Predators & Prey: North American Model of Wildlife Conservation

Safari Club International (SCI) and Safari Club International Foundation (SCIF) want your support for sustainable predator management in North America as part of a uniquely American viewpoint: the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. If you haven’t heard of the NAMWC, here’s the philosophy in a nutshell: Wildlife is a public resource, and sound scientific guidelines must manage the resource, whether the wildlife in question is species like deer and elk, or large carnivores. In the North American Model, hunting is an important tool to manage wildlife populations, and therefore hunters have a crucial role in conserving our wildlife resources.

This position is based on research on the dynamics between large carnivores and their prey, and SCI’s involvement in numerous lawsuits and legislation on predator issues. These issues revolved around state and federal species recovery efforts, delisting decisions for predators, states’ authority to manage wildlife, and the American freedom to hunt.

SCI and SCIF have adopted a position on this issue given the significant public interest and attention predators and their management garners. Unfortunately, much of that attention is the source of widespread misinformation about a subject of real importance to hunters and conservationists. As government bodies worldwide take an increasingly active approach to restricting hunting, it is more important than ever that we hunters convey the truth about hunting both prey and predator species.

“SCI, SCIF and those invested in the management of North America’s wildlife believe the successful recovery of predator species should be celebrated but also that these species should be managed responsibly, by states and tribes, to attain overall wildlife management and habitat protection objectives,” said SCI and SCIF CEO W. Laird Hamberlin.

SCI and SCIF fully support state management decisions that include legal, regulated hunting of predators, including the hunting of large carnivore species such as wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, mountain lions and coyotes.

Hamberlin added, “SCI fully supports sustaining predator hunting as long as science-based evidence continues to reflect its efficacy and sustainability. Misguided proposals to ban predator hunting or to treat large carnivores differently than other wildlife species pose an immediate threat to the North American model of wildlife management and to the successful conservation of species that have been derived from that model for over 100 years.”

SCI and SCIF recognize that regulated predator hunting can provide a legitimate recreational opportunity while ensuring the proper management and balance of predator and prey species in individual ecosystems. Like any other species, predators are not exempt from the public trust doctrine that underlies the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation.