. 

Last week, the Tasmanian Premier, Peter Gutwein described sports shooting as an unsuitable sport for Australian school children, signalling a potential move to ban it from Tasmanian schools. There are several bills being submitted around the world to ban or severely restrict hunting of wild game. 

Add to this the almost constant battle hunting accounts like ours face with content being censored or deleted, accounts being demonetised and reach being severely reduced. 

For example, we have almost 32,000 people who follow the HuntShack account on Facebook, and around 15,000 on Instagram. Yet many of our posts are only seen by a few hundred of our followers. 

Why? 

Because some woke, millennial urbanite at Facebook or Instagram gets to decide what you can or can’t see on social media. They, and they alone, get to determine what content gets censored and what gets through. 

It’s a sad reality but most of us in the hunting industry realise our days on social media are numbered. 

Hunting and shooting accounts are being systematically restricted and silenced. Remember back in February when a whole bunch of hunting accounts got ‘accidentally’ caught up in the social media purge of media accounts? We – and many, many like us – were completely locked out of our accounts and unable to communicate at all with our followers. 

While the lock out was temporary, there may come a day when that switch will get flipped permanently, and hunting accounts get purged permanently from social media. 

When that day comes, we want I Am Hunter to be a safe haven. 

As a member-supported website, we are not beholden to corporate bosses or shareholders. Our content is written by hunters, for hunters (or those wanting to learn to hunt) and with the simple goal of ensuring hunting survives for generations to come. 

It costs just $99 a year to become an I Am Hunter member – or $10 a month if you prefer it in smaller increments. 

This money helps ensure we can continue to create quality hunting content like our tutorials, articles and episodes that are free from censorship, free from negativity and free from hidden agendas. But more importantly, it helps us keep the content literally free, so that we can spread a positive message about hunting amongst the wider community, and hopefully begin to counteract the constant barrage of negativity aimed at hunting. 

But it’s not all one-sided support. In the last two and a half years, we have given away almost $30,000 in prizes including hunting gear, hunting trips and I Am Hunter merchandise to our members. Our members also enjoy generous discounts of up to 40% off at a wide range of businesses.

And that’s just the beginning. We are always looking for new ways to reward our members and have a whole range of new rewards coming your way.   

Have you thought about becoming a member?