“youth hunter education challenge”

At its 51^st annual conference, the International Hunter Education Association (IHEA) bestowed its highest honor—the Gladney Davidson Memorial Award—on Marion Hammer for her significant contributions to hunter education.

Save your seat for the NRA show’s annual celebration of hunters and hunting.

In 1985, we launched a program to facilitate friendly competition among youths 18 and younger that would advance hunting skills including wildlife identification, orienteering and rifle, shotgun and archery marksmanship. Today, thousands of hunter education volunteers and parents still conduct this program at the state and local level to produce safer, more skillful and more ardent American hunters.

Despite its importance as a good food source, as a wildlife-management tool and as a crucial source of funding for conservation in the United States, hunting remains vulnerable to misinformation and negative attention from ill-informed media, which can encourage support for restrictive legislation. The hunting community must appeal to non-hunters through common goals, motivations and values if our pastime is to remain a fixture in American life.

The organizations agree to cooperate on hunter recruitment, firearm training, wildlife conservation during 10-year agreement.

For new hunters, mentors who have “been there, done that” are invaluable resources. Fortunately, numerous opportunities for beginning hunters to receive expert tutelage exist across the nation as well as online.

As NRA members and hunters, we have the responsibility to increase our ranks. Through our NRA memberships, we have all the resources needed to do exactly that. So what's stopping you?

Since its inception, YHEC has helped 1.3 million youngsters to gain that hands-on experience, and they’re better hunters for it.

YHEC is many things. Here is a small taste of what the Youth Hunter Education Challenge has to offer.