Hunters & Anglers

It was a three day hunting trip on a couple of million acres of protected forest preserve. About as well-equipped and well-provisioned as you can be, and then it snowed. A foot and half. In eight hours overnight. No one had packed snowshoes, and the deer could still move like the wind through the powder, so you went home empty-handed. Didn't matter because of the awesome silence and the whiteness that descended.

It's the kind of circumstance only the wilderness offers. It creates the lore that endures for generations and the connection to the land that provides a sense of place and belonging.

But over time you start to notice that things are not the way they used to be in those special places where you belong. It hasn't snowed quite so fiercely as it once did. The waterfowl don't come around the way they used to, when they used to. The fish aren't tolerating the diminished, warmer waters of the streams as well. And the woods are less filled with familiar birdsong, but with more kinds of bugs than you can remember. Something bigger is going on, they're calling it global warming and it's heartbreaking.

That's why, when the National Wildlife Federation conducted a poll, here's what they found when they asked sportsmen and sportswomen about this statement:

We have a moral responsibility to confront global warming to protect our children's future.

Almost nine out of ten agreed with it. More than six out of ten agreed with it strongly. Those are compelling numbers when you consider there are 40 million sportsmen and sportswomen in America.