BHA woke survey
General Topic
I received an email survey from BHA today. First question was "What gender do you identify as?" With male, female, non-binary, or other, were the answers.
My response was "there's only two genders, male/female" and I then emailed the headquarters and ask for a refund of my life membership.
I didn’t get anything in email from them today, although I usually don’t. I got a life membership over a decade ago, but I don’t read any of their stuff. Just throw it all away. I just wanted the fly Rod. If I get that email, I will be doing the same thing.
Seriously, dang....be careful at those pint nights....you might go home with a woman that has a dangler between her legs.
Wow yup this world is a goner.
Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. It sounds nifty. But, its founder is nothing but a politically motivated arm of the Democrat party. Pro preservation. And used smoke and mirrors to fool a lot of people for a long time.
They’ve sold hunting out way more times than anything positive they’ve ever done to aid it.
Stix was an outspoken proponent for them for quite a while.
They are a bunch of liberal, woke democrats with liberal, woke ways.Wolf in sheep’s clothing.
I was, unfortunately they labeled as hunters and anglers supporting public lands. The reality is they know the most hunters and anglers have deep pockets when trying to promote their heritage and passions. Hence, they include hunters and anglers in their name solely to attract those dollars. I told them they were a fraud and that they should change their name to Backcountry Enthusiasts, or merge with the Sierra Club, who they closely align with.
Their CEO was on the Committee to Elect Obama, and their home page used to have a link to their "sister" organization, Sierra Club. They are basically the outdoor arm of the DNC, recruiting young outdoors people with free beer and a cool-sounding story (saving public land!).
When they first popped up, I thought since I love being in the back country, love hunting, mostly hunt public and like fishing, what a great organization to join.
Didn't take long to see I wasn't a fit. Someone called them Backcountry Hipsters and Anglers. Fit a bit too well.
What a terrible idea to get "hipsters" and democrats involved in the outdoors, hunting, and fishing. Trying to build a coalition with environmental organizations...so dumb. And many of you wonder why hunting is losing public support. There are "useful idiots" born everyday.
Useful idiot definition: "a naive or credulous person who can be manipulated or exploited to advance a cause or political agenda"
You young hunters out there, don't let people tell you hunting is reserved for only one political party. Sure there are extremes in both parties that negatively affect our hunting heritage. Hunting is a lifestyle shared by many across the political spectrum. Don't be a "useful idiot." Enjoy hunting and pass it on to anyone interested regardless of politics. It's a good thing for those with more liberal political views experience and understand hunting. So share it with all who will listen.
and to think there are those here who think "gender ideology" doesnt,..or wont eventually...have anything to do with hunting and fishing.
i dont think id call them "usuful idiots" (although some of them certainly are)...but in my opinion "willfully ignorant" would be more accurate.
You can include fathead in that too.
Stix did they send you your money back ?
Waiting for a response, but I dont expect them to as I became a life member in 2012.
Alot of folks were deceived by them, in fact Donald Trump jr became a life member around the same time.
Jaq nailed it.
The BHA Woke version of what the outdoors should be.........and our countries Fisherman, Backpackers and Hunters version is totally different.
Yea Stix I figured that. I bet Don jr is not a member now either.
I thought they supported science based biology? Only when it benefits their cause?
Proverbs 26:24-26
I have no issue with Democrats and liberals hunting and fishing.
Spend any time in the comment section of BHA social media and see how welcoming they are to the right.
Stix, I wasn’t trying to jab at you. However, I did include that tidbit to hopefully get you to elaborate on your experiences with the group. I think it’d be the trans parents that was always lacking concerning the BHA and issue affecting hunting.
BHA has done more to help hunting/fishing opportunities and access in my neck of the woods than any org in decades. If they want to be open to all comers, great. More people to protect the great outdoors, and support hunting/fishing.
They have constantly been on the wrong side of some intense wildlife management controversies here in Alaska. For example, opposing predator control schemes that help put wild food on Alaska tables.
Pete
"Forming coalitions with anti-hunting organizations" There, I fixed it.
BHA's playbook includes recruiting naive useful idiots with beer and fun and telling a good story, then indoctrinating them with Leftist environmental ideology.
They wouldn't take a stand against wolf dumping in CO, and to my knowledge have not taken a stand against the upcoming lion and bobcat hunting ban. But I will bet my house that many of them voted for wolves, and will vote for the cat ban, because those are a "cool" political positions in man-bun world.
The BHA's main problem is they are really a public lands advocacy group, that just happens to have hunters and anglers in their roles. No other group (hunters and anglers) have more passion for tradition along with deep pockets. It is the most efficient coup to get us involved in their political postions.
