I know, ethics discussions are hard.  They make us question stuff that we may take for granted, and sometimes challenge our convictions and preconceived notions with alternate perspectives. 

But nevertheless, here are a couple of other places where these discussions are going on.

First, there’s the Hunt Fair Chase website.  It’s an interesting site with some discussion of ethics and fair chase.  I didn’t find any new answers there, but maybe that’s because most of what is said there has been addressed before.  Still, it’s a pretty good resource for folks interested in some information and perspectives.

Next up is a blog I found while cruising around at Base Camp Legends.  This website, Heritage Hunter, has created a section called Ethics Check, where scenarios are introduced and discussed as to ethics and the choices that hunters should make.  So far the blogger, Bob Peck, has tried to keep the scenarios based on true situations.  While I’m not opposed to hypothetical discussions, I think that using reality can make the commenters take some time and consider beyond the ideal, and temper their answers with the understanding that we don’t live in a perfect world… and often the right thing and the easiest thing are not the same.

By the way, I also like that he prefaces the first edition with one of my favorite quotes from Aldo Leopold that I’ll repeat here:

 “A peculiar virtue in wildlife ethics is that the hunter ordinarily has no gallery to applaud or disapprove of his conduct. Whatever his acts, they are dictated by his own conscience, rather than by a mob of onlookers. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this fact.”

Anybody that reads and understands Leopold’s work gets an extra notice from me… even if the only thing they ever read is A Sand County Almanac.  If you’re a hunter and you haven’t read it, you’d be doing yourself a favor to reconcile that deficiency. 

Another site I want to highlight right now is the Orion Hunters’ Institute.  Now, honestly, I’m not sure I see completely eye-to-eye with the site founder, Jim Posewitz on everything he has to say about hunting ethics and fair chase.  Not that I don’t think he’s doing a good thing with his site, his book Beyond Fair Chase (full disclosure… a book which I have not read in its entirety), and his lectures, but I think he does tend to promote that idealistic approach I was talking about in the recent Fair Chase discussion.  They’re great ideas and an excellent model against which to weigh your personal ethics, but I just don’t know how practicable they are across the spectrum of hunters. 

The site is really good though, and he offers excerpts from his book that are definitely worth the time to read.  (I keep meaning to get a copy myself, and read the whole thing… but best intentions and all that…  just haven’t got around to it.) 

Finally, there’s James Swan’s homesite.  Dr. Swan has been around a while, and while his writing has covered a pretty wide gamut, his discussion of hunting ethics is what caught my attention.  I picked up a copy of his In Defense of Hunting a few years ago, and it’s some pretty well-written and thought provoking stuff.  He invokes many of the better known voices in the hunting discussion, such as Ortega y Gassett and Aldo Leopold, but also addresses things like the anti-hunting movement from a modern perspective. 

Anyway, based on what I saw in our own discussions, and the one over at NorCal Cazadora, it seems that most of you are really interested in this topic.  Enjoy these sites, and if you wanna come back here and talk about any of them, feel free. 

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