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ORION THE HUNTERS’ INSTITUTE
2006 ANNUAL REPORT
PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
 Sometime in the late 1990’s I stumbled across an article that was to
have a profound impact on my life. It had to do with a hunter who
happened to look down and found an obsidian arrowhead left by another
hunter many generations before. The connection made by that author
stirred something deep inside of this hunter, and I spent the next few
seasons haunted by a feeling that I really couldn’t explain. As a
consequence, on my next three Colorado bow-hunts I spent more time
looking for lost native arrowheads than I did looking for elk.
I
climbed to craggy peaks, explored creek bottoms, and scratched in every
washout I could find. After a troublesome ascent to a particularly
nasty canyon ridge, I was sitting on a point where generations of
mountain lions and possibly aboriginal hunters had planned their stalks
of the plains below. Taking in the view, I no longer saw the plains
merely as a place to hunt. A strange electricity was building on that
rocky bluff. As I reached for my pack, I saw it….a blackish amber
glint buried in the cement hard earth. After three years of uncounted
miles I had finally been rewarded with my arrowhead. I visualized it
mounted proudly next to my first bow kill in my den, maybe fixed on a
handmade arrow, a piece of slate maybe?
I attacked the
earth with a frenzy, as the site was finally yielding to my dulling
knife blade a thought surfaced … I imagined the first tomb raiders of
Egypt, robbing future generations of their past. Was I no different
taking this arrowhead from a future hunter so they couldn’t experience
the thrill of the find? Try as I might, I couldn’t remember if the
author of the tale that started me on this quest had put the point
back, kept it, or what happened to it. My dark side quickly took over;
after all I had spent three archery seasons looking in places that
might hide arrowheads but not many elk. I had also a large financial
investment in this quest and even though I found it on public land,
this archaeological treasure was mine, all mine!
As the
earth yielded, my arrowhead turned into a broken chunk of glass,
man-made obsidian from a bottle, probably placed on that high peak as a
target by some settler to test his shooting prowess. As I started the
long trek back to the campsite, I reflected on my struggle and how it
was similar to most of my life, doggedly getting to the top of the
sport or business that I was involved in and finding that it wasn’t
what I expected when I finally got there. Maybe there just wasn’t an
arrowhead for me in life …
When I arrived back home, I
resolved to find that article and contact the author. I wasn’t real
sure what I would say, but just knew that I had to talk to this guy. I
searched the database at our public library, flipped through stacks of
magazines at friends’ houses, the gun club and various hunting camps to
no avail. Where did I read that confounded article? The search for
the obsidian point wasn’t this frustrating! After six months I
reluctantly gave up the search, maybe I dreamed the whole thing.
Some time passed and one of my favorite hunting partners called me.
Mike had just been to Montana and was now on the board of a small
non-profit group called Orion the Hunters’ Institute. He was excitedly
explaining what the group did and that they really could use my
expertise in a lot of their programs. Would I be interested in
volunteering some effort? Having been bloodied in battle I was a
believer of the adage that “Committees (Boards) are where good ideas go
to die” and was hesitant to get involved with any group no matter the
cause. But my Friend Mike is not the kind of guy to give up easily and
convinced me to at least look at the Orion materials.
I read
through everything with mild interest but stared in disbelief as I
opened the last small book Inherit the Hunt - you all know what I
found, or more importantly what found me. This is the first time that I
have ever shared “my” arrowhead story with anyone, including the Orion
Board members. I finally found my arrowhead here at Orion, and more
importantly I have clarity of where my destiny lies. It has been six
years now that I have had the privilege to serve all of you as an Orion
board member. Now as your new president, we as a board will continue
to build on the success that the previous Orion members, donors, and
board members have achieved. I hope to meet as many of you readers as
possible in the years to come. Thank you for staying the course……..
Mark Hirvonen, President
“FOR EVERY COMPLEX PROBLEM, THERE IS A SOLUTION THAT IS SIMPLE, NEAT, AND WRONG.”