Biggest example is Gov Polis of Colorado. They worship him because he freed up some overgrazed state trust lands to hunting , yet they refused to express outrage on him for appointing 3 animal rights activist to the wildlife commission.
What good is opening up lands to hunt on if hunting is severely limited or prohibited?
So what is the group that represents conservation, science-based wildlife management and the Sporting heritage without the Political Agenda??
"The BHA's main problem is they are really a public lands advocacy group"
Yeah, god forbid. A group of hunters advocating for public land and public access. Outside of abstaining from getting involved in issues that are unrelated to their mission, I have yet to see BHA take an overtly anti-hunting stance on any issue. Their "political positions" seem very aligned with protecting and opening public spaces.
"What good is opening up lands to hunt on if hunting is severely limited or prohibited?"
And the flipside is true. What good is having hunting rights if there are less and less areas to hunt on? Personally, I'm for both things - unfortunately, neither of the two major parties are.
Stix where did you get hunters and anglers have deep pockets? Specifically no other group has deeper pockets. On issues like wolves and currently cat hunting ban. The hunter side gets a fraction of the money to fight the issue as the other side.
Corax, Safari Club Int on the National side and your state or provincial bowhunting organization is what first comes to mind.
Big, that would be the ideal thought, unfortunately, they have a round about way of promoting candidates who align themselves with the extreme progressive and animal rights groups.
JohnMc, most hunters I know have deep pockets when it comes to defending their heritage that they are passionate about. Deep pockets to us is alot less and pales compared to the elites on the other side. What we consider a modest donation of $100 is equal to $100k or $1M to the hollywood crowd.
Field Ethos guys making fun of BHA on instagram.
Stix I sent this thread to Field Ethos and they post your post on their story.
Probably a screening email for an upcoming Brokeback Mountain jamboree!
Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation is another apolitical group that helps fight anti-hunting initiatives. They are all about public land, but not afraid to take a pro-hunting position, unlike BHA. They don't support Leftist candidates, either.
“they have a round about way of promoting candidates who align themselves with the extreme progressive and animal rights groups.”
Maybe if their membership included more individuals who are willing to advocate in the interests of hunters and fishermen?
Just a hunch, but they probably do the bidding of what they perceive to be the “majority” of the people who are actually providing their funding…. So maybe if more hunters would be less absolutist and engage in the conversation (including financially), rather than writing off everyone but B&C (what have they done for Bowhunting lately??), P&Y (which is selling out to popular opinion among members who have yet to take an animal under the requirements of the existing rules) and the NRA… speaking of groups which have not been helping Bowhunting….
When you paint the world in black & white, you kinda forfeit the option of being able to complain about the lack of choices….
I was mainly anti-BHA for their stances on hunting media/hunting influencers/hunter recruitment. The way they go about increasing their membership makes no sense. I believe Matt Rinella had a statistic that 1% of all Montana hunters were a part of BHA. Instead of BHA lobbying for the existing 99% of hunters to join their club and help advocate for public land, they throw pint nights and other events tailored to non-hunting people and try to make them hunters in hopes that they’d join BHA after they become hunters. Kindve crazy that they want to “save public land” by flooding already over-crowded places with even more people, in my opinion that isn’t saving anything and if anything they’re trying to ruin what little we still have.
Nonetheless, due to this outreach and grab at non-hunter-but-hopeful-hunter members they draw some weird hipster lefties. I’m assuming one of them complained that this wasn’t an option on past surveys so they included it this time around in order to appease them. It’ll drive off the few conservative and even moderate-but-believe-in-biology members they have left. Silly silly silly, but that’s what “we need all the hunters and members we can get” gets you - weirdos that want this kind of stuff. That being said, the BHA/Filson wool watchcap collaboration from a few years ago is sexy, what they lack in common sense they make up for in a frickin sweet logo…
JMc, That would be good. People have to know.
Corax, they get alot of funding from liberal foundations, and they have folks specifically hired and assigned to search and apply for these funding sources.
As Royce White and Professor Penn say (Hebroe's on youtube): FOLLOW THE MONEY, YOU'LL FIND TO WHOM THEY'RE BEHOLDEN.
only an idiot would join BHA.
@Stix — how much you wanna bet that the fundraising folks hired by BHA and others hit up just as many “conservative” organizations and just get turned down?
Just as a rule, people in the fund-raising business have never met a dollar that they didn’t like…. But if they don’t owe “us” anything…. They don’t owe us anything.
BHA is much like Trout Unlimited, at the least is how I see it. TU is pretty liberal. They totally effed up the Jarbidge and Bruneau river stuff up in NE Nevada. Go look up the Shovel Brigade thing. Not sure it ever got resolved.
How's the response to a refund going?
This folks is why you do some research before blindly sending money to those that do not align.
Meateater anyone?
