Why It Matters: Today’s youth will soon be shouldered with carrying our time-honored traditions into the next generation. This also includes being the primary funders of conservation through the “user pays – public benefits” structure that is the American System of Conservation Funding. Being proactive and creative in recruiting and retaining the next generation of sportsmen and women is critical in ensuring our hunting traditions are sustained well into the future.
Highlights:
- In February 2025, Georgia Legislative Sportsmen’s Caucus (Caucus) Co-Chairs Representatives Chas Cannon and Matt Dubnik, among other Caucus members, introduced House Bill 451, which would allow public schools to offer hunter safety education courses in grades six through twelve.
- On the last day of the 2025 legislative session, the hunter safety education course language from HB 451 was included in Senate Bill 148 (SB 148) but fell short of the Sine Die deadline in the Georgia State Senate.
- On January 28, SB 148 received a unanimous agreement vote to the House changes from 2025 and now heads to Governor Sportsmen’s Caucus (GSC) member Governor Brian Kemp’s desk for his signature.
Georgia, like many other southeastern states, is overall a very rural state that offers plenty of opportunities for young people to learn new outdoor skills and hobbies like hunting. Like any new endeavor, proper guidance, including critical safety instruction, is paramount before heading afield.
SB 148/HB 451 requires the State Board of Education to develop content standards for instruction in hunting safety education, which would give school boards the option to establish a hunting safety curriculum for the next school year. The course will be based on current hunting safety education courses offered by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Additionally, the course will be taught by an individual who is certified by the DNR as a hunter education instructor.
From the rural north Georgia mountains to metro Atlanta to the lower coastal plains, students across the state will have the opportunity to satisfy their required hunter safety education requirement while simultaneously earning classroom credit. The course will provide students with information needed to understand the purpose of hunting, general hunting practices, conservation ethics shared by all sportsmen and women, all while gaining a more complete understanding and appreciation for all wildlife in Georgia.. Students will also learn that they are next in line as the primary funders of wildlife conservation through the purchase of sporting licenses.
The Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF) greatly appreciates the work of Caucus Co-Chairs Representatives Chas Cannon and Matt Dubnik in both the 2025 and 2026 legislative sessions to see this priority through the legislative process. CSF looks forward to working with Governor Kemp to sign SB 148 into law in the coming months.
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