Understanding Anti-hunting Organizations & Attitudes

The anti-hunting and anti-management movements are a source of extreme frustration to some hunters and shooting sports enthusiasts.  Although the participants are often cast as a single group, they represent a complex group with equally complex issues.  This lesson is an attempt to condense the major arguments of anti-hunting, anti-management, and animal rights activists into a relatively compact and understandable package, while giving the instructor and participant some assistance in addressing the issues at hand.

Human attitudes toward hunting and active wildlife management are extremely diverse.  With respect to hunting, approximately 15 percent of the population either actively opposes it (anti-hunters) or actively participates (hunters).  The remaining 70 percent hold less polar views or have no commitment either way.  This majority may be classified as non-hunters.  Where one falls on this continuum of ideas is really a question of the type of management that will be applied to wildlife.  Hard-core utilitarians opt for active and aggressive management for human use.  Those on the opposite end of the spectrum would prohibit human use entirely (if that were possible).  The vast majority, including people from all of the groups listed above, apply some degree of restriction to human use.  Their reasons are as diverse as the individuals holding them.

 

Wildlife Management

 

Wildlife management has been defined in many ways since the birth of the art and science.  Aldo Leopold, the first professor of wildlife management in the United States, defined it in his early texts as “wise use without waste.”  Reading beyond the “use” part of the statement by observing the remainder of Leopold’s writings shows that this included the radical concepts of ecosystem preservation, stewardship of the land and preservation of extant species.  This old definition of conservation is still useful today, but more modern texts include management of another species – us.  In that context, wildlife management is “the art and science of manipulating wildlife populations and their habitats to achieve societal goals.”  The inclusion of “societal” in that context shows recognition that wildlife management is often primarily people management.

 

The societal goals can be extremely diverse and sometimes in direct opposition.  In general, they include maintenance of a healthy environment.  Populations and habitats may be managed for subsistence, recreation, economic benefit, aesthetics, science, or some combination of those objectives.  Usually a complex of objectives are considered in framing any management decision.  This optimization process considers opposing interests secondarily to the welfare of wildlife and the environment.  Since wildlife is a commons resource, belonging to everyone, management is vested in state and federal representatives of the people at large.  Responsibility to the people requires responsibility for the wildlife within the purview of each managing agency.

Others would state the objectives of wildlife management very differently.  It may be regarded as plundering the environment, single-minded production of targets for hunters or an indefensible and unethical exploitation of animals.  One group states the training of a wildlife manager about like this:

 

“Deer don’t climb trees. Cut down the trees so deer can reach them for food. More deer means more money from more hunters.”

 

While there are some essential elements of truth in those phrases, they hardly address the rigor of wildlife management training or the objectives of the manager.

 

The sources of this spectrum of attitudes and values are also varied.  Like much of what we feel and believe, social conditioning has a major influence.  Family tradition, cultural background, personal experience, and the influence of media presentations all help to form these values and attitudes.  Philosophical arguments grow from attitudes and values as well as influencing their development.  Major arguments revolve around the ethics of using animals or killing animals, even to live.  Others address real or imagined impacts on human values and capacities.  Some are derived from notions of the sanctity of life.  Others come from utilitarian philosophy, where pleasure is accounted a moral good and pain is regarded as moral evil.  Transferal of human rights and welfare to animal’s rights or environmental rights.

Anthropomorphism, the ascribing of human characteristics to other living things, is another source of anti-management notions.  Many who have used anthropomorphism as a foundation for their feelings regard hunting as warfare.  These people frequently equate humans and other animals.  Some of this comes from sociological baggage:  cartoons and toys of childhood or images of nature created for entertainment.  Some of that sociological baggage involves deliberately contrived images of hunting and hunters as evil, cruel or depraved.

 

Major Arguments Against Hunting

 

Intrinsic Right to Life

Advocates of this viewpoint argue that the right to life (seldom defined beyond its statement) is an inseparable part of existence.  It is frequently viewed as being unalterable and inalienable as well as uniform to all animals.  Other advocates would modify that position somewhat, stating that sentience, the ability to experience pleasure and pain, is an essential element in rights bearing.  They regard pleasure as a moral good and pain as a moral evil.  All creatures able to experience those two sensations are deemed sensate and possessed of an intrinsic right to life.  Since killing denies the right to life, killing is morally evil and indefensible,

 

Extrinsic Right to Life

Advocates of this point of view feel that a right to life exists, but it is granted by some outside authority and modifiable only by that authority.  In the most moderate view, the level of rights bearing is relative to some form of standing with the external authority.  More extreme views find no such relativity and place all living things (or at least all animals or sensate animals) on the same plane.

 

Killing is Morally Wrong

Killing may be regarded as morally wrong for several reasons.  Some view it as a violation of God’s law, citing the Levitical admonition that “Thou shalt not kill.”  In this line of reasoning, killing any thing for any reason is morally wrong.  This interpretation does not address the alternative translation of “murder” tat seems acceptable to both scholars and the surrounding text.  Indeed, these words were part of a covenant that was sealed by walking between the split bodies of sacrificial sheep.

