Richard Childress, former NASCAR driver, is much more dedicated to conservation than many may believe, despite him being a hunter.
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The RCR owner is known for having fished and hunted all over the world. But has also dedicated himself to important conservation efforts. He spoke to AltDriver about the importance of conservation and how hunters like himself are avid activists.
"People that aren't hunters, they go out to enjoy the great outdoors, they don't understand that the hunters, a lot of time, provide that," he argued. "The people that go up to see the elk in North Carolina -- which hadn't been there in a couple of hundred years -- the hunters raised the money."
"And to put those elk where people can carry their kids and see them, and people that are not even hunters can go up there and listen to an elk bugle, or see elk calves running around, that's the rewarding part."
Richard Childress explained how the more he looked into conservation, the more he wanted to be involved in it. "The more I dug into it and learned about it, I said, 'This is something I want to be involved in.'"
Conservation Is More Than Protecting Animals, Richard Childress Explains
The ex-racer goes on to explain that conservation is more than just protecting and moving around animals. Conserving the land is important too.
"The thing about most of these groups, people don't realize all the things that they do beyond protecting the wildlife," he said. "They preserve land."
"There's a lot more than just protecting an animal or moving an animal from one place to the other."
Childress is involved in too many conservation projects for me to list here. But one thing he does is put $1 from every ticket sale from his museum into conservation. They've been doing that since the museum was built. And that's just a passive means of helping out.
When someone writes to him to complain about his hunting, he'll write back. Childress will list everything hunters have done to protect and conserve wildlife. And in a final mic-drop, he'll write, "Now you tell me what you've done for conservation to protect our animals."
