During the last week of January, the Conservation Leaders for Tomorrow (CLfT) program completed its fourth and final workshop of its 2007-08 initial expansion year. Sponsored by the Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation and the Wildlife Management Institute (WMI), the CLfT program was developed to introduce nonhunting wildlife and other natural resource management upperclass and graduate students to the roles, values, issues and experience of recreational hunting. The late January workshop, held at Paradise Lodge, near Julian, Pennsylvania, mirrored the success of all previous workshops.

CLfT workshops were initiated in 2005, the first of two pilot years. The program itself was patterned after the former Wisconsin Student Hunter Education Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW). The UW program was conducted at night over the course of a number of weeks. The CLfT program has an intense three-day format.

The CLfT program came about at the urging of state and federal conservation agency officials and others clearly concerned that many of their hirees in recent years and their prospective employees have no hunting , whereas the agencies must deal directly and effectively with hunters and hunting-related matters. A resulting constituency disconnect is obvious and growing.

An informal study by WMI in 2005 confirmed suspicions that, in recent years, fewer than 50 percent of students graduating with wildlife degrees have any experience or familiarity with hunting or the hunter community, reflecting a dramatic declining trend from decades past. Furthermore, less than 30 percent of all natural resource program graduates have such familiarity or experience. The state and federal agencies, for which hunters are a highly important constituency, are well-aware that, as reported recently by The Wildlife Society, more than 70 percent of the professional leadership will turn over within the next 10 years. According to agency administrators, the next generation of resource managers and decision makers need to have a good understanding of hunters and hunting in order to meet agency missions and management responsibilities.

WMI Vice President Dick McCabe, head of the CLfT program, emphasizes that CLfT is not intended to make or recruit hunters: "If students thought this was a hunting training program, many likely wouldn't consider attending. CLfT is a conservation program, not a hunting program. We make it clear that hunting today and for the future is an extension of conservation, not the other way around."

Since 2005, more than 120 students from eight universities have participated in CLfT workshops. The students volunteer for the workshops and the only cost to them is the few days away from campus, including most of a weekend. "At least from an instructional standpoint, we have found that 16 students per workshop is the optimal number," reports McCabe. "That number enables a casual, almost hunting camp atmosphere. It also maximizes one-on-one instruction for field exercises and emphasizes safety. It may not be the most cost-efficient number, but it is the number that succeeds best in getting these nonhunting students to understand who hunters are, what hunting is and why it is so important to hunters. What's more, nearly all students leave workshops well aware of the role hunting is likely to have in their careers."

At present, the program has 40 instructors, all of whom go through a summer training/orientation session. Instructors must have at least some hunting experience and be dedicated conservationist and very capable communicators. There is modest compensation for instructors who can accept it and an equally modest travel expense reimbursement, but their involvement is mostly volunteer. For most, it is a commitment of inconvenient time. Veteran CLfT instructor Rob Manes, Conservation Director for the Kansas Nature Conservancy observed, "It can be hard on personal schedules to fit in CLfT training sessions and workshops, but being part of the program is a powerful way to make a difference for wildlife conservation." Another CLfT veteran instructor Gary San Julian stated, "These workshops really make a difference. How can we not be involved?" CLfT veteran and head of the Massachusetts hunter education program, Sue Langlois, added: "Being involved is a personal and professional obligation. Besides, it is really fun, and it's especially fun to see the students' ?light bulbs' go on."

In addition to collection of student demographic information, the program surveys their attitudes towards and perceptions about hunting and hunters before workshops and, again, afterward. The changes, invariably positive, are dramatic. Quite a number of students have reported that the CLfT workshop was the best educational experience of their college career. Among the student graduates of CLfT have been a number of antihunters, including several card-carrying PETA members. Workshop participation did not make theses students advocates for hunting, but most of them professed that the experience enabled them to understand that hunting does have a role in conservation and that most hunters don't fit the negative stereotype that anti-hunting groups insinuate.

"Through workshop interaction with the students, we instructors get valuable understanding of their view of conservation and concerns for its future," reported Scott Craven, veteran CLfT instructor, a founder of the Wisconsin Student Hunter Program, and Associate Chair of the Department of Forestry and Wildlife Science at the U W. "These students clearly have a different world view and set of priorities than most of us [instructors], but CLfT gives them a missing dimension, and we get to understand their outlooks and concerns."

Despite accomplishments of the CLfT program to date, McCabe is unwilling to claim an unqualified success. "We have hit the mark with nearly every one of about 120 students over the course of three years. During that time, perhaps 10 to 20 times that number of nonhunting students in natural resources graduated and now are in the job force or on the market. The program needs to grow to meet the demand, but it cannot outpace its resources and it cannot compromise its format, including the breadth and intensity of its proven agenda. Expansion progress is frustratingly slow but ambitious nevertheless and infinitely gratifying."

Charlie Potter, President and CEO of the Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation, points out that growth of the program hinges on the continuing support of agencies and others: "Although McGraw and WMI have made the initial investment in CLfT, and will continue to invest substantially, this is a program that needs to be sustained by others who understand that hunting as a conservation opportunity and imperative will no longer happen by chance. The professional community, hunters and the resource agencies will need to get behind what has been so effectively started."

For 2008-09, the program has established satellites in Kansas and Mississippi, to service schools in those and surrounding states. Other satellites will be explored for Maryland, Indiana/Ohio and the Southeast. At least 36 new instructors and 12 additional universities will be involved. The Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation, in Dundee, Illinois, will continue to be the training and operational flagship of the CLfT program.

For additional information on the Conservation Leaders for Tomorrow program, go to http://www.clft.org.