H.L. MENCKEN |
THE ORION BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND ASSOCIATES
Mark Hirvonen, President and Development Coordinator
Marquette, Michigan
Gayle Joslin, Founding Board Member and Secretary
Helena, Montana
Mike Kolasa, Board Member and Past President
Republic, Michigan
Randy Newberg, Board Member and Treasurer
Bozeman, Montana
Eric Nuse, Board Member and Associate
Shelburne, Vermont
Jim Posewitz, Executive Director
Helena, Montana
Zoe King, Office Manager
Helena, Montana
Illustrations by Jim Stevens. Design and layout by Laurie "gigette" McGrath
INTRODUCING ERIC NUSE
 Eric Nuse joined Orion as a Board Member and Associate this year. He
brings years of experience as a state game warden, hunter education
coordinator and most recently as the executive vice president of the
International Hunter Education Association. He is currently the
principal of Eric C. Nuse and Associates a consulting business that
focuses on design and facilitation of strategic planning for natural
resource agencies and organizations.
Eric is also active in
promoting responsible hunting and building support for ethical hunting,
trapping and angling. Upon joining the Orion board he helped
facilitate the development of our new action plan to move the mission
of Orion forward in a focused, coordinated way.
Eric is
married, has five children, two Brittanies and too many cats. He is an
avid reader, and a passionate hunter, woodsman and fisherman. He hangs
his hat in Shelburne, Vermont but his heart is deep in the Green
Mountains.
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A HIGHLIGHT OF 2006
A MARCH FOR ROADLESS WILDLANDS
 One of the big public issues in the West in 2006 was the effort of hunters to preserve the remaining National Forest lands still in a wild roadless condition. These still wild lands are quality hunting areas that provide security for wildlife and represent ethical hunting environments where fair chase has a chance. In 2006 there were efforts to change the rules relative to their management, that included soliciting recommendations from the governors of affected states. Since Montana was one of those states and Orion believes in delivering its message both nationally and locally we entered the debate at the local/state level. One of our selected strategies was to partner with the Montana Wildlife Federation and organize a march-in from one of the roadless areas in the Helena National Forest to the state capital. There, we held a press conference and met with the governor to present a hunter’s preference for keeping our last unroaded public lands wild. On March 4, 2006 roughly fifty blaze orange and camo clad hunters marched the seven miles from a roadless area to the state capital. What follows is the presentation made to Governor Brian Schweitzer by Orion’s executive director.
A CALL FOR WILDLAND – WILDLIFE CONSERVATION
From Orion the Hunters’ Institute
Next month we mark the 100th Anniversary of the Executive Order that created the Helena National Forest. The executive that issued that order was President Theodore Roosevelt. Today we marched to express a desire to see a portion of that conservation endowment maintained in a wild condition so that it might:
- sustain the wildlife the people have restored to this landscape;
- protect the watershed values of the forested lands; and,
- preserve a wild landscape in which we can engage in the ethical, fair chase pursuit of game.
Our predecessors of the hunt set aside a wild land estate that nurtured America’s wildlife back from the brink of the dark abyss of oblivion. Late in the 19th Century, Theodore Roosevelt came West to ranch and to hunt and while here he stared into that abyss. He left us this observation: "A ranchman who … had made a journey of a thousand miles across Northern Montana, along the Milk River, told me that, to use his own expression, during the whole distance he was never out of sight of a dead buffalo, and never in sight of a live one.”
Roosevelt stared into the abyss --- but did not flinch. Within three years of that writing TR and associates formed a club of hunters to address the problem. In 1891 they lobbied Congress for legislation enabling the president to set aside forest reserves. They called it the “Creative Act.” Ten years later, when Roosevelt ascended to the presidency, the ‘Creative Act’ was in the hands of one of its creators.
On April 16th of this year we observe the 100th Anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt putting the Helena National Forest under the protection of the people. When he did he told us, “… Westerners who live in the neighborhood of the forest preserves are the men who in the last resort will determine whether or not these preserves are to be permanent.” We are those people.
We marched today to express our concern for these last roadless wild lands. Doing so was our ethical responsibility as hunters. Hunter-philosopher and the ‘Father of Game Management,’ Aldo Leopold told us: “All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts…. The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.” We marched for the land. We marched so justice might be done for the wild treasures currently in our custody.
On the 16th of January each year we now observe a day set aside to recognize America’s foremost advocate of marching for justice. It is a day our nation set aside for reflection on the contribution - and on the words - of Dr. Martin Luther King. Among the words Dr. King left us to contemplate we find the following.
