NOV 17

2008

Food For Thought – My views on Fair Chase

Home > Food For Thought – My views on Fair Chase

Endangered species, caged in fright,
Shot in cold blood, no chance to fight.
The stage is set, now pay the price.
An ego boost, dont think twice.
Technology, the battles unfair,
You pull the hammer without a care.
Squeeze the trigger that makes you man,
Pseudo-safari, the hunt is canned…
The hunt is canned.

Thanks, Megadeth…

That’s the view I think a lot of folks, including PETA and the HSUS would like to push on the uneducated public, regarding both “canned hunting” and “fair chase”. This lyric runs through my mind whenever I enter a discussion like the Food For Thought post I put up a couple of weeks ago.

It paints an extreme picture, but I feel like a lot of hunters are dabbling in the opposite extreme… trying to paint sportsmen (and women) as flawless, ethical paragons. We’re not, and I guess that’s what I’m trying to get at when I raise a question like this. And as I’d hoped, it drew some great discussion.

So “Fair Chase”… what is it?

From Pope and Young:

The Rules of Fair Chase

The term “Fair Chase” shall not include the taking of animals under the following conditions:

Helpless in a trap, deep snow or water, or on ice.

From any power vehicle or power boat.

By “jacklighting” or shining at night.

By the use of any tranquilizers or poisons.

While inside escape-proof fenced enclosures.

By the use of any power vehicle or power boats for herding or driving animals, including use of aircraft to land alongside or to communicate with or direct a hunter on the ground.

By the use of electronic devices for attracting, locating or pursuing game or guiding the hunter to such game, or by the use of a bow or arrow to which any electronic device is attached.

Any other condition considered by the Board of Directors as unacceptable.

The fair chase concept does, however, extend beyond the hunt itself; it is an attitude and a way of life based in a deep-seated respect for wildlife, for the environment, and for other individuals who share the bounty of this vast continent’s natural resources.

Boone and Crockett is pretty similar:

FAIR CHASE, as defined by the Boone and Crockett Club, is the ethical, sportsmanlike, and lawful pursuit and taking of any free-ranging wild, native North American big game animal in a manner that does not give the hunter an improper advantage over such animals.

Now it’s important to keep in mind that both of these organizations define “Fair Chase” as a criteria to be included in their Big Game Records books. I can understand having a defined set of rules for a competition (getting in the record books), but how relevant are those rules to the average hunter?

I can pretty much get behind most of what Pope and Young have to say. Shooting an animal in a trap, stuck in snow or water, etc. is generally more akin to slaughter than hunting (and in many states these practices are illegal anyway). It’s like hitting a steer between the eyes with an air hammer while he’s confined in a chute, or slitting the throat of chickens as they’re swung by hooks into the processing plant.

But think about that for a second. To many hunters in the US, hunting for meat is really about nothing more than the harvest of the resource. We’re not trying to make the record books. A lot of us hunt to put some meat on our own tables, by our own hand. The wild resource is, essentially, nature’s farm, and we’re out there to take part in the harvest. In essence, is that really any different than the abattoir? It has nothing to do with “fair play” or “sportsmanship”… both of which are solely human conceits. Nature didn’t come up with those ideals, humans did.

Look at the last part of the Boone and Crockett definition of Fair Chase, and consider. Fair Chase is taking animals “…in a manner that does not give the hunter an improper advantage over such animals.”

The predator/prey relationship is inherently unfair. Otherwise, there would be no predators. They would have starved long ago. But predators are endowed with heightened senses, strength, speed, stealth, camouflage, and “weapons” that enable them to overcome the defenses of their prey. No rabbit is a match for a coyote or bobcat. No deer can defeat a lion.

That’s extremely so in the case of human predator vs wild animal. What’s “fair” about weapons that can kill beyond the range of an animal’s natural defenses (scent, vision, etc.)? For that matter, what’s fair about an ability to kill prey without ever actually putting our hands (claws) or teeth in it? No animal can outrun an arrow at 280 fps, much less a bullet travelling ten times that speed.

What’s fair about using hounds to sniff out and chase down big mammals, or for that matter, about using bird dogs to point or flush game birds to our waiting shotguns? Is hunting a river island, or an isolated woodlot really much different from hunting inside a high-fenced preserve?

There’s an old bit by the late Jerry Clower about a coon hunter he called, “John Eubanks”.

In Mr. Eubanks’s opinion, it wasn’t sporting just to tree a coon and shoot him out of the tree. “Give everything a sportin’ chance,” he said. “When you tree a coon, climb up in a tree and make that coon jump in amongst the dogs. Give him a sportin’ chance!”

Clower went on about how they’d sometimes climb a tree and make a coon jump in amongst 20 dogs, but at least he (the coon) had the option then of whuppin’ all 20 of them and walking off if he wanted to. It was strictly left up to the coon.

Point is, that’s how subjective the idea of ”fair chase” can be.

