Like every hunter worthy of the name, I want to help protect our hunting heritage, so my grandchildren's grandchildren can experience the same love, awe and respect for wild animals and their habitats I've been privileged to know.

Obviously, a variety of factors will affect the future of hunting, but the two bedrock requirements are the health of animal populations and the health of the lands and vegetation on which they depend. Without those two, nothing else we do will make a difference, and of the two, the land is most important.

If our lands are healthy and productive, wild animals will proliferate. If the land is made uninhabitable by excessive development or natural resource exploitation, wild animals will be lost, no matter how pure our intentions.

So in order to help protect the land and the wild animals I love, I've decided to run for a position on the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association (NRA).

How, you might ask, will being an NRA director help me preserve our hunting heritage?

Simple. If I have a voice at the table perhaps I can help put a stop to the incredible damage the NRA is doing to long term prospects for hunting in this country.

Ever since the NRA succeeded in convincing hunters the organization protected their interests, it has taken hunter money and funneled it into the coffers of politicians they could count on as dependable gun rights voters.

The problem, of course, is that many of the strongest gun rights advocates care nothing about the health of public lands or wild animals. The NRA's ability to take money from hunters and use it in ways that will ultimately ruin hunting constitutes one of the most successful and dishonest public relations scams ever perpetrated on the American people.

Consider the monetary support the NRA provided to disgraced former Representative Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) prior to his co-sponsorship of a bill permitting sale of millions of acres of public land to mining companies.

Consider also NRA support for politicians like Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) who has made a career of opening public lands for private exploitation. Craig remains a member of the NRA Board of Directors.

And don't forget the NRA's aggressive and very public support of the Bush Administration's effort to remove Federal protection for 58.5 million acres of Inventoried Roadless Areas, in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence that roads and traffic diminish wildlife populations and hunting opportunities.

These examples, and others too numerous to mention, prove the NRA will sacrifice anything in its quest for pro-2nd Amendment votes, including our hunting heritage.

I am a Life Member of the NRA. I fully support its efforts to protect our right to bear arms and I want the organization to be aggressive in its work. But the NRA in its present form is incapable of working simultaneously on behalf of hunters and as a gun rights advocate. Pretending otherwise is a blatant, if well camouflaged, lie.

In my opinion, the Board of Directors should:

• "Demand the organization divest itself of all segments of the mammoth bureaucracy ostensibly devoted to the welfare of hunters and hunting. Create a new, entirely separate hunting-based organization that succeeds or fails on its own. We've had enough institutionalized deceit.

• "Require honesty in NRA editorials and messages. Their misleading and inflammatory writings have helped create paranoia among gun owners even as they kept the coffers filled. Their shameless fear-mongering has pushed hundreds of thousands of reasonable people away from the NRA and outside the conversation that must be held regarding the future of gun ownership. We need those thoughtful people back in.

• "Help put a stop to the endless search for enemies the NRA conducts in its non-stop fundraising efforts. Not everyone who disagrees with the NRA is the devil incarnate. Some just have a different idea.

• "Require the NRA to search out and work with politicians who care about the environment, wildlife and wild lands in addition to their support of our 2nd Amendment rights. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Am I actually electable? It is a fair question.

I have been excoriated in several NRA publications because I have publicly disagreed with their methods and political relationships.

But many other members are as concerned with the present NRA direction as I am; if my name and platform are placed before them I have a reasonable chance.

And even if I am not elected this time, the discussion surrounding issues I'm raising will force an honest self-examination of the organization's way of doing business.

It will make the NRA leadership answer the question: "Is the future of hunting an acceptable sacrifice on the altar of the 2nd Amendment?"

Pat Wray can be reached at patwray@comcast.net.