“The moral arc of the universe is long; but, it bends toward justice.”
Today we marched to ask justice for the wild places and the wild things that we hunters cherish. We accept the moral responsibility articulated by Dr. King. We seek to live up to the ethical vision described by the father of game management – Aldo Leopold. We seek to pass the legacy of wild places and wildlife forward another generation, to those Theodore Roosevelt described as “… the number within the womb of time.”
We are here today to fulfill the simple duty assigned to those of us who engage in what Roosevelt called the “sturdy pleasure of the chase.” Theodore told us, “Our duty to the whole, including unborn generations, bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations.” - - - and that is why we are here.
Roadless March-In Epilog
The event ended with the Montana Governor, Brian Schweitzer saying, “I see a group of people who are committed to the ideas of Theodore Roosevelt. The governor noting that “conservation is an American Value,” concluded, “The days of polarizing wild places are gone. We are the treasure state and there’s no greater treasure than our wild lands.”
1 Theodore Roosevelt "Wilderness Reserves: The Yellowstone Park," from Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905, pp
2006 HIGHLIGHT
AGENCIES RESOLVE TO LEARN AND TEACH THE HERITAGE
Since our inception in 1993, Orion The Hunters’ Institute focused on
hunter ethics, hunting heritage and the public trust principles at the
foundation of the North American hunting culture and its conservation
ethic. In the process, we came to learn that while the hunting
community knew our heritage was a proud and positive legacy, few were
aware of its detail or its depth. Perhaps even more obscure were the
public trust principles that governed its management.
In
2006 we presented papers on public trust management at meetings of both
the Montana and North Dakota Chapters of the Wildlife Society, and the
Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation. In what appeared to be a building
momentum we were the lead-off speaker in the plenary session at the
July meeting of the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies
(WAFWA). The meeting was hosted by the North Dakota Game and Fish
Department (NDGFD) and the plenary sessions focused on the public
ownership of fish and wildlife and the public trust responsibility for
their management.
The WAFWA adopted a very progressive
resolution and we believed it to be such a huge step forward we issued
a special report on that conference late in 2006. Orion has been on
this issue since our inception thirteen years ago and we think the
flower is beginning to bloom. If you did not receive a copy of that
report, including the resolution, let us know and we will send it to
you.
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APPEARANCES AND INTERVIEWS 2006
by Executive Director
Jim Posewitz
Orion The Hunters’ Institute’s work with hunter educators continued in 2006 while our heritage education emphasis accelerated with what we believe to a building momentum. The following list of appearances and interviews affirms that we are keeping quite busy and we thank all of you supporters for keeping us in the hunt.
| 1/19 | Washington Monthly | Sportsmen & Conservation History | | 1/23 | Roadless (USFS) Working Group | Hunters & Wildland Preservation | | 1/24 | British Broadcasting Corp (James Whitehead)
| Canned Hunting in Texas
| | 2/2 | Missouri Dept. Conservation | The No. Am. Consv. Ethic | | 2/2 | Missouri Dept. Conservation
| The Public Trust & Wildlife | | 2/4 | MT Wildlife Federation | The No. Am. Model | 2/9
| ND Wildlife Society | The No. Am. Consv. Ethic | 2/9
| ND Wildlife Society | Theodore Roosevelt & The Hunting Ethic | | 2/14 | British Broadcasting Corp (James Westhead(
| Cheney Incident | | 2/16 | Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation | The No. Am. Consv. Ethic | 2/22
| Great Falls Tribune | Roadless Forest Land Protection
| | 2/23 | MT. Chapter Wildlife Society | The Consv. Ethic & The Public Trust
| | 3/4 | Orion & MT Wildlife Federation | 6.7m March for Roadless Nat'l Forest | | 3/6 | Carroll College Radio | Roadless USFS Land Protection
| | 3/6 | Capital High School (2 classes) | The American Consv. Ethic | | 3/9 | Washington Monthly | Public Land Retention & Hunting
| | 3/11 | Nebraska Hunter Education | The American Consv. Ethic | | 3/23 | Great Falls Press Conf. | Rocky Mountain Front Consv. History | | 4/4 | Treasure-Rosebud Rod & Gun | TR & The | |