So what am I doing here? Am I attacking hunting? Have I joined up with the anti-hunters?

Of course not. But I am asking folks to keep a realistic perspective when the talk turns to ethics and “fair chase”. We are, none of us, paragons of sporting virtue. Let’s keep that in mind. Beyond the law, ethics is a personal decision and shouldn’t be dictated simply by someone else’s preferences.

Sure, I fully understand the reality that the future of sport hunting hinges on public relations as much as it does on ecology. I know that some practices, even legal ones, can damage the “image” of the sport and the hunters. My voice has been loud among many in calling for hunters to police ourselves, and to teach “the right ways” so that we will be beyond reproach under the eyes of the non-hunting public.

But at the same time, I get this feeling that as our sport comes under more and more pressure from an uneducated public, we’re tightening the noose around our own necks by defining the “right way” more and more narrowly.

Here’s what I’m seeing.

The non-hunting public, by and large, really could care less about hunting or hunters. If no one brought it up, it would never be an issue. Even so, they generally see hunters in black or white. We’re either the “noble savage” types, who go out with great reverence for the animals and the resources, or we’re the redneck bubbas who shoot everything we see with one hand while tipping up a Budweiser with the other.

Now of course the anti-hunters are quick to play on that second stereotype. That’s the image they want to reinforce, because it makes it easier to pass restrictive hunting laws. Everybody hates the “Bubba”.

The pro-hunting forces seem to be rocking the boat completely back in the other direction. We’re reinforcing that other stereotype, painting this picture of super-ethical individuals who never do anything questionable. We’re oh-so-quick to pass harsh judgement on anyone who doesn’t measure up to that standard of ethics, although; if someone were to take a moment and dig a bit, they’d find that the standard deviates pretty significantly from one of us to the next. What is perfection if it is not a constant?

And there is the weakness, so neatly exploited by the antis… we create this stereotype, but no hunter out there lives up to it. The guy who hunts over bait or feeders, the high-fence hunter, the houndsman, the long-range hunter… they don’t fit the picture we, ourselves, have painted. The antis hold this up and say, “see, even hunters disagree with this practice!”

We’re as guilty of drawing those dividing lines as the antis, because we’ve played right into the trap. We think we need to be perfect, and we fail.

We’re not perfect, because there’s no such thing as perfection. As I said earlier, ethics, beyond the law, is purely personal. It’s a choice, or a set of choices we each make based on our own values. Those values are shaped by who we are, where we hunt, who we hunt with, and myriad other factors… and, more importantly, those values evolve and grow as we do. They change.

Remember also that hunting practices shouldn’t necessarily be dictated by our own individual preferences or values. Part of our responsibility as sport hunters is to play a role in wildlife management. This includes some things many of us may not like to see, such as legalizing bait to increase the harvest, shooting females, or extended seasons. Houndsmen, a controversial topic in many circles, are a necessary part of southern deer hunting, because they can locate and kill more deer than the traditional hunters and purists. (Some of this plays into the second question in the Food For Thought post, but I’ll deal with that a little later.) None of these practices fit the traditional image of the hunter that most non-hunters (and many hunters) hold in their minds… yet they’re necessary to attain wildlife management goals.

How do we reconcile the disparity?

Education.

Educate non-hunters and educate hunters. Help them to understand why we appear to deviate from “accepted” ethical standards. Step away from the high-horse, and realize that while we should all strive to be as ethical as we can be, we also need to be realistic and take into account that different people hunt for different reasons. We have different values, and the management of the resource often requires different methods. Rather than saying, “I don’t think hunting over bait should be considered, ‘hunting’,” we should be saying, “In some cases, hunting over bait is required to increase the harvest to keep the herd at sustainable levels.”

Likewise, rather than complaining that crossbows are an “affront” to the traditional nature of archery seasons, we should point out that including these weapons in the season provides hunters with an opportunity to make cleaner kills and also lowers the learning curve, enabling more people to get involved in hunting so that we can continue to build the ranks of the hunting community. Nationwide, the field is not getting more crowded… it’s getting less so. Recruitment is as important to our future as wildlife management these days.

Rather than condemning hunting methods and practices simply because we don’t like them, the future of our sport is best served by helping non-hunters and one another to understand that the ends sometimes justifies the means. Then let’s look at a more realistic set of standards for sport hunters.

If a hunting practice does not threaten the natural resources, people, or property, then it deserves consideration as a valid practice.
- Wiping out entire flocks of rafting canvasbacks with a punt gun is bad
- Using feeders to get overpopulated deer out of the swamps and thickets is not
A primary consideration should always be to make every kill as quick and humane as possible.
- Attempting extremely long-range shots on game simply to prove one’s marksmanship is bad
- Using “enough gun” for the chosen game is not
Sporting traditions are fine, but not to the detriment of the natural resources. Wildlife management comes first, trophies and bragging rights should be secondary.
- Shooting only trophy boars from a herd of feral hogs is bad
- Shooting gilts and meat hogs is not

Finally, let’s return to Fair Chase.