Backcountry hikers and anglers is a joke. They are anti AR15, anti predator hunting, don't take stands on states issues. The Colorado chapter was dead silent on the wolf issue and hasn't done anything on the upcoming lion ban. But hey you can wear your public land owner t shirt and drink some craft brews with other posers whenever you like.
To be fair, they are a supporting organization of Coloradoans for Responsible Wildlife Management on the Lion issue, and did sign on with the Colorado Wildlife Conservation Project against the wildlife commission appointees. Also, they did put out a policy statement against the ballot box biology on the wolves and the lions. My problems with them started when they REFUSED to criticize the Governor for appointing the animal rightists to the commission. IMHO, that was the root cause of the problem, in the meantime, several BHA members were put on CPW committees, and a BHA employee was given a job in the Polis administration as an asst. director in the DNR. Something smells rotten in Denmark.
No reply from BHA on the refund request.
https://www.backcountryhunters.org/co_bha_wolf_statement Nothing ever saying they are fully against it, also nothing about lethal management of wolves. Not one member from BHA member ever spoke out at any meeting I attended. Their stance on so called "assault" weapons is not 2A friendly.
Where is their stance on “assault rifles” written down?
You wont find a policy statement on that, same as rmef, mdf, cba, etc. It's out of their area of concern. At the same time they actively praise lawmakers who are generally anti gun, pro animal rights, etc, just because they are pro public lands (not necessarily pro public land hunting). You gotta look big picture, BHA is narrow focused.
Land Tawney made numerous statements that were not pro "assault" rifles while he running BHA
https://www.activistfacts.com/organizations/backcountry-hunters-and-anglers/
There funding is also super suspect. Looking at politicians they back should show you what side of the gun debate they are on
Bigeasy I guess you also missed all the quoted from Ryan Busse as well. Ryan Busse, former Exec at Kimber, has now come out and fully supports gun control for us plebes. He is now openly leftist and his new book, Gunfight, basically says we are all nuts who are playing soldier if we use anything other than a bow, 1911, or bolt rifle.
Why does that matter?
Ryan was on the Exec Board at BHA for almost a decade. His son got into a scrape at a BLM rally…on the BLM side.
So, BHA has had a senior board member that the New York Times cites as pro gun control and who openly states you shouldn’t have guns he doesn’t like.
I’ve seen Busse’s comments. I never saw where BHA came out as an organization with similar statements (likely because they haven’t). I have seen where they have released statements about not supporting Busse’s book or comments and not wanting to get into gun policy (not surprising given their focus is public lands).
This organization took over a local archery range lately. To join the range you have to pay BCHA. I thought I had heard negative rumblings about them on bowsite in the past but had not looked into it.
I have access to the range without them so I guess I’ll see what comes out of having them around, if anything.
Too all the other hunting organizations are not much more than a legislative arm for outfitters and industry products. BHA filled profound void and it’s sad to see it go woke and broke
Is BHA going broke? Where is the evidence of that
They don't like us trappers?
They tout a membership of 350,000. They also have a new CEO as of June of this year and they have lost most of their top end executives.
Blaming their problems on growing to fast I’ll probably go with the going woke and headed to going broke. Starting to fixate on stream and river access
I’ve been butting heads with this group for a long long time. Several of their educated board relentlessly trashed the United Bowhunters of Pa and our support of a whitetail management/antler restrictions. It’s good to see stix awakened as he and I had a few go arounds.
I would comment on every Facebook advertisement and ask about them receiving funding from anti hunting and anti gun groups. NEVER ONCE was told no and sometimes it was admitted they DID receive funding before they knew who gave it to them?
Eventually I ended up getting my laptop hacked multiple times.
I discovered through their “sister org links” on their older site, they are very tight with Sierra Club and others. 2 clicks of exploration later had me directions on “How to throw a lighted Molotov cocktail”
If they do what you think is good or appears to be good, understand its not solely for hunters and anglers, it’s for the future of Big Government’s dream (both sides) to eventually control the use of all of it.
Let's not forget to mention their ties with Yvon Chouinard the founder of Patagonia. He is super anti hunting even orchestrated the cancelling of Montana's Yellowstone bison hunt.
Lisa Pike, director of Patagonia's environmental programs, said the company has supported the Buffalo Field Campaign through small grants and clothing donations since 1997.
Patagonia will reimburse the cost of the bison license - $75 for residents and $750 for non-residents - for anyone who is awarded a tag but doesn't use it, Pike said. The company has not taken a stance against hunting overall but objects to the bison hunt near Yellowstone because it won't be a "fair chase hunt or ethical," Pike said.
"It's not a real hunt in the true sense of the word," she said.
I do not think even hunters agree on what defines a fair hunt.
