John,
No, not all wildlife advocates are commie pinkos, but an increasing number of sporting groups are being coopted completely by large checks from the same entities that fund Big Environmentalism.
The fact is, BHA is more an environmental group than it is a sportsman's group. Its main funders fund Big Stupid Green. That's a fact. The entire hunter and angler narrative epitomizes how the progressive Left and Greens frame issues. Sportsman is sexist, hunter or fisherman is sexist, so be PC and say "hunter and angler."
Hunter and Angler wasn't even in the lexicon until roughly 2001, and it wasn't spontaneous. Pew Trusts gave a bunch of money to those bird-hunting loonies at Audubon in order to "support" the Clinton roadless initiative, which was the administrative creation of wilderness-in-fact on 58 million acres that Congress hadn't designated.
Pew did a post-mortem and noted that NRA had opposed Clinton's move, and found a huge power vacuum inasmuch as NRA is the "sportsmens voice" largely by default.
Sporting groups are almost by nature fractured. Sportspeople join regional groups, or species-oriented groups that help our favorite prey. MDF, RMEF, TU -- about the only umbrella out there is Safari Club, and by default, the National Rifle Association.
So Pew Trusts decided to create an umbrella group it could control with money. Pew turned around and cut Trout Unlimited a big check to "sponsor" an entity called the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Alliance (now Partnership). The Izaak Walton League and a couple other entities also took up the same "roadless" cause at the same time, I think with Pew/TU funding, although I'd have to look way back in my records to be sure.
If you look at TRCP's record, the positions they take are primarily Green with a little lip service to gun rights and "access," usually only for walk-in hunting, not other forms of recreation and definitely not for resource production.
Also about that time, in 2002, the Outdoor Writers (or at least a faction) jumped all over NRA in Spokane because NRA's guy was critical of Sierra Club.
As for BHA, it was started by Trout Unlimited staffers in Oregon, and Trout Unlimited is taking huge amounts of money from foundational sources that are active primarily on the nonprofit Left. That TU staff began BHA and that it works closely with purely environmental groups that have similar funding streams is not coincidence. It's a narrative strategy, funded and designed by some of the best political minds inside the Beltway.
Who wins? Not the NRA, that's for sure. Sportspeople? Well, the sporting life is muy bueno if you're well employed, not so much if you can't afford the time and expense. Wildlife? Um, that goes back to that vegetation and habitat management we were bickering about earlier.