The ideal of Fair Chase served a purpose once, and still provides a good, general framework for hunting ethics. But the very use of the word, “Fair”, is also the reason it’s a flawed ideal. It sets an unattainable standard, and if we claim to live to that standard, we’ll be forever subject to negative judgement when we don’t attain it.

Hunting is merely predation, which is not fair, and never was supposed to be.

Nature is not an opponent. You cannot wrestle nature to the ground and throttle it into submission, and there is no playing field to level. That’s an antiquated way of thinking that derives mostly from a society of men who set themselves above wild nature by the grace of their god, and who saw it as a force to be defeated for the progress of their society. Those days are, or should be, behind us now.

The idea of fairness, while it may make some people feel better about hunting, has no place in nature and should be relegated to the past along with the idea of nature as an enemy. Using it as a criteria for hunting and ethics draws a dangerously restrictive set of parameters around our sport, and puts us at odds with the reality of what we’re doing. It’s an attempt at illusion, but our real enemies can see right through it. When the curtain is thrown back, it is no longer an illusion… it is a lie. If we lose our credibility, we lose the fight, and the future of our sport.

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Othmar Vohringer

Posted November 17, 2008 at 2:11 PM

Not that I am a regular listener to Megadeath or anything, but I just happen to know that one of their band member is a hunter, or used to be. I wonder how that member of the band can let it happen for anti-hunting lyrics like that make it into a song or even been recorded and performed on stage.

This is a good article and in a time where it seems that each hunter segment has a different opinion on what fair chase and the so-called hunter ethics are a very timely decision to write it. Over the past few years I’ve grown tired of hearing, let alone discussing, these subjects because they have become been turned into a bandwagon of sorts of the “My way of hunting is better than yours” crowd.

-ov-
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T.Michael Riddle

Posted November 17, 2008 at 2:57 PM

Excellent!
Could not have said it better even if I had taken 6 months to bring to mind all to say!

I can only hope that “as Othmar pointed out” the “my way of hunting is better than yours” crowd will read and truly understand what you have said Phillip!

Can I print a copy out and quote you from time to time?
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NorCal Cazadora

Posted November 17, 2008 at 4:57 PM

Excellent post. As much as I like to argue with you and needle you, I don’t think I can find flaw with this. In fact, I like your thinking on the notion that predation itself isn’t fair.

There are all kinds of hunting I would not choose for myself, but I’ve decided I will not speak against them. The only purpose that would serve is to add another arrow to the HSUS’s quiver.
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Arthur

Posted November 17, 2008 at 5:36 PM

I do think that hunting is inherently unfair. I whole-heartedly agree with that Phillip.

I really do think you are on to something here. I kind of wanted to argue about it, but I can’t come up with anything. It just all makes sense.

And, as always, it gets all of us thinking.
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T.Michael Riddle

Posted November 18, 2008 at 7:17 AM

“The idea of fairness, while it may make some people feel better about hunting, has no place in nature and should be relegated to the past along with the idea of nature as an enemy”

That quote from you, Phillip, really got me to thinking in a direction that I never really had until now.
We, as pioneers, in a not too distant past, spent so much time killing off predators like the Grizzly and Cougar out of a necessity to protect livestock and partially out of fear.
“lots of them were killed out of simple fear of the animals” and nothing more, without truly understanding the symbiotic relationship which we had with them.

Now today, we find ourselves protecting the very same animals which we were killing out of fear just a short 50 to 80 years earlier!

Which gets back to a post of yours a little while back in which I responded, that “if you are not personally feeding out the wildlife that resides upon your property then someone else surly is”
Be it the Farmer next door with his planted crops or the little old lady up the hill who just hates to see the poor creatures go hungry in the winter time! or, the D.F.G. who takes hay up to the high altitude critters during the winter as well!

Because, if you do the math, the amount of animals taken “legally” through out the year as opposed to the amount of animals which can be “naturally sustained” in a given area,
Then, you will find that we are taking “more” animals than can naturally be produced upon that given area.

This, in itself alone, proves that we are all guilty of tipping the scales out of balance in order to harvest the amount of animals which we need.
Whether it be for sustenance or the simple sport of the hunt!

So, my point being, that “NO ONE” can point a finger at another and say that their way of hunting is more fair than someone else’s way of hunting.

It “all” has been out of balance for quite some time now and we “all” are using “unnatural” methods to correct our mistakes of the past.
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Josh

Posted November 18, 2008 at 8:21 AM

A very interesting, and thoughtful, entry, as always. I find it equally interesting that the related post to this is a reference to your Adam Henry award.

