Ethics Blog Roundtable Continues

I must get that roundup blog started! But today’s the first day of school. I’m gonna be in a whirlwind for a while now…

Living in an urban area, I have this conversation often. When I was younger, I hunted on land that was my great-great grandfather’s homestead, and for me deer hunting was rooted in land, family, sharing food, and a sense of commonsense ethics and safety that was rigorously enforced. Now having wandered the world a bit I have come back to hunting as an adult.

For me “sport” has never adequately defined hunting, and the effort to make it so is largely to sell equipment. I suppose you could compare it to something like surfing, where the real knowledge of it is learning the tide and dynamics of the water, knowing when and where to be when the wave breaks. It is more of an endeavor and a life skill, like gardening, which by the way people still do in spite of (indeed often because of) the efficiency of modern agriculture. Ideally, hunting is something that you learn to do for yourself and there most certainly is hierarchy to the pursuit of it. Learning to read the behavior of animals, the wind, and the terrain to get close enough to an animal are the skills one might call hunting. A guide might be a fine thing to help learn these skills, or as a hedge for success when you literally have to win the lottery to get a tag for an elk or some deer zones. A managed ranch might be a good way to get someones feet wet and have a measure of success. But hunting is about the knowledge and skill you gain from that experience. When you talk about that spot where you are sure of success you had to learn where to go, how to approach it, and put in the work to get there. Being driven to a blind to shoot a pig that has literally been trained to come to a feeder relates to hunting like riding a wave machine in a water park does surfing. There’s nothing really wrong with it in that animals are killed for food every day, but it’s on the steep side of the slippery slope to maintaining the heritage of hunting. In that direction I worry about the day when “hunting” becomes just another activity orchestrated by professionals in a controlled environment for those willing to pay.

Fair chase is misunderstood to be apply to the hunted. A deer doesn’t care whether it is killed with a bow or a rifle at 1,000 yards. Dead is dead. Fair chase applies to the hunter. The enjoyment of the sport of hunting is in the hunt. It is the reason we do it. The kill validates that you are hunting, but has very little to do with the enjoyment of the hunt. The icing on the cake as they say. Otherwise we would volunteer down at the slaughter house – as you can image that is work, not fun or enjoyable.
Fair chase is important because it makes the hunt more of a challenge thus more enjoyable. It can also make the hunt last longer, stretch your endurance and skills, etc.
I have no problem with laws and hunting codes that set the bottom line of acceptable hunter behavior. Nor do I have a problem with touting examples of ways to hunt that are a stretch to reach and still stand a chance to validate the hunt with a kill. But I agree these stretch methods should not be codified or forced on people that are not ready for them and may never be ready for them.
Ethics are different than hunter preferences. Unfortunately we mix them up quite ofen.

Thanks Phillip, Eric and all of you for the interesting dialog on this. It does seem ethics gets mixed up with preferences. I do think ethics matter in every part of hunting, whether in the manner of the kill or overall respect and understanding of the land and ecosystem. But this has nothing to do with what tool is used. That’s simply aesthetic.

Yesterday I had someone, noticing me giving someone some venison, ask me if it wouldn’t be more “fair” to use a “bow or something”. They got it, though, when I explained to them that I don’t use a scoped rifle for me, but for the animal; it gives the best chance of a clean kill. (Rifle too easy? Heck, I’m new to pig hunting, and it took me four days to even SEE a pig for the first time.) The fact is a good shot with a rifle, a bow, a pistol, a crossbow, whatever, has the same goal. Eric’s right, dead is dead. I admire people whose hunting skills are accomplished enough for the all-or-nothing skill of a single shot or muzzleloader, or to get close enough to use a bow. However, I don’t think ethics is imbued in using one of these tools, or tying an arm behind your back, or hunting blindfolded. A high-powered rifle is only “unethical” if you think having a .300 super-duper short magnum means you take a shot at 500 yards when you’re not the one-guy-in-a-hundred that can. A semi-automatic is “unethical” if it means you take random, sloppy shots because you can spray the hillside. A bow can be too if you take an ill-considered shot. How is more important than with what.

The only other real aspect of ethics is as it relates to the overall sustainability of what we’re doing in regards to population and habitat. Of course, from a land ethic (ecological) standpoint, pigs are different than most other game animals, and there’s no issue of how many pigs are killed.

But another consideration is the future of our sport. Meat, good meat, is in vogue these days. More people are paying attention to where food comes from, and how it’s raised. They’re buying shares of animals from local farms and taking butchering classes. This path eventually runs straight into hunting, the pinnacle of responsibility. What the view of hunting is like when they get there is up to us. Most of these people probably won’t consistently show up at your duck blind, but they do vote. Momentum is on our side. Tens years ago mention of hunting in my town brought shudders, now more often there’s admiration and interest. We’re at a crossroads of opportunity to secure our heritage, and it’s up to us what road we take. If we don’t define hunting for ourselves, others will do so for us.

Thanks Phillip, for bringing this up, and for helping me learn the ropes of pig hunting.