 

Others seem more concerned with the state of the human mind during the act.  They regard killing “for pleasure” as morally wrong.  Since “enjoying” killing is despicable and morally evil and hunters enjoy hunting, hunters are morally evil and hunting is indefensible.  This argument relies on two fundamental assumptions.  First, that enjoying killing is morally evil.  Predators would be classed as evil in this context.  Second, it assumes that the enjoyment of hunting requires enjoyment of the consumptive act, the kill itself.  Ortega y Gassett, a Spanish philosopher who wrote extensively about hunting said, “I do not hunt in order to kill; I kill in order to have hunted.”  Apparently, the appetitive behavior is more significant than the consumptive act, but the possibility of the consumptive act is essential to the sequence.

 

Killing Animals Denies Other Users of the Commons Resource

 

This is a complex argument.  Fundamentally, it argues that hunting preempts access to commons resources by other users.  In its extended form, it states that depletion of wildlife resources by hunters or manipulation of those resources by managers excludes others from their rightful sharing in the benefits of the resource.  In addition, many argue that hunting creates as unsafe condition for other potential users, preempting their use through fear of harm.

 

Adequate Alternatives Exist

This argument assumes that the only viable reason for hunting is subsistence, the absolute necessity to gather wild protein.  It follows that the presence of adequate supplies of domestic livestock and alternative foods denies the necessity to hunt when purchased foods are readily at hand.  Others would expand that notion to include domestic stock, advocating a diet based upon vegetable matter only.  This argument merely transfers the moral responsibility for killing to another agent.

 

Another manifestation of this argument comes from the notion that killing some animals is a necessity for population control.  Those holding this view suggest the use of alternative means of population management where it is absolutely essential.  The three most popular alternatives include capture and relocation, sterilization by some means and “letting Nature take her course.”  These arguments usually ignore side-effects f the alternatives.  Cost, trauma to the animals and availability of transfer sites argue against capture and relocation.  The availability of suitable drugs or procedures, cost, trauma to the animals and the invasive nature of altering reproductive behavior and patterns stand on the negative side of sterilization.  “Letting Nature take her course” is an acceptable, hands-off approach if impacts on other organisms, particularly those that are rare or dependent upon relatively rare habitats, and the ecological impacts if over-population by tolerant species are acceptable to society.  The new dynamic equilibrium certainly will be altered.  A frequently added proposal in this arena is the reintroduction of large carnivores.  Social acceptability, availability of source populations and habitat limitations grossly limit the potential for using re-introduced predators as population managers.

 

Killing Denies Future Interests

Unquestionably, killing an animal alters its immediate future.  Proponents of this notion state that having future interests (plans, dreams, concepts) grants the right to pursue those interests.  To interfere with those interests is regarded as a moral evil.  Most biologists agree that a sense of future, per se, is an abstraction and that its presence in most animals is questionable at best.  Food caching, laying on fat, defense of young and migratory movements give excellent evidence of evolutionary adaptation to changing environments and self-preservation (in its broadest sense); but they cannot be used as prima facie evidence of a future sense as humans know it.

 

Decent Death

Those who argue that death is acceptable, but that it must be “decent” contend that nature is gentle or at least natural.  The realities of existence in natural communities strongly deny the existence of “gentle” nature.  Living is a constant struggle for survival.  Death in abundance makes life for the few possible.  Stating that nature is natural is a tautology that includes an implication that humans are not part of nature.

Those who accept the relatively violent world of nature as fact generally are willing to accept the role of “natural” predators.  The type of death inflicted is immaterial as long as the predation comes through wild animals or plants.  Humans are regarded as separate and distinct from nature.  This distinction is made on the basis of several isolating characteristics (which are usually not stated).  The use of tools, although this is not extended to other “tool-using” primates like chimpanzees, or woodpecker finches, makes humans “unnatural.”  Predation efficiency, primarily because of the tools used, is regarded as being too high to justify humans being regarded as natural predators.  Strangely enough, when humans limit their use of tools and their efficiency, these same individuals usually complain about excessive cruelty in their methods of killing or harvesting game.  Finally, this argument reflects on the “adequate alternatives” and “enjoying killing” arguments for proof of humans being unnatural predators.  These arguments either ignore the hunter-gatherer origins of humanity and society or argue that we have “matured” as an organism beyond those roots.

 

The existence of finite wounding and crippling rates is frequently cited as evidence that hunted animals do not experience a decent death.  Some cite the “waste” of wildlife as the reason for banning hunting on wounding loss grounds.  Others cite “cruel” or “anguished” deaths as their reason.  Most mix the two.  Crippling and wounding are often used as synonyms both in management, literature and in these arguments.  The evidence at hand does not justify that synonymy.  Further, the concept of waste can only be applied to retrieval of the animal for human consumption.  Ecosystems are extremely conservative of energy sources, and crippled and lost animals will soon become fodder for local predators and scavengers.  Wounding and crippling, here used as distinctly different but related processes, are an inevitability of hunting.  Whether they are relatively cruel or traumatic compared to death at the tooth or claw of predators is questionable, but not really cogent to the issue.