As I read your point about fairness, I thought of two things:

1) Last Sunday’s episode of the television show, “The Unit” ended a seasons-long story with this line: “Will what you are about to do make you a better warrior?” I immediately thought of this line in context of fairness and fair chase: Will what you are about to do make you a better hunter? This old-school ethical inferential teaching has been used to pass down the idea of moral restraint for untold generations, and it rings true because it calls to something within us all. This may belie my Christian tradition, but I do believe that there is something good about self-restraint, and that includes in hunting. I believe fair chase was created, not as a set of rules for trophies, but as a way to rein in bloodlust, gluttony and greed, three things that had laid waste to our resources, but that also tend to destroy the person succumbing to them.

2) Claiming to go beyond good and evil (to steal a line) regarding ethics will probably ring hollow to the public. It is also probably media suicide to say that hunting is inherently “unfair”. Ortega y Gasset’s view that the deer’s beauty has been shaped by the claws of the lion may be more appropriate, and expressing the true role of hunters in the natural world, I’ve found, has been a great way to win over even vegans. Besides, your list of ethical considerations is a good, solid list, and it is a list of ethics. Others here comment that it’s wrong to say a person’s type of hunting is unethical, yet you do by this list and in your Adam Henry award, and I believe that you are right.

One last note: If we cannot point out when folks behave badly (not just illegally), other folks will. If we cannot stand up to honest debate about what and how we teach our children, and feel that we must hide what we are doing and how we go about it, then something may be inherently wrong. Me? I’ll shout to the rafters that I hunt, and why, and how, and let everybody hear it and judge. And if my ways are shown to be wrong in the open conversation about them, I’ll change them. But, I know that hunting is a part of this world, and I know that I am a hunter, and the basic act remains good and right for this world. And “When the Buffalo are gone, we will hunt mice; for we are Hunters, and we want our freedom…” Chief Sitting Bull
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Phillip Loughlin

Posted November 18, 2008 at 10:58 AM

Thanks for the replies so far. I’d sort of hoped that someone would take more issue with it, but maybe I nailed something here. I’m just pretty sure that I didn’t nail it that well.

I’m spinning stuff out here, not without thought, of course, but in perfect awareness that my logic is not infallible. And I think that a big part of what I’m going for here is to find an honest and compelling argument in support of our sport… an approach that will make sense to non-hunters without insulting their intelligence or asking them to make huge leaps of faith. I want to see a bulletproof and consistent position that can’t be picked apart, either by logic and fact or by half-truths and innuendo… both approaches the antis have been able to use effectively against us.

Josh, I think you raise some of the points I’d sort of anticipated, and of course they’re absolutely valid.

To your first point, I’m not saying we should do away with the concept of sportsmanship (as opposed to “Fair Chase”) or conservation, much less self restraint. There is definitely a point at which we have to separate ourselves and our actions from those of wild nature. There’s a fine and convoluted line that we will forever have to tread, between wild nature and human nature.

Wild nature says, “do what you will, it is what you are.”

Wild nature is not concerned with the long run, because under the rules of wild nature, if we kill too much we will die off too and a balance will be restored. This sort of points to Michael’s postulation that we, humans, have so warped the balance that we will never be able to return to true, wild nature.

Human nature, on the other hand, requires us to justify and rationalize our every experience and action.

Human nature, among other things, gave us the conservation movement out of the base understanding that if we kill it all, there will be nothing left to kill. It’s based in an arrogant assurance that we’ll still carry on after the resource is gone, because we’ve so successfully (as a species) weathered the destruction of so much already. As we have learned, it may be a misguided arrogance, because every disruption in the ecological system has a trickle down effect that will hit us somewhere. A sustainable system of hunting rules and ethics, in many ways, is little more than an innate attempt at self-preservation… which is one of the few natural instincts our species has left.

Point being, to be a little less esoteric, due to our success and impact as a species and our willingness/need to control that impact, our hunting rules must be based on supportable practice… wildlife management… and to some lesser extent, socially acceptable behavior. This goes beyond our wild nature, and relies fully on human nature and understanding.

As to “media suicide” by admitting that hunting is not fair, I don’t think so. I think it’s an honest admission to something that any thinking individual already knows. There’s nothing fair about hunting, and especially not about modern, sport hunting. To say otherwise is an outright lie, and that is exactly what the anti-hunters have been saying all along. We dominate the field and the sky. We have universities full of scientists studying every aspect of wildlife, and passing that information back to us (hunters). We have technology to cover everything from concealment to the kill shot.

Sure, sometimes (often) the animal gets away. But the deck is heavily stacked in our favor.

With this in mind, I stand by my argument that to continue to embrace the charade of “fair chase” will only weaken our position as more and more holes are driven in the “fairness” of it all, our inconsistencies are exposed, and sooner or later, someone will realize that the hunters aren’t wearing any clothes.
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Josh

Posted November 18, 2008 at 11:38 AM

I’ll first preface this with: I agree with about 90% of what you have said, and I am very happy with your ethical list for arguing (and reflecting upon) hunting. I will be using it and sending people to your website to read it. Great stuff.

