Trigger Warning: This story talks about, firearms, hunting, firearms laws, mental health and suicide

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New charitable trust Mental Hunts, is promoting better mental health and well-being among hunters - and their work is gaining traction.

Wānaka’s Glen Thurston, together with hunting guide Sam Manson has launched a website, YouTube channel with episodes, while advocating with stakeholder groups including Te Tari Pūreke Firearm Safety Authority New Zealand, New Zealand Deerstalkers Association

(NZDA), the NZ Police, local hunting groups and health organisations. 

Glen returns as a podcast guest today, and talks with host Brent about how he got involved in helping hunters with their mental health. LINK: add link to podcast please 

Back in October 2019, Glen was struggling with mental health challenges of his own. He tried to get help and had his firearms removed, which as he was farming at the time he said “made life really difficult”. 

This experience uncovered a significant issue within the firearms community: the fear of seeking mental health support due to the potential threat of losing one's licence.

“You think if someone's got a firearms license and they're not well, we all know the suicide rate and mental health [challenges in] the farming industry [are] pretty high,’’ Glen said.

“If they have that fear of losing their firearms, they're not gonna get help.

“If you have every single farmer not getting help, just because they don't [want] to lose their firearms, because they need their firearms to do their job. 

“Long-term, I see this being a massive crisis for the country. We're doing all this good stuff about breaking the stigma and men's mental health . . . but in the background, there's this hidden barrier and no one's talking about it, no one's doing anything about it.”

“I thought it was time to step up . . . I'm doing this for everyone else and it needs to change. Otherwise, people will die and it won't be the guns doing it. It'll be the fact that they haven't had the help they needed early.”

Glen said he was creating resources specifically to help hunters, and he recognised hunting was almost meditative and good for people's wellbeing.

“If you do have a successful hunt, the feeling of that is just incredible. The fact that you're about to go and harvest an animal, take it home and have your kids help you cut that animal up, put it on the table and cook it on the barbie.

"It's just a nice feeling, especially in a time like we're in now where the cost of groceries is killing people. It's literally, it's, it's out of control. So to be able to put one deer on the table, you're saving yourself [almost] a thousand bucks worth of meat for months and months.

“[There] is nothing you can compare it to, it is mountain medicine. It is meditation in the hills. It's what I do for meditation. I've said it before, but I love the concept of meditation and sitting in my room and meditating, but I'm just really crap at it. My mind wanders, but you get out hunting and you are, you're in that moment.”

Listen to Glen’s perspective on the stigma around mental health, the importance of getting help early, rural life and how disclosing counselling or medication for mental health can mean licence holders can keep their guns on today's episode of The Outlet.

Find helplines and mental health information on The Central App’s  Health section.

Hear more: Glen was interviewed about his ‘Turn the Corner’ mental health campaign. Breaking barriers and building communities, June 2023

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