Long but excellent read

[south of 41]

Well worth the time of a few reading minutes


Story by Jim Posewitz
Illustrations by Dan Burr

As the percentage of people that hunt in this country fades, a variety of theories are advanced to explain and then deal with this disturbing reality. How could an activity so profoundly linked to our human nature, and so basic to our lifestyle a generation ago, find itself fading from our culture? Hunted wildlife populations are quite healthy considering the stress human expansion has put on their habitat. Still, in spite of this stress we continue to achieve high and even growing levels of sustained harvest on many key game species. That is not bad for a country that was literally stripped of its wildlife resource a century ago. Granted, we battle constantly to sustain healthy habitat and wild places, and therein lies the need for a constant stream of new recruits to carry the conservation ethic of hunters through the 21st Century. The challenge seems to be to recruit and retain enough hunters in the field to sustain what is clearly the greatest wildlife conservation achievement in human history. Perpetuity, however, is a long time and, like links forged in a chain, we cannot afford to skip a generation.

Those of us who believe our North American hunting legacy is worth keeping as part of who we are as a society need to examine the full spectrum of social influences impacting hunter recruitment and retention. When searching for an elusive truth one really needs to look beyond the obvious and by-pass the superficial. For example, quite a bit has been written about the many influences competing for the attention of our youth. The issue of catching the time and attention of young people is an obvious problem and many hunting organizations are developing excellent programs to work on this aspect. We all need to do what we can to sustain and expand this work; it is as necessary as it is obvious. Since I used the word superficial to define the other end of the spectrum of issues vying for our attention, let me suggest that animal rights and anti-hunting campaigns occupy more of our time and attention than they deserve. They have been around for the last century, and while they raise a lot of money and live well, they have not done much serious damage. They are a parasite and we are their host. They are an irritation, but they are not likely to kill us – they and their business model require us.
We still see presidential candidates walking around with a dead duck or goose to prove they are worthy of the people’s support – hunting is clearly ok with most Americans.

What lies beyond the obvious and superficial, receiving precious little attention, is the impact of commercialized hunting on the North American hunting community and culture. Some degree of commerce in wildlife and wildlife parts has been the constant companion of the North American hunting culture since Native Americans exchanged wild things and products for trade goods with the first European immigrants. At times our commercial companions have been fundamental to the success of wildlife conservation. A prime example of their positive impact was when gun and ammo manufacturers supported the excise tax on firearms and ammunition as part of the Pittman-Robertson Act in 1937. At other times, however, commercial enterprise provided us with our most desperate hour. Some examples from the dark-side are the 19th Century trade in buffalo hides and tongues; and, more recently the remote killing of wildlife through the Internet with the simple touch of a computer key.

We have often been told we can find the way forward if we pay some attention to how we got this far. In other words, seek the truth in the stories of things that already happened. “History matters” was the theme of a July 3, 2006 issue of Time magazinethat was devoted to the story of Theodore Roosevelt’s importance to our culture. No one did more than TR to introduce America to conservation and pass on a viable hunting heritage to our time and custody. Time’s managing editor Richard Stengel opened the story by writing: “Being an American is not based on a common ancestry, a common religion, even a common culture – it’s based on accepting an uncommon set of ideas. And if we don’t understand those ideas, we don’t value them; and if we don’t value them, we don’t protect them.”
Among the uncommon ideas embedded in our society was the idea that anyone with the desire could be a hunter. In addition, fish and wildlife were determined to be public resources – not private assets. As the saga of the world’s most important democracy unfolded, sport or recreational hunters and anglers emerged as the most important group that enabled America to find and then embrace a conservation ethic.

The very idea that fish and wildlife in America would be a public resource managed by the states, for the enjoyment of everyone, didn’t just simply happen. The public trust management concept emerged through a series of court decisions relying on the principle that in a democracy people are ‘sovereign.’ The notion that the people rather than the king would rule fit nicely with the philosophy held by 19th Century wildlife advocates who put an end to the commercial slaughter of wildlife and replaced the game butchers for hire with legions of conservation-oriented sport hunters. There were a good number of progressive conservation thinkers and advocates at that time. Among them, no one was more prominent in this battle than Theodore Roosevelt.

Although TR was born to wealth and privilege, his heart was dedicated to equal opportunity for every American. He firmly believed that he carried a responsibility to use his status and privileged circumstance to lift us all. When it came to natural resources, Roosevelt wrote: “Our aim is to preserve our natural resources for the public as a whole, for the average man and the average woman who make up the body of the American people.” When it came to the hunt his words were: “Above all, we should realize that the effort toward this end is essentially a democratic movement. … to give reasonable opportunities for the exercise of the skill of the hunter, whether he is or is not a man of means.”