What just struck me is the notion that we have to have an unassailable position, and that “fair”, in that it cannot ever be applied as an absolute notion, therefore creates a weak argument. I really think there is a deeper notion here. Why do hunters, separate from everybody else, have to have an unassailable, perfectly applied set of ethics equally practiced by all its members? No other group has to show this to remain legitimate. MBA’s take business ethics courses, yet every year some break that code, yet we do not outlaw business. Doctors kill patients through malpractice, yet we do not outlaw medicine.

Hunting is, itself, an appropriate act, given certain constraints. We debate those constraints, but we understand that there are some lines that should not be crossed, and we understand that some folks cross them to the detriment of the whole.

As much as I disagree with Wittgenstein, I think he speaks to this conversation. My concern is with the definition of “fair.” We both deal with the traditional hunting definition of the word “fair” in fair chase, as defined by Pope & Young. In that argument, I still think P&Y make good points, I think they speak to a type of self-restraint that takes management into consideration, to a point (your’s does that much more), but they also speak to a self-restraint to discourage some of our baser impulses. This is for a group of hunters to which most of us belong: folks who do not absolutely need the food for family and self, but who hunt for traditions, for better food, for connections, etc. Hunting is so primeval, and so central to our physical existence, that it magnifies both our more noble and our more vile impulses. I think P&Y try to elevate the nobler aspects while driving down those that rely upon vices. Heck, P&Y won’t even let you take game with a gun!

But, our nuanced and specific definition of “fair” is not shared with the broader public. To them, “fair” involves equal rules to a game, and includes a level of anthropomorphism inappropriate to hunting (or to eating, for that matter). To get our point across, we would have to redefine for the masses a common word. As a former economics teacher trying to explain “demand” and “money”, I can tell you that is a hard row to hoe.

There is an even bigger ethical argument at play here, which is the ethical no-no of telling somebody what to do in a libertarian society. We are often self-constrained to only tell people what they cannot do (like, “you can’t tell somebody that they are behaving unethically”). These are equally ethical statements and constraints, but they aren’t always appropriate.
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Phillip Loughlin

Posted November 18, 2008 at 1:29 PM

Right on, Josh.

Except that please keep in mind, first of all, that the Pope and Young “Fair Chase Rules” are specifically rules for inclusion in the Pope and Young record books. They are NOT rules by which an individual must hunt (although most of them are reflected in state game laws). They certainly do speak to self-restraint, and as I said early on, I can get behind them in their essence and their practice… but their primary purpose is to qualify or disqualify an individual in competition for a position in the record book. That’s all, even if they do make a lovely statement of the values on which the organization is based.

When we talk about ethics, I guess we have to differentiate between a general set of ethics… which is a shared value system and from which we get game laws and regulations… and personal ethics. It is generally agreed that it is unethical to shoot big game with a tiny rimfire, so that has become law. That’s a shared ethic, a social more. There are people who disagree, and some who break that law, but in this case, the ideal is proven in practice. Underpowered ammunition does not consistently provide a clean kill.

Likewise, it’s a general ethical principle that we should limit the number of animals we take. Practice has shown that, if we don’t, the population will decline. Again, there’s a quantifiable argument so this has become law.

But then there’s the personal ethic, the individual set of values that comes into play… the traditional archer who eschews the use of crossbows because they degrade the experience, or the western hunter who feels that sitting in ambush from a treestand, “isn’t hunting.” There’s no way to quantify this, and what one person disdains may delight someone else.

That’s where I separate “my” list from some of the others. You can’t apply a personal, or even regional set of ethics across the broad spectrum, unless you can demonstrate that there is some quantifiable rationale.

Where this becomes most critical (and this is a topic I’m still ruminating) is when we start to use sport hunting as a wildlife management tool. Herd management under the Fair Chase doctrine would be an abject failure. Sport hunters would never kill enough of the right animals to make the necessary impact. But more on this line of thinking later…

As to why we need “an uassailable position” it’s because, while no one is out there trying to shut down the medical or business professions, there is a small army of well-organized and well-funded organizations out there whose very existence is aimed at the extinction of the sport of hunting. They are very skilled at picking apart our arguments, and they will quickly expose inconsistencies and logical fallacies. Without credibility, we have nothing.

I believe, as you do, that hunting is absolutely appropriate. I believe that opposition to hunting is almost always based on emotion (personal ethics) and cannot bear up to scrutiny and facts. But I also feel that a large part of the pro-hunting argument depends too heavily on emotion as well, and cannot be substantiated in a debate (e.g. the idea of Fair Chase).

