US advocacy group launches new hunting association

The San Antonio-based hunting advocacy group Safari Club International (SFI) has launched Sporting Conservation International (SCI) in a bid to unite hunting and conservation communities and groups. 

SFI says SCI is intended to be a progressive parent corporation that will “protect and advance the conservation of wildlife and wild places by unifying conservation’s most active and passionate stakeholders — hunters, anglers and wildlife scientists”. 

SCI is intended to allow affiliate organisations, which have similar advocacy and political objectives, to come under a single corporate identity to form a better resourced campaigning body. Organisations that become part of SCI will retain their brand identity but benefit from operational cost savings and access to additional marketing and sales opportunities at affiliated conventions and events. 

Author and firearms expert Diggory Hadoke told Shooting Times: “The stated aims are laudable, but it will take time to see how it actually manifests into a distinct identity with a recognised and significant role. The challenge is to convince neutral and anti-hunting organisations, individuals and NGOs to accept the scientific analysis/conservation-led aims of the SCI and overcome the antipathy many people have to any hunting-based group, regardless of its motives or actual successes.”