"For a Handful of Feathers"

I just finished reading the May/June copy of The Colorado Bowhunter, which is the newsmagazine of the Colorado Bowhunters Association. In it I found this excerpt from the essay "For a Handful of Feathers" by Guy De La Valdene. The editor used it to rally members to do more for conservation. It motivated me to make a phone call and volunteer to the CBA and RMEF. I think this paragraph sums it up fairly well.

We hunters, more than any other group on earth, should understand the symbiotic relationship between species and how it has come to pass that, thanks to our destructive meddling, the reflection of a teal on a pond is no longer free of charge. Those of us who understand the complex nature of a teal’s life – and what it takes, in terms of protection and food, to grow the feathers that send that image darting over the water – also understand what the chase and the kill do to the spirit of man, its rewards and its shames. Because we understand and feel these things more acutely than our peers, it is sacrilegious of us not to protect with all our might what resources remain to be saved. If we neglect our obligations, we stand to incur the contempt of generations to come.