I say, get rid of the weak links and make our case on facts. The science is behind us. The economics is behind us. There’s no reason we should be relying on esoteric notions of fairness, especially when those notions are so easily dismissed.
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Josh

Posted November 18, 2008 at 2:14 PM

I don’t so readily see a distinction between personal ethics and social ethics, nor do I necessarily equate personal ethics with emotion. Social mores are only the mass of individual personal ethical actions, they are not disembodied statutes. Ethics should include “quantifiable” rationale, but at the same time we shouldn’t exclude emotion and the long-lasting qualitative experiences, either. For example, “herd management” carries a huge number of assumptions. What are your management goals: hunting? An ecological niche? Maintaining food webs among native species? The aesthetic value of seeing a herd roadside or knowing that they are out there, somewhere? These assumptions are held up by, among other things, emotions and desires for how the animals appeal to the individual. These decisions, in turn, have very real ecological and economic consequences.

Also, people don’t hunt merely to manage herds. We hunt for many reasons, and some of these are qualitative, some quantitative; some have merit, and some don’t. It is in the conversation and debate that we work these things out, and they aren’t static, they are growing and changing all the time.

I got on a little soapbox over the “unassailable” thing, and I’ll climb down off that, now. You are right, and good on ye. I’ll strive to perfect my arguments for the public, and be happy to do so.

I do think that we as a community need a set of internal ethics, however, regardless of the law, but meant to inform and educate, to help us become better hunters, and to, hopefully, affect laws in the future. It makes us masters of our futures, rather than waiting around for the Law to come down to us. I also think that compassion and other qualitative components should not be completely thrown out and the ultimate goal mere game management. I’m not a game manager (though I’d love to be one); I am a hunter.
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Bryan Nelson

Posted November 18, 2008 at 2:34 PM

Having been born and raised in the mountains of NC, I was brought up to hunt for food first, as my father said,”He has never been able to cook antlers long enough to make them tender enough to eat.”But when I live in WNC, there was very few of game animals around, a few deer, hog or two and on the Tenn. line, you might find a bear. And that was of course fair chase,fair chase in empty woods, but there during that time no one had heard of Game Management. It was bucks only!!

The world as a whole has changed. We used to rely on deer meat in the winter, and fish in the summer for food. But now we do not have to hunt just to survive, and that is where the do gooders are finding their toe hold. I now live in the UK, and the Do Gooders are just as strong as ever, and you are correct we as humans are not perfect, but we live in counties that gives us the choice. The Do Gooders also forget that South Africa was a waste land of farms not so many years ago, and there was no game about, the country was is a very bad state, as the only money was from farming, and tourist spend more money than a farm of oranges might. Then the penny dropped, we can have tourists coming over to look/hunting our game, what game, only the big reserves had game and if any animals ventured over the line the locals killed them because they where afraid of them. But the places that needed the $$ had no game, so then that is when these huge farms, thousands upon thousands of acres formed “Hunting Reserves” fenced in, by putting a “value” on animals, it saved a large part of Africa. This is management, and it has brought back a large portion of animals back to sustainable levels, locals have jobs, money coming into the area, poaching levels dropped, animal levels increased. Not perfect, but done a pretty good job.

Here in the UK, we have a species of deer in hunting season all year long. We have estates that have professional deer hunters, that take out clients to deer hunt(for a fee), which in turn keeps the population in check, and the client has an incredible hunt. Again this is management, and management is more than if the animal is in a huge fenced in area, or stoned walled estate, or roaming the top of the hills of Scotland. Its about the balance!

Right or Wrong the government in the UK, gives guide lines to help run the hunting, they don’t have resident and non resident license, or tags to buy. They leave this up to the professional, to manage the deer herds and charge accordingly. We have estates that are charging £375 for Red deer Stag in Scotland, and £175 a day for cull stalking of Fallow and Muntjac, as the PH tell me its about number of deer vs. amount of food. Balance = Management. The only time the government has stepped in is Fox hunting, and that is a totally different subject.
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Phillip Loughlin

Posted November 18, 2008 at 3:35 PM

Ahh… so in a nutshell, we all hunt for different reasons, and we all take away different rewards/values from the experience. Do I read you right?

Ethics should include “quantifiable” rationale, but at the same time we shouldn’t exclude emotion and the long-lasting qualitative experiences, either.

True, but also exactly my point.

Who defines YOUR long-lasting qualitative experiences, Josh? Who determines if your reasons and methods for hunting have merit?

What about the guy who goes out and enjoys a hunt on a high-fence ranch? Should he feel any less enjoyment of his experience because Pope and Young don’t consider his hunting to be “fair chase?”

What about the folks down in Texas who essentially farm whitetails like livestock, then take the trophies under automated feeders? Are you going to define their experience for them based on your ethical standard?

If we use personal values or ethics to define hunting for everyone, we begin to exclude other hunters who do not share those values. We divide the community over nothing more than ideas and ideals. To what purpose?

These decisions, in turn, have very real ecological and economic consequences.

Show me the real consequences, and I’ll support making rules out of an ethical position. Otherwise, to each his own.
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Josh

Posted November 18, 2008 at 4:34 PM

But, the same can be said of your other examples, too. Sub-caliber hunting: So what if it wounds game? A hunter who doesn’t have the same qualms about wounded game shouldn’t therefore be required to put up $400 for a decent caliber, when he can pick up a used semi-auto .22 for fifty bucks, and pop as many deer as he wants. The ones that fall, those are his.

Wounding game is ethically bad, it is emotionally bad, but it is not bad for nature.

Qualitative decisions do have very real ecological and economic consequences. Your Texas deer grower, for example, does so because there is a market for that experience, and his actions influence the local whitetail gene pool with an eye toward a “trophy”, to increase his revenue/deer. He could have gone into alfalfa growing, or accounting, or some other job. A person hunting a high fence in Texas chose to do that instead of going to Disneyland and spending money there. Both decisions are largely qualitative, but they determine, and are determined by, economic and ecological forces. Visitors to Yosemite want to see “wildlife” up close, and the surrounding communities reap economic rewards, while the herd stays stagnant in the Valley to whatever genetic consequence. These are examples of real results based in large part on qualitative decisions.

Your great list, based on the concept of game management, is an ethical list, separating good behaviour from bad behaviour. Consider that both of my examples in the previous paragraph are herd management examples. So, what is the goal of herd management? I posit that it is largely qualitative. We have some notion of the need to keep parts of habitat, but we have little scientific backing to prove that there is an ecological reason to do so. This planet has had many huge extinctions, and yet it is still a planet that supports life. Many of the same people who argue for herd management argue against introduction of predators, and don’t care a whit for some tiny subalpine herb. Their actions may have a correlative effect in the spread of CWD. So? Why is CWD bad? It’s natural response to stagnant and stationary populations of game that would otherwise be on the move – how is that bad? It is only bad when you consider it from a hunter’s perspective in maintaining a viable herd to hunt, or from the perspective that these animals are suffering more than they otherwise would. But, those are both qualitative reasons.

All of these things have huge qualitative components. Poke any of them, and out pour emotions and even ethics. All management necessarily has goals, driven by our natures, which include emotions and desires. This isn’t bad.

I mentioned in a previous comment that my hunting decisions are open and for all to see and judge and talk about, and if they are found to be wrong, then I should change them. For example, if we determine that pintail populations are still diminishing, and people tell me that we shouldn’t be shooting them, then I may stop, even before a law comes down. I am a person, and I can weigh evidence and wisdom and decide. The law should be the last resort, and in a democratic republic, should come after consultation and consideration. All I am saying is that we should also do this outside the context of the law, taking into account different ideas, making our decisions as rulers of our own fate, and not subject to the whims of others without hearing us or we hearing them… but really hearing them, and speaking about it.

By inferring that it is ethically okay to only tell somebody what they shouldn’t do (i.e., telling me that I shouldn’t say something), we disallow the specific ethical conversations, we move actions into the dark, we stop listening or chiming in with our valuable experiences and input, and then our way of life atrophies. I say, keep these ideas out in the open, speak of what you think is good and bad, and listen to others, and watch the world’s response, and then make your behaviour such that it has a better impact. Ethics is not right only when it is tied to “science”, and it is not one absolute law. There are specifics, and cases, and exemptions, and thank God that we aren’t computers, so we can make room for the gray areas.

Also, Phillip, I don’t mean any disrespect by any of my comments. I hold you in very high regard, and would feel awful if I offended you in any way.
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Jesse

Posted November 19, 2008 at 3:08 AM

One ole boy on the Bowsite put it best concerning the put and take pen hunts.

“Just make sure you close the gate when you leave.”

That’s how many of us hunters see it. That’s how the majority of non hunters see it.

I’m not really sure how objective some can be here since it’s their ox being gored.

You wanna call it a shoot, practice whatever, that’s fine. Calling shooting fenced in animals a hunt just don’t set well.

It seems off that no one touches on the disease part. MO has banned any importation of elk and deer because of the spread of CWD around game farms. Folks are still sneaking animals into states for these farms and ranches. The famous muley hunter Kirk Darner was just convicted in NM for moving elk illegaly. Cases are pending in MO for the same thing.
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Phillip Loughlin

Posted November 19, 2008 at 5:45 AM

Josh, first of all, I don’t see your comments as disrespectful at all, and I appreciate and enjoy the discussion. That said, I do think we may have drifted away from the dock a bit.

The original premise was that we appear to have gotten so wrapped up in claiming to be uber-ethical hunters, that we’re beginning to strangle ourselves and our sport by setting a standard that is unrealistic and unattainable. “Fair Chase” is the key example I’ve chosen, because the very act of calling hunting “fair” is misleading and, in my opinion, creates a weak spot in the argument (or justification) of hunting.

I’ve never suggested that ethics, either personal or general have no place in hunting… they absolutely do. But I am suggesting that we have an ethical code already in place…and that is the laws and regulations. Beyond that, it’s really a matter of personal choice and values.

