When Jim Posewitz left Sheboygan for Montana 50 years ago, there wasn't a deer in the county. Today, they're all over the place, along with wild turkeys and a diversity of other wildlife that was scarce or absent in his youth. That scenario has played itself out all across America, and it hasn't been by accident, as Posewitz is quick to point out.
Posewitz was back in Wisconsin recently to speak at the 125th Anniversary celebration of the Wisconsin Conservation Warden Service at Stevens Point. 
He told wardens and guests they should help spread the word about the role hunters have played in restoring wildlife to abundance after years of overhunting and habitat destruction took their toll on America's wild bounty.
Posewitz studied fish and wildlife management at Montana State University in Bozeman, then worked for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks, where he served 15 years as head of the ecological services division. When the use of sport hunters to control bison that strayed from Yellowstone Park in the late 1980s caught flak from across the country, Posewitz led the move to have state officials do the killing instead of calling it "hunting."
To help repair the damage done to the image of hunters, Montana hosted the first Governor's Symposium on the North American Hunting Heritage in 1992. That symposium produced two themes: the hunting community must clean up its act from an ethical standpoint, and hunters must resurrect the stories of the American hunting heritage.
"These stories tell the truth about the efforts of hunters to save wildlife," Posewitz said. "In the same year 300 bison were killed by hunters outside Yellowstone, 6,000 elk starved on the park's northern border. The money that was raised by anti-hunting groups disappeared, but it was hunters, through the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, who purchased millions of dollars of winter game range."
Posewitz calls this "a classic example of vilified hunters doing their thing for wildlife."
In 1993, Posewitz left the state agency to form Orion - the Hunter's Institute to work on the two themes developed by the governor's symposium. In the decade since, he has traveled across the country to spread this message though his three books and through talks and programs for conservationists, wildlife professionals and hunter education instructors.
His first book, Beyond Fair Chase, defines ethical hunting practices. It has been used in thousands of hunter education classes nationwide. His second book, Inherit the Hunt, traces the history of America's hunting and wildlife heritage and the threats posed by commercialization and privatization. His new book, Rifle in Hand, tells some of the stories of the conservation movement and its founders: Theodore Roosevelt, Aldo Leopold and others.
"We have to learn our own history, appreciate it and then teach it," Posewitz said.
He cited the example of A.R. Richardson, who served as chief warden for the state of South Carolina from 1913 through 1958. When he came on the job, wardens were corrupt county appointees who could be bought off with bribes. He firing all the existing wardens, including his own father, and proceeded to bring law, order and respect to the ranks. He ticketed wealthy industrialists for game violations, fought off poachers who jumped him at a baseball game, survived hostile legislators and governors, and reintroduced white-tailed deer to the state's Barrier Islands. When Posewitz told that story at a meeting of current South Carolina wardens, the chief warden admitted he hadn't heard it before.
"There's no better time than right now to tell these stories and no better icon than Theodore Roosevelt, since 2004 is the centennial of his election as President," Posewitz said. "He embedded the idea of conservation in the American culture by setting aside 230 million acres of land so wildlife could start to recover. That's 9.9 percent of America, or 84,403 acres a day while he was President. Unlike any other culture in history, we devised a system to fill a continent with wildlife."
Few hunters know the story of Roosevelt's contribution, Posewitz said, or of the century of conservation that followed.
"When T.R. went west to hunt, he was picking through the remnants of our original wildlife," Posewitz said. "Today, we have deer in our suburbs, bears in our orchards, geese on every golf course."
In 1890, the U.S. Biological Survey estimated there were 300,000 whitetails left in the U.S., Posewitz said. Fast-forward to the 2000 season, when Wisconsin hunters killed a total of 618,374 deer. In 1909, Wisconsin hunters killed 3,985 deer and 44 fellow hunters, or one for every 90 deer taken. At that rate, in 2000, we would have racked up 6,870 human fatalities. There are far more deer today, and hunting is much safer.
The restoration of wildlife and of the hunting heritage are uniquely North American ideas, Posewitz said. A series of federal court decisions beginning in 1842 have recognized that natural resources are not private property, but belong to the people as trustees, he said.
"It stems from our democracy itself," he said. "Knowing this, how can you behave badly in the field? How can you teach young people our heritage and then expect anything other than exceptional behavior?"
Posewitz calls the stories of this legacy a "field of diamonds" that can be mined to motivate wardens and other wildlife professionals in their work and citizens to be respectful of the resource and truly appreciate what we have.
"There wouldn't be a wild America if T.R. and others like him hadn't come along when they did," he said. "Once they know these stories, hunters should become more aggressive in conservation activism."
The rescue of wildlife through conservation should also be taught in schools as part of American history, he said. This is what it will take to sustain hunting in the 21st century, when society is moving away from things natural and kids have many more options than roaming the outdoors.
Posewitz also weighed in on the current debate over the minimum age for hunters, citing a proposal developed by the International Hunter Education Association.
"An adult should be able to take a young person hunting at any age," he said. "But before they can hunt alone, youngsters should pass a hunter education course."
That model would provide hands-on mentoring and give kids a chance to develop a real taste for hunting before they take a hunter education course. That might not only make them better hunters, he said, it might help ensure they will make hunting a lifelong pursuit.
For more information on Orion - log onto The Hunter's Institute, or call 406-449-2795.
Ed.Note: This article first appeared in Wisconsin Outdoor News, in the July 2, 2004 issue.
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