In Part III of my introspective exercise, I want to take a closer look at the second tenet of my “ethical statement”.
- We owe wildlife a healthy ecosystem.
- This means, among other things, that we take steps to minimize our negative impacts on habitat. It might take restrictions on motorized access to sensitive areas, or it could include the elimination of unnatural food sources that concentrate wildlife activity in small areas or disrupt migration patterns.
- It certainly means we don’t participate in the spread of non-native or invasive species, such as wild hogs or game fish.
- It means we balance our desires against the better health of the resource. Manage how much we take to preserve or control populations. Manage the way we take to protect non-targeted individuals. Manage when we take to protect or preserve natural behaviors such as breeding and migration. Some of this is legislated, and some of it is not. We should not need a law to tell us what is right.
One of the resounding claims of hunters is that we are conservationists. Whenever possible, we point back at Teddy Roosevelt, the original migratory bird hunting laws, or the activities of groups like Ducks Unlimited and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Truthfully, a lot of good work has been done by hunters or our delegates, and much of that work is still ongoing.
But it seems to me that these days, whenever a conservation issue threatens hunting access or opportunity, there’s an overwhelmingly negative outcry from hunters. The sense I get is that there’s a feeling of persecution that overrides any logic or science, and maybe that’s justified. But the end result is that hunters, in general, don’t appear to be very concerned about conservation or the long-term condition of the resource.
Examples?
Designation of wilderness areas that will exclude motorized vehicles is guaranteed to create a furor of hunters claiming that these areas are being closed to them. Since when is hunting supposed to be convenient or easily accessible by off-road vehicles? Wilderness is disappearing at a rapid rate. Shouldn’t we support the preservation of wild, roadless habitat?
The lead ammo ban created a groundswell of activism. Unfortunately, the vast majority of activists were sorely uneducated on the issues… even to the point of not knowing exactly what would be banned or why. A common complaint was that this regulation would only serve, “a stupid, ugly bird that should be extinct anyway.”
Baiting is a topic of concern in places where CWD is prevalent, and while there’s still debate as to the role baited areas play in the transmission and spread of the disease, there are many hunters who are vehemently opposed to regulation that may prohibit the practice. The opposition is based less in any scientific understanding of the potential problems, but instead the focus is that it’s a “backdoor anti-hunting proposal.”
For each of these, there are probably reasonable, scientifically sound, opposing viewpoints and justifications. I’m not disputing that. But those aren’t, by and large, what we’re hearing from the self-proclaimed “conservationists.” What we’re hearing are arguments saying, “we don’t care if we kill non-target species, disrupt natural environments, or enable the spread of disease; as long as we can continue to hunt as much as we want, where we want, and how we want.”
How do we, as hunters, continue to justify this? Can we continue to justify it?
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Tony
Dear Phillip,
Regarding your examples, you pose interesting ones “fer sure, fer sure”.
In regards to road access, I think that much of the science on “erosion” or negative impact is overblown when compared to such natural processes as fire or flash flood. But if a dirt road has existed for more than a century, why not let the permit system continue to gain funding for forest and open space management rather than just shut the land to all but the young and the Bear Grylls out there? Permit fees should be used for road maintenance, rather than having to do pika or tadpole counts so that USFWS can cost shift it’s way through life.
Does limiting access to hiking only really preserve wilderness or “wild lands” by limiting impact by users, or is it really just to shut out most users from using land they pay taxes for too? There is a certain injustice to the latter, in my opinion.
Furthermore, “enviros” are not just stopping at motorized transport. One of the conflicts in the CBD v BLM case has to do with the policy of prohibition of horse access in the Arizona Strip. While banning horses cuts into the grazing permit issues, it also pretty much kills the one way commonly perceived by hunters as an “environmentally friendly” way to get an elk out of the hills.
As to the lead issue, we have gone over that a bit in the past. But as much as one could say that certain hunting folks reacted to the lead ban as “agenda” or “junk science” (now apparently including the Commissioner from Montecito as to the “agenda” issue), one could just as easily say that lead ban proponents likewise went in “dumb”.
After all, we presented more internal documents than just the ones related to Church et al (2006) in making our case that stopped the lead shot ban in Condor Country. With newer studies, we are seeing similar “maneuvers” in study design and results presentation. These will be factors in future presentations and debates over the lead ammo issue.
Also, like Dr. Saba, I would prefer to think that the possible misconduct we found with Church et al (2006) to have been by error and misunderstanding, rather than a purposeful intent to mislead. The misunderstanding part by itself is enough as it is, though.
As to hunting over bait, like with white-tailed deer in Texas, that too is a matter of degree and reason. With the conquering (relatively speaking) of parasites that attacked cattle and deer in Texas, some other way to draw deer to be hunted or depredated seems to be needed to address the resulting population explosion. The one time I hunted “The Texas Way” was on a trip where, from Del Rio to Laredo, there was a blood stain seemingly every quarter mile where deer had been hit by traffic. And I saw more deer there than anywhere else I have ever been. If take rates of deer were to drop because hunters had to dive into the thorn country and go in after them, I would think CWD would be an even greater problem given that whitetails need water and would congregate near ponds and stock tanks in any case.
Perhaps the bait issue is regionally-specific, given other issues. For that, I am loathe to criticize it out of hand.
Also, drawing game to an area already “improved” with roads and blinds does seem to be one way of addressing the impact of going in “after” the game animal with motorized or horse-bound methods. It’s probably going to take a lot more “walking in the other feller’s shoes” before we can finish up this controversy.
Respectfully,
Anthony Canales