 

Hunting Upsets Biological Balances

Some proponents of this argument focus on the removal of certain numbers and kinds of individuals from dynamic communities, arguing that their loss disrupts the entire energy flow regime for the community.  They may assume additive mortality, denounce compensatory natality, or even use alteration in age structure as supporting evidence for their point of view.  These arguments assume existence of a delicately balanced dynamic equilibrium in most systems and are closely related to the “let Nature take her course” strategists above.

A broader group of supporters for this argument base their objections on either selective removal of the “wrong” animals or disruption of the social system.  This is similar to the “natural versus unnatural predators” argument.  “Natural” predators are viewed as taking either only the sick, weak, or injured or primarily those individuals from a population.  The “unnatural” predator is seen as taking only the best (“fittest”) individuals or primarily the best individuals from the population.  These contrasts are used to promote the notion that overall fitness (using its evolutionary meaning) is reduced by human predators but enhanced by “natural” predators.  Confusion between the notions of physical fitness and Darwinian or evolutionary fitness lies at the root of the argument, as does over-extension of the observation that predation probabilities are directly proportional to levels of disadvantage extant in potential prey.

 

Disruption of prey animals’ social systems is also cited as an example of unnatural predation impacts.  Unfortunately, this notion goes beyond the foundations of animal social behavior to include anthropomorphically defined animal relationships.  While disruption of social structures may indeed take place in selected cases, the impacts upon survival and productivity in species remain to be demonstrated.

 

Finally, some proponents claim that hunting (or even management activities) generate threatened or endangered species.  While commercial hunting or fishing and, in a few selected cases, illegal poaching are responsible for classifying several species as either threatened or endangered, regulated sport hunting has not caused any species to reach either status.  In fact, having a large advocacy group is one of the most significant protective elements for wildlife.  Numerous past successes of wildlife management and the standing of the hunting community relative to support for wildlife management (including non-game) bear powerful evidence that this claim is spurious.  Sloppy use of “species” in endangered species legislation coupled with sloppy use of specific names by parties interested in finding support for their theses can result in such species as whitetail deer, mountain lions, and sandhill cranes being listed as endangered when only isolated subspecies or relict populations of those animals warrant the status.

 

Hunting Upsets Animals

Although most proponents of this argument use an anthropomorphic reasoning to support their argument, others are using selected ecological or physiological data.  Hunting is viewed as increasing stress or anxiety.  Temporary physiological stress may or may not be induced, depending upon the situation.  The presence of definable anxiety or “causing grief” to “friends and relatives” is questionable.  Anecdotal information from highly social animals is often used as a standard, even when solitary species are being considered.

 

Hunting Degrades Human Moral Values

This argument assumes a direct and inevitable link between hunting and degeneration of fundamental human moral values and behavior.  It is normally centered on the notion that hunters tend to become callous to death, pain, and suffering.  By extension of that notion, they are assumed to become callous to human death, pain, and suffering, or even to enjoy it.  Proponents would paint (and may characterize) the hunter as an evil and unfeeling ogre who is completely morally bankrupt.  Less virulent views of the hunter may make assumptions that hunters hunt to exercise their dominance over other beings or that hunting represents misplaced self-concept or sexuality.  While all hunters are lumped under these headings, trophy hunters are given special treatment as a class of moral deviates.  These arguments persist in some quarters in spite of psychological evidence demonstrating no differences between hunters and society as a whole.  Their direction toward one’s fundamental nature as a human being classifies them as a masked form of argumentum ad hominem, or attacking the person rather than the idea.

Hunting Is Dangerous

This is a multi-faceted argument that combines anti-gun sentiments and anti-hunting sentiments with concerns for human welfare.  This anti-gun approach begins by stating that firearms are inherently dangerous to both people and the society.  Elimination or severe restriction of firearms possession is viewed as a desirable means of increasing the level of personal and social security.  Since much of the personal firearms ownership and much of the constituency for Second Amendment rights lies with hunters, eliminating hunting is a valuable step to eliminating firearms from the general society.  This is seldom stated in such simple terms, but it is one element of this basic argument.

Others base their objection to hunting on the notion that hunting is inherently dangerous.  In their view, hunting accidents are common, usually fatal, and always traumatic.  Hunters are frequently depicted as drunks with guns – accidents looking for a place to happen.  Injuries to other people and damage to property are viewed as commonplace and an essential part of hunting.  In addition, hunters are viewed as fundamentally irresponsible, showing no restraint or self-control.  Hunting accidents make news, and news reports are frequently cited as evidence in support of this thesis.

 

While most hunters would agree that one hunting accident is too many, the evidence does not support the notion that hunting is a dangerous sport.  The institution of hunter education programs has had extremely positive influences on hunting safety, reducing accidents to the minimum, perhaps three to four accidents per million participant days with mortality at least one order of magnitude lower.  Hunting is, in fact, safer than driving a car, taking a bath, playing tennis, attending a college sporting event as a spectator or going to a concert at Kennedy Center.