There are ongoing/evolving ethical discussions that may continue to change the landscape. Jesse brings up a good one with his mention of CWD and high-fence preserves. While most of the experts now agree that CWD probably already existed in wild herds for decades and did not originate in captive stock, they also agree that practices that concentrate animals in a small area appear to accelerate the spread. As a result, many states are now re-examining their baiting laws and wildlife feeding programs.

So yes, we should continue to discuss these things and continue to change when it’s warranted. But I am suggesting that we keep those changes to ethical issues that have a measurable impact. You can’t measure “fair”, especially not when you’re applying it to wild nature. It’s not fair, it never was, and it never can be.
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T.Michael Riddle

Posted November 19, 2008 at 6:02 AM

As I have stated before Jesse,
The state of California (and others) have very strict regulations for the movement of animals period.
Even Cattle! (which by the way, will turn “completely wild” after about 90 days without human contact in the remote areas of a small ranch)

*They must be Veterinarian certified and blood tested before introduction into the state and even before in-state transport into an enclosed area.

Every sport, job, endeavor etc. etc. has a few bad apples who do not play by the rules and we do not blame any of those recognized organizations for mishaps within the professions.
Also, if you stop and think about it, I, and others who do things according to the law, personally would not risk the health of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of animals by letting a possibly diseased animal into said enclosed areas.

That said, I will revisit one of my earlier statements concerning enclosed areas.
It is all a matter of personal preference and I personally have interviewed individuals whom were adamantly opposed to High Fence Hunting, even in South Africa where the enclosures are thousands of square miles large.
These very same people who would not set foot inside such a place had “No Problems” with going to Alaska and hunting a small 200 acre island, even though those animals had no way of escaping their pursuer’s except to “swim” for it out and into the ocean.

Apparently, quite a lot of people feel that High Fence Hunting is O.K. because entrepreneur’s like “Larry Grieve” at “Hogs Wild” have made a very good living at it for a couple of decades now. And the amount of land which he has fenced is relatively small in comparison to others, about 150 acres I am told.

I am speaking from experience when I tell you that there is a good reason why California residents go out of State to Deer hunt every year, There ain’t none here to hunt on public lands anymore!
And the very few deer that are, still here, are virtually inaccessible due to State and Federal land closures.

Like it or not!
High Fenced Hunting, is the “only” legal method of harvesting wild game in South Africa and, due to Poaching, Over Harvesting and poor to non-existent game management here in the U.S.A. it is going to be the future of hunting here as well.

In just a few short years from now, you will see major changes in the Public Land Hunting arena throughout the other 49 States also because, California, is known to be the “precedent” setting State for all of our new laws.
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T.Michael Riddle

Posted November 23, 2008 at 7:54 PM

Man, What an eye opener from on his above post!
This is the first time I have actually heard these things straight from the “horses mouth” and not just from statistics or from hunters who have visited over in the U.K. and South Africa.

Kinda puts things in perspective when you think that we are not too far removed from this scenario of which he speaks.
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T.Michael Riddle

Posted November 23, 2008 at 7:56 PM

speaking of Bryans post
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Phillip Loughlin

Posted November 24, 2008 at 8:45 AM

Thanks, Michael, for redirecting me to Bryan’s post. My apologies to Bryan for failing to thank him for his insight, and offering a “Welcome to the Hog Blog”.

So, yeah, Bryan’s post is a real good picture for folks to look at from an international point of view.

Americans have long been pretty insulated from what’s going on in the rest of the world as far as hunting and wildlife resources, and we’re pretty spoiled because of the wealth of natural resources and the efforts of conservationists to try to keep them plentiful. But the long term picture… well, I can’t say we’re all that far from seeing the same trends here in the U.S.

It’s not a lost cause, but if folks don’t come together and recognize some basic facts, both about wildlife management and public relations, then it is just a matter of time before all hunting in this country is privately owned and managed. One need only look at Texas for a glimpse of the potential future.

I’ll add this as well… and we’re moving way off of the original point of the discussion, but it’s no less valid…

While the hardcore Second Amendment fundamentalists consider us (Hunters) “Fudds”, I can say with certainty that if sport hunting continues to falter and our numbers decline, an extremely large voice in the gun rights battle will be silenced. An awful lot of people own guns because they hunt, and they’re vocal about gun rights because “gun control” proposals threaten their ability to do so.

Less hunters means less gun owners, and while I certainly understand that the Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting, the reality is that gun rights advocacy will drop sharply if hunting gun ownership drops. I believe this a large part of the reason gun control efforts in places like the UK have been successful… the average person there never has been and never will go hunting. They’re much less likely to defend a right (or privilege) they don’t feel like they need… and let’s face it, while folks can generally get behind someone else owning a gun if that person is using it for something “practical” like hunting, they’re less likely to support it for reasons they consider esoteric (the enjoyment of shooting)or even paranoid (self-defense or defense against a tyrannical government).

It’s all connected, in one way or another.

Food For Thought – My views on Fair Chase

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