Thus, two themes take root in America fundamental to wildlife conservation and hunting: 1) the commercial use of wildlife must end; and, 2) everyone needs to be afforded the opportunity to participate. Since history matters, the effect of these fundamental principles has to be judged an awesome human achievement. North America’s wildlife Renaissance became the envy of the world. Today we live with the abundance that this straightforward formula produced. From coast to coast of this broad continent we now have deer in our suburbs, bears in our orchards and goose dung on every golf shoe in America – and we did it all on purpose.

Predictably, new challenges arise and among the new issues we find, that in spite of the wonderful abundance of game, hunter recruitment and retention remains a perplexing problem. We also find a rapid expansion of commercial hunting ventures that have been attracted to the restored wildlife abundance. These two issues, hunter recruitment/retention and commercial hunting, are probably related. In simple terms, the buffalo hunters are back with a slightly modified business model. The objective, however, looks similar and familiar - to capitalize on the public’s resource.

One only has to browse the advertisements in any of the contemporary sporting magazines to find a vigorous market in the sale of hunting experiences. The products come in a variety of shapes and sizes: shooting captive “high fence” or pen raised wildlife, private access to public wildlife, leasing private estates and various other options available for a variety of fees. What almost all of them have in common is the exclusion of the hunter who is not a man of means. The more common these practices of exclusion become: the more fragile our hunter based conservation heritage becomes; the more difficult recruitment and retention become; and, the more closely we are drawn to the old aristocratic notions of the king’s deer. In this case, the dollar is the new king.

Historian Daniel Justin Herman, in an article titled Hunting Democracy, states “American citizens, not those who governed them, were sovereign. In the U.S., moreover, every adult … enjoyed another right that only kings and aristocrats had held in earlier centuries: the right to hunt. … The right to hunt and the right to make political choices [vote] emerged simultaneously in the U.S.” Author Herman later observed: “At one moment, hunting has operated in American culture as a rite of democracy and at the next [moment], as a rite of aristocracy. That pendulum swing continues today.” And as this pendulum swings toward aristocracy, it knocks off more hunters and potential hunters than PETA and like groups could ever have hoped to do.

Our predecessors were quite aware of this peril. Theodore Roosevelt spoke directly to it on a number of occasions. In his book, Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter he wrote: “The professional market hunter who kills game for the hide or for the feathers or for the meat or to sell antlers and other trophies; … and the rich who are content to buy what they have not the skill to get by their own exertions – these are the men who are the real enemies of game.” In his autobiography, TR spoke directly to aristocratic notions writing: “There have been aristocracies which have played a great and beneficent part at stages in the growth of mankind; but we had come to the stage where for our people what was needed was a real democracy, and of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of a plutocracy.”

The peril in some of the contemporary forms of commercial hunting is not in that they seek compensation for landowner needs or for services provided. The peril is its own belief that it must exclude every rank and file hunter or aspiring hunter unable or unwilling to pay the toll. The restoration of wildlife to North America happened because the people, all the people, willed it - and then made it happen. England gives us a glimpse of the alternative where wildlife passed from the hands of royalty to the holders of property. In England the contest for access to game has gone on for 13 centuries and today the boar, the beaver, the wolf, the bear, the aurocs and the reindeer – are extinct. The ritual of chasing the fox continues to be attacked by the people as a symbol of the hated aristocracy. History matters.

Perhaps we could work on the idea that this marvelous North American hunting legacy can be shared among all those who aspire to the hunt. Perhaps it would not be unreasonable to have clients and free hunters walking the same field – both taking the time to learn, understand and appreciate - why the other is there. It would be a way of acknowledging the special nature of hunting in a democracy where the wildlife is not ‘owned’ but held in trust for all of us. Remember editor Stengle’s point about our American ideas when he warned, “Being an American is … based on accepting an uncommon set of ideas. And if we don’t understand those ideas, we don’t value them; and if we don’t value them, we don’t protect them.” Hunting is clearly among those uniquely American ideas and it would be a sad day if that uncommon idea slipped away because we lost or sold the balance between commerce and conservation that we briefly held. It was a delicate balance and we did it in the only place where it had a chance – America.

Finally, the last word comes from the most recent president whose likeness we chiseled into the granite of Mount Rushmore. They are words we need to chisel into our own conscience as we address hunter recruitment, hunter retention and the future of wildlife conservation in America.

“I should much regret to see grow up in this country a system of large private game preserves kept for the enjoyment of the very rich. One of the chief attractions of the life of the wilderness is its rugged and stalwart democracy. There every man stands for what he actually is and can show himself to be.”
Theodore Roosevelt

[OldBaldGuy]

"...Perhaps we could work on the idea that this marvelous North American hunting legacy can be shared among all those who aspire to the hunt. Perhaps it would not be unreasonable to have clients and free hunters walking the same field..."

You know the phrase: "An idea whose time has come"?
This isn't one of them.