 

Anthropomorphic Arguments

Those who equate humans and other animals or who project human behavior and values to other animals often view hunting as the moral equivalent of human warfare.  Others are influenced by what is often termed “the Disney syndrome,” a situation in which created images of animals as furry human beings with families, worries, fears, sadness, anticipation of death and other personifications are the norm.  Transfer of these images to wild animals results in deer becoming Bambi (which was based upon a German anti-war allegory), rabbits becoming Thumper, striped skunks becoming Flower and hunters becoming villains.  Lack of personal and direct experience with wildlife makes perpetuation of this image possible and promotes emotive attachment to issues based upon images designed to entertain or enrapture.

 

Hunting is Not Sport

This argument reaches nearly to the bottom of the barrel.  It questions the validity of hunting as a sport by confusing hunting with sporting contests among humans.  A basic assumption is made that a “sport” must include equal risk to all participants and equity in equipment.  The proponents would argue that animals do not have a chance against a well-equipped hunter.  Hunter success is viewed as a given, in which sighting an animal and bagging an animal are equivalent.  Lack of experience with the equipment allows an assumption that possession of a rifle with telescopic sights permits precise bullet placement as far as the eye can see with the aid of optical magnification.  Use of calls or decoys is viewed as absolute assurance of bringing the prey into range of equipment that compensates for hunter error and hits its target every time.  Even if that were not the case, the animals being hunted do not have an equal opportunity to inflict mortal wounds upon the hunter; and they have no defenses against the superior being pursuing them.  Essentially, the concept of “fair chase” is indefensible.

 

Some hunters would agree that the notion of sport is misplaced, particularly when viewed in the context of competitive sports.  Hunting is, however, played by a set of rules and restrictions self-imposed to create fair chase.  Effective use of all the tools and skills of a hunter requires intense training and practice.  Game species continue to evolve or learn defenses against human predation.  Equality of risk or fairness with respect to potential injury was never intended.  The atavistic modern human predator plays by a set of societal and personally defined rules and regulations that make recreational hunting sporting.

 

Commonly Used Anti-management Argument Methods

In general, advocates of anti-hunting or anti-management points of view are both sincere and committed to their causes.  They have a strong belief in their mission.  Those beliefs have been developed through careful thought and planning.  They believe that their cause is both just and correct.  Some are tempted by their zeal to justify any methods to promote a justifiable end.  Some are involved because the cause is lucrative.  Knowing them us vital to your success in countering the arguments themselves.

 

Data Selection

One way of swaying opinion is to report only that data or information that supports your point of view.  This may be accomplished in a variety of ways, some less virulent than others.  Use of pre-selected data is one of the most common.  In this case, data supplied by an organization to its membership has been carefully selected for maximum impact.  It often comes from wildlife or biological literature, but it seldom includes complete data sets or analysis of those data.  Aberrant data may be selected because it appears to support the point being made.  For example, literature on impacts of elephant or rhinoceros poaching might be presented as evidence that hunting (not the failure to include “regulated” or other modifiers) has created a management crisis for these animals.  Deliberate deceit is also common.  Occasionally faulty analysis is used or critical assumptions or conditions are modified to generate data or projections that differ sharply from the conclusions drawn by the researchers who originally gathered and analyzed the data.  For example, data used by the National Fisheries Board of Canada to project harvest rates and an anti-management group reworked population estimates for harp seals.  The NFBC projections were associated with their objective of increasing the population significantly to double the sustainable harvest of seal pups harvest over a decade.  The other group projected extinction within the same time frame.  All they needed to change was one term in the mathematics, which they could defend on the basis their “expert” assumptions.  Statistics may be invented or extrapolated from studies of different populations.  Terms, such as “non-target” or “crippling,” may be defined without stating them or merely left undefined for the listener or reader to draw their own conclusions.  Conjecture may be presented as fact, even using publications edited and funded by the organization as publishing evidence to support the conjecture.  (This is a peculiar form of circular reasoning.)  Finally, believable lies may be invented for the purpose of placing the opposition of the defensive and forcing them to prove its falsehood.

 

Faulty Logic

Faulty logic is common in human discussions.  In this debate it has been raised to an art form, even in some environmental or ethics journals.  Logic employs the mathematics of truth sets (Boolean algebra) to establish the truth-values of arguments.  Being able to recognize some commonly encountered reasoning errors yields a powerful tool for one caught up in this issue.  Several commonly used and faulty arguments are illustrated here.

 

Use of false premises is common.  To use an obvious and trivial example, one might state, “all dogs have five legs.”  Clearly, this is false, but if it is accepted as one of the givens in an argument, a valid but false conclusion might be drawn.

 

Premise reversal is also commonly encountered.  In this instance, the flow of the premise might be altered to draw a false conclusion.  For example:

 

Premise 1. All warm-blooded animals have four-chambered hearts – a true premise

Premise 2. Crocodiles have four-chambered hearts – a true premise
Conclusion: Therefore crocodiles are warm-blooded – invalid conclusion

 

In this example, the common trait is used to equate the two groups even though the premises do not require them to be the same.  The only valid (and trivial) conclusion that can be drawn is:

 “Crocodiles and warm-blooded animals have four-chambered hearts.”

This merely repeats what is already known.  An example of a valid argument follows:

 

Premise 1. All warm-blooded animals have four-chambered hearts – true

Premise 2. Dogs are warm-blooded animals – true

Conclusion: Therefore dogs have four-chambered hearts – valid and true

 

This example creates a set with a characteristic, then recognizes a subset of the first and concludes that membership in the subset includes membership in the set.  The previous example creates two sets that overlap, then attempts to equate them on the basis of their overlapping.

Violating limitations used as givens is also encountered.  For example, an argument in support of sentience as the source of human rights and therefore animal rights was developed as follows:

Given: If a characteristic that all humans and only humans have can be identified, it may be considered the source of human rights.

Regardless of your feeling about that statement, it may be accepted as a given condition for the argument.  After casting out such human characteristics as higher reasoning and failing to consider others, like membership in a single species or gene pool, the following premises and conclusions were advanced.

 Premise 1. Humans have rights – true
 Premise 2. Humans are sentient – true
 Conclusion 1. Sentience grants humans rights.  (Invalid – premise reversal)

 

This is the same form as the argument about four-chambered hearts discussed earlier.  The second phase of the argument uses the first, invalid conclusion as its beginning premise.

 

 Premise 3. Sentience grants human right – (false premise – based on invalid conclusion)
 Premise 4. Other animals are sentient – (true – but violation of given)
 Conclusion 2: Therefore other animals have human rights (valid but false)

 

This series of arguments amounts to mental chicanery.  It begins with as if and only if (IFF) statement, establishes sentience as the only viable source of human rights without considering either the IFF statement or all uniquely human attributes and concludes that all sentient animals have human rights in spite of direct violation of the pre-condition.  The argument is not only invalid but also spurious because of its internal inconsistency.

 

Sometimes subtle changes in definitions within a set of arguments are used to permit spurious conclusions to be drawn.  Failure to define critical terms or defining them inadequately is a commonly used tactic.  That tactic permits multiple interpretations of critical words or phrases and results in broader impact of the argument being posed.  It, too, is a form of mental trickery.  Insisting on clear definitions, even if they tend to be mutilated in debate, is outstanding insurance and permits restatement of arguments in more restricted and clearer terms.

 

Counter-intuitive Concepts

Exploring concepts that are not intuitively obvious or that seem to be contradictory can take a number of forms.  Among the most common are misuse of ecological management terms and references to valid statements taken out of context.  Natural selection is poorly understood and grossly misinterpreted by most people.  Fitness is even more poorly understood.  Although abundant evidence can be cited to support the concept of reducing populations to benefit species being taken, the notion of killing part of a population (either selectively or randomly) to aid the population is difficult to comprehend without some study and a long-term point of view.

 

Sensationalizing Issues

We live in an age of information overload.  Unfortunately, that deluge of information is accompanied by almost non-existent reasoning ability relative to the applicability, reality, or quality of that information.  With constant competition for attention among all types of media, the temptation to sensationalize findings or situations is too great a resist.  Without lying, the truth can be phrased to increase the level of threat or impact.  Often the arguments that sensationalize issues are designed to promote popular support.  Leaving out a key point here and there can increase impact.  Several common tactics fall under this category.  Reliance on emotive arguments is one of the most common ones.  Staging incidents or “evidence” of the truth-value of one’s arguments is another.  Many of the current attempts by activist groups to harass hunters fall into this category.  If confrontation can be staged, media coverage and an opportunity to voice opinions without need to verify them can be presented.  If the confrontation happens to anger the offended parties, that provides even more sensationalism and the potential for litigation, no matter how spurious.  Finally, careful selection of emotively charged words can add sensationalism to the argument.  Murder is a much more emotive word than kill or take.  Baby is a much more emotive word than pup in reference to harp seals.  Mutilate or maim is much more effective than wound, even if its meaning must be stretched to make it reach the context.  Often the best approach to sensationalizing arguments is to insist on definition and justification while remaining calm and controlled.

 

Credibility or Endorsement Wars

 

This approach relies on the sheep-like tendency to follow prominent people exhibited by those who fail to think for themselves.  Its most common form is having media celebrities (most of whom, one might note, make a career of creating illusions) endorse a given point of view.  The impact of these endorsements is inversely proportional to the level of knowledge the audience possesses on the issue.  It is part of media shaping public opinion, however.  While some might consider these endorsement wars excessive uses of media, other types of “endorsements” may be countered more effectively.  The practices of misquoting authorities on the subject or quoting them out of context are quite common.  The best response is to be prepared to complete or correct the quotation, citing your sources.

 

Disruption or Harassment

Many techniques fall into this category.  Some of them are confined primarily to public forums or staged shows of impact.  Others are used within the context of debate.  Picketing or similar actions designed to disrupt or irritate as within the confines of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech.  Avoiding confrontation is wise in these settings.  Monopolizing discussion time, interrupting, interjection of comments into your statements, and refusal to address the issues directly are all means of disrupting your argument.  Litigation (regardless of merit), hunt sabotage, and political pressure are commonly used by well-funded organizations that need to maintain an image as activists.

 

Argumentum ad Hominem:  Attacking the Person

 

When reason and emotion fail, attacks on the person, character, or motivations of the person or group of persons standing in opposition are common.  Character assassination includes disparaging ones beliefs, motivations, and morality.  While such tactics demonstrate low regard for other human beings, they may be expected in some situations.  It may take the form of either group attacks or personal ones.  Accusing all hunters of being irresponsible drunks or moral degenerates or accusing an opposing speaker of lying are forms of character assassination.  It is critical not to respond in kind, reducing debate to mud slinging.  The light of the unvarnished truth most easily defeats real lies.

 

Guilt by association is another common form.  Often these types of remarks are made either flippantly or in passing.  One animal rights activist noted, “Hitler carried a gun, too,” in addressing hunters and hunting.  Refusing to be so classified requires only that this tactic be exposed without dwelling on it.

 

As stated above, selection of prejudicial language is also common.  Asking for definitions of terms and clarification of intent in the language is often an effective counterpoint.  This tactic also includes disparagement by verbal and non-verbal means.  Attempts to steal audience attention can take the form of fidgeting, sneering, rolling the eyes, or other facial expressions as well as arm gestures and postural expressions of attitude.  In spite of their showing disrespect for other humans, they may be used to distract the audience from the issues being addressed.  Verbal interjections are more disruptive.  Both of them tend to lose audience support for the “actor” when carried too far.  Showing respect for the person while disagreeing pointedly with their thesis wins points with audiences.

 

Advice for Working With or Confronting Anti-management Groups

 

Working with or debating members of anti-management groups is not necessarily fun or something you would choose to do.  Most of us have had or will interact with people having these attitudes and opinions at some time.  Being prepared mentally can make those interactions less traumatic.

 

Remember their objectives.  Keep in mind the fact that to many activists, the just end (their view) justifies any means to reach the end.  Avoid being misled by statements that seem to be less prejudicial or restrictive than statements made earlier.

 

Be thoroughly prepared.  Begin by knowing both their arguments and your own.  Keep your facts straight and insist that theirs be documented.  If documentation is not available, request clarification or substitute your information with documentation.

 

Try to have some friendly faces present.  Nothing is quite so lonely as a confrontation over things you believe in strongly where the entire audience seems to hold the opposite point of view.  Having at least one supportive person in the group can be very comforting.  Note that arranged discussions often be presented as one-on-one but turn out to be a group confronting one person.  A well-prepared friendly face can be used as a second in those situations.

 

Establish a level playing field.  Strive to establish some ground rules of the discussion and at least a minimum set of definitions.  Expect both the rules of debate and the definitions to be altered during the dialogue and continue to reword comments to make sure the original meanings are reinforced.  Part of this process is to make sure that you are as well supported with minds, as is the opposition.

Be factual.  Keeping your facts straight is critical to credibility.  Do not allow yourself to be corrected in areas of personal ignorance.  If you do not know something, admit that lack of information.  If you know related information, feel free to use it and draw a parallel.  Defer to established experts, but do not allow yourself to be bullied by name-dropping, particularly with self-proclaimed experts.  Ask for sources of verification of statements and be prepared with your own.  Be ready to complete partial information, and be ready to correct misstated information.

 

Watch for the use of faulty arguments.  Challenge the use of improper or faulty arguments by pointing them out.  Insist on honesty and mutual respect and model those characteristics at all times.  Do not permit the extension or acceptance of faulty arguments.  Feel free to offer alternatives that are both true and valid.  Where refusal to admit faulty arguments takes place, be prepared to carry them to the absurd to illustrate their weakness.

 

Establish some common ground.  Know your opponent’s key issues well enough that areas of agreement can be identified and stated.  Address these issues positively and pro-actively before these areas can be posed as challenges.  Use any “hot buttons” held by the opposition to advantage.  If someone is going to get angry and blow his or her cool, make sure it is not you.  Extend their arguments to your points by seeking some common ground and trying to maintain that common ground as long as possible while building toward your objectives.  Disagree only when necessary, but be prepared to disagree.  Acknowledge any problems and include actions being taken to address them.  Invite positive support for needed changes by proposing workable solutions while noting past and current actions on the issue.

Expose manufactured problems.  Finally, expose any manufactured problems.  Use real data with documentation taken from sources that are above reproach.  Use personal observations sparingly and only if they are directly to the point.

 

Countering Anti-management Arguments Right to Life Arguments

 

While it may seem to be begging the question, taking a biological approach to the notion of a fundamental right to life may be effective.  Note that energy is the basic currency of life.  It flows from an organized form (sunlight or electromagnetic radiation) to a disorganized form (entropy or heat).  Biological systems tend to retard the progress toward entropy by passing energy through a series of beings – plants, plant eaters, plant eater eaters, and so forth.  In general, mature communities pass the energy through very complex pathways.  This may be viewed as a “game of life” in which the winners continue to play and the losers are dead.  Winners enjoy a temporary “right to life” until the next event in the life of the community.  Consumers must exploit other living things to survive; so all animals must depend on the deaths of other organisms for energy.  Life is fragile, temporary, and usually ends violently for wild animals.  The “right to life” is extremely tenuous when viewed from the biological (study of life) point of view.

 

The notion that sentience grants rights to life is weakly construed.  One of the functions of living things is sensing the environment.  Both positive and negative responses are visible in protests and plants as well as animals.  Pleasure and pain are not embodiments of moral good and evil, but responses to stimuli.  Their being viewed as good and evil is a human construct with little meaning in biological systems.  Pain is, in fact, an adaptive response (a good) to harmful or noxious stimuli.  Inability to sense pain is a severe handicap in which severe injury is common.  As a valuable asset, at least to “higher” organisms, one familiar with living things finds it difficult to classify pain as a moral evil.

Pleasure is a higher order function.  It is a complex response to mental stimulation as well as sensory input.  It is difficult to define and may be associated with extremely negative actions on the part of the organism.  While cocaine produces intense pleasure, its use is both addictive and potentially damaging to the user and others.  In this instance, pleasure can be viewed as a moral evil, while proponents of the sentience argument classify pleasure as a moral good.  Both pleasure and pain appear to be artifacts of advanced sensory adaptation in evolving organisms, not disembodied abstractions, or ethical philosophy.

 

The sentience argument rests on advancing the given of human rights to other sensate beings through the crucial connection of sentience and rights bearing.  This is neither an essential nor a likely candidate.  The presence of a shared gene pool, that is, the recognition of members of one’s own species as self is the most likely source.  Membership in the species confers rights that are socially entrained.  The greater the relatedness, the greater is the level of rights bearing.  This relationship is common to most organisms, and studying nature yields a wide range of examples.  In general, rights bearing is restricted to the species or immediate social group.  Wolves have strong taboos against harming other wolves within the clan or pack, except in contests for breeding rights.  They will hunt down and kill wolves that are not part of the clan, and other canines (coyotes, foxes, domestic dogs) are afforded the status of food.  Even birds, once territories are established, tend to “respect” the boundaries of neighboring conspecifics.

 

This shared gene pool hypothesis has sound evolutionary support.  It is robust, and carries potential explanations for the still changing recognition of self.  Racism and nationalism are easily seen as manifestations or an imperfect view of the common genetic pool that is mankind.  The affections we show toward anthropoid apes are likely based upon shared genetics.  Finally, the hierarchy of status afforded non-human animals seems to show the same basic trend.  Mammals are given higher rank than birds, but both groups of homeotherms are given higher status than cold-blooded vertebrates.  Fish are lower in status than reptiles and amphibians, and invertebrates finish far below fish.

 

Rights Conferred by God

 

Many people believe that the source of all rights is a Supreme Being.  As the possessor of absolute Rights, God may confer to any other being the level of rights desired.  Within the Judeo-Christian ethic, humans are given a standing just below God, Himself.  We are empowered to behave as stewards, using other animals and being responsible before God for their stewardship and welfare.  The notion that “thou shall not kill” applies to animals other than humans expands the meaning of the text beyond the clearly stated one of killing other humans.  Humans may grant to animals those rights that they wish within a frame established by the Rights-Giver.  Any rights between the minimum (for example the admonition not to boil a kid in its mother’s milk) up to the maximum afforded humanity may be conferred.  The level is best defined by the actual demands of enlightened stewardship of the earth.

 

Holding Future Interests

 

This argument rests on very tenuous grounds.  First, it assumes a linkage between having future interests (usually connected in some convoluted fashion to sentience) and the possession of rights.  Second, it assumes that a future sense is extant in all non-human species as well as humans.  While the behavior of some animals may seem to imply a future sense, proximate cues to ultimate stimuli seem to be their driving force.  Caching food, migrating southward in the winter, or attentiveness at the nest by female birds may give the appearance of future sense and future interests.  In reality, they are responses to simple or complex assemblages of stimuli.  Many animals cache food in times of food abundance.  Searching behavior has a lower threshold for response than does consumption.  Satiated animals cache food as the consumptive act of their searching behavior.  Birds migrate southward in the fall in response to shortening day length, following winds and similar stimuli.  The fact that many young shorebirds do so in the complete absence of adults or any prior knowledge of the winter to come demonstrates that the behavior is an inherent part of their being.  Nesting birds can be induced to incubate many objects other than their own eggs.  The instinct is an inherent part of their makeup, not an evidence of rational future sense.

 

Even if a future sense is not required for this postulation of rights bearing, the argument faces grave difficulty in demonstrating support through the study of living things.  The right to life seems to exist only from event to event among the living, requiring a constant struggle to maintain it through striving for success (continuing to struggle) in the game of life.  It is only instantaneously that the right exists in natural systems, and possession of life in one instant does not carry an assurance of similar possession in the next one.  All animals are either eaters or eaten, living or dead, winners or losers in a constantly repetitive process.

 

Since there is general agreement that humans have some right to life, except for the debate over fetal rights, a human example might be illustrative.  Children and young adults may be viewed as having the greatest level of future interest.  In the course of our lives, however, both humans and non-humans kill both children and adults.  A child killed by fire ant stings, the bite of a rabid bat, venom from a rattlesnake, or an attack by a mountain lion (all low probability, but valid mortality factors) has been denied their future interests by another moral agent (at least in some minds).  Regardless of other values assigned, it is difficult to assign the notion of moral evil to any of these creatures.  Two of the species, the ants and the rattler, were operating in self-defense.  The bat was not under full control if its faculties because of the influence of the rabies virus on its central nervous system.  The cougar was seeking prey, as is its nature.  On the other hand, if another human being through deliberate action or neglect killed the child, the notion of moral evil is readily applied.  The denial of future interests is precisely the same in both cases.  The difference is the nature of the being responsible and the violation of the moral and ethical standards of human society.  In a self-defense situation, even the killing of a child is justified by both common law and criminal law if the behavior of the child purposefully endangered the life of another human.  In this situation, the child’s behavior could be regarded (regretfully) as a moral evil and the denial of their future rights could be regarded (again regretfully) as a moral good, even if the person whose life was spared by the action were a feeble octogenarian and the child a bright, healthy teen.  While future interest seems to be entangled to some degree with the concept of rights bearing, it seems to be more artifact than source.

 

Relativistic Arguments for Animal Rights

 

Many relativistic arguments for rights bearing have been proposed.  Most of them recognize that relative levels of value or rights bearing are implied or stated.  Some advocates sense no inconsistency in demanding an end to sport hunting while promoting the conversion of more habitat to human-dominated uses or even supporting the slaughter of livestock.

Adequate Alternatives Exist

This argument recognizes no intrinsic right to life.  It assigns levels of value or standing to other organisms and humans.  With either the dietary shift notion or the notion that livestock bred for use is a preferred choice over wildlife, the burden of death or killing is shifted to specialists within the society.  If it is unseen and without direct, personal participation, the moral evil is not recognized.  For the most part, these notions are based upon a static view of wildlife, an assumption of no impacts beyond the direct harvest of wild animals and a personal and arbitrary assignment of rank, standing, or value to species of choice.  In the vernacular, this argument is a cop out.  It fails to recognize humans for what they are and assumes that some creative process for food production that does not impact wildlife exists.  The lack of reality can be exposed very readily.

 

Depriving Others of Rightful Uses

 

Anti-hunting arguments based upon competing uses for the wildlife resources are based on a static notion of wildlife.  Individuals rather than populations or communities are seen as the focal point.  Death is a part of the life process.  No organic living thing is immortal.  The nature of reproduction and recruitment requires that substantial portions of most populations die in order to maintain a dynamic equilibrium.  Since reproduction exceeds the capacity for recruitment, and expendable surplus population exists.  Emigration is a viable alternative to death in a few cases, but in the vast majority of cases, emigrants that are successful in becoming established do so by displacing other individuals.  In saturated environments, displaced individuals usually die.  Turnover rates of 70 to 80 percent are common among smaller vertebrates.  Having a relatively high reproductive rate (r) is their strategy for survival.  These r-selected species tend to out-reproduce their predators.  Among larger ones he reproductive strategy might be to reduce the number of offspring to nearly match recruitment to mortality.  These K-selected species (K stands for carrying capacity) still may have the capacity to withstand annual turnovers of 50 percent or more.  Whitetail deer herds on good range, for example, have the capacity to double annually.

 

Recruitment rates are usually much lower than reproductive rates.  Consider an example based upon muskrat biology.  For convenience and realism (within the middle range of reported data), allow a single female to have three litters of six young during a summer breeding season.  Assume a 1:1 sex ratio in the young, and allow the three females from the first litter to reproduce before the end of the breeding season – each contributing a litter of six.  At the end of the breeding season, the original pair of muskrats (we had to have a male) has produced a total of 36 offspring (18 direct offspring + 18 offspring of females in the first litter), bringing the population to 38 individuals in the absence of mortality.  If the habitat demands a relatively fixed reduction to the previous, pre-breeding population size (2), 36 of those animals must emigrate or die.  The two survivors are adequate to produce a similar situation in the next year.  Even if only 20 percent of those individuals survive, a further reduction of 75 percent of the survivors (6 of 8) must be removed if the population is to remain stable.

The means of removal (death) is variable with a complex set of factors involved.  Accidents, natural disasters (e.g. flood, drought), parasitism, disease, starvation, and predation all take a toll.  Changes in one of those factors require compensation in other factors.  For example, if a major flood kills one entire litter of young and half the adults, the space and food available for the remainder is increased.  As a result, starvation or predation due to inadequate cover may decrease.  Total mortality remains relatively constant, but the source of that mortality changes.  Human predation (hunting) is part of that process.  The remaining animals are available for alternative uses.

 

Decent Death

 

The most difficult element in this argument is associated with the arbitrary definition of its terms.  “Decent” can mean anything that the individual elects to assign, and its definition may change over the course of the discussion.  Its notion that nature is kind or at least natural has been discussed above.  The simple biological truth is that death is a constant part of the natural order.  It takes