I'm told that hunters drive quite a bit of conservation efforts for other animals as well.
Hunters are generally exquisitely knowlegeable about the local flora and fauna. That sort of knowledge rarely accumulates without an element of respect. Some of the most effective conservation efforts in the world arose from environmentalists and hunters allying against developers and ranchers. (And by extension, some of the biggest conservation losses from the latter driving a wedge between the former.)
Not to mention, hunting is actually very difficult (contrary to a lot of belief). You end up spending a phenomenal amount of time learning about animals, their habitat, and behavior. There ends up being deep admiration.
Not all hunters of course, some are dipshits. But such is true for any group of people.
This always bothered me. The attitude that you just walk up to some defenseless deer and shoot it and that's some unskilled cruel thing.
In reality it's hours or days in a row in a short amount of time a season is open sitting in miserable weather where hopefully the research you've done or the attempts to attract them might outweigh the fact that they can smell you from a mile away and are skittish at every sound in the world. Oh, and the practice and training you've had to do with whatever method you're using to hunt with.
Then there's the expense. Licenses, weapons, gear, time off work, you name it. I quit doing it simply because I don't have the time to invest in it as an adult.
Only in some parts of country... further west you're frequently hiking miles and miles (in miserable weather) instead.
You've got hunters whose goal is the challenge and experience.
And then you've got the assholes only interested in "How much do I have to spend to guarantee I kill a ____?"
The latter leads to baiting, driving, scouting, and all the other activities that turn "hunting" into a single trigger pull.
Unsurprisingly, those people tend to have a lot less respect for land, environment, and animal populations. No effort, no respect.
I spend a ton of time in the woods reading sign and just generally being aware & learning. Ton of hours and boot leather burned, I don’t think that works for the “pay to win” crowd
A personal note on that - I've done those things for years, seen big bucks on trail cams, bought bags of feed corn, watched them eating them on the trail cam, then gone to that spot and never seen deer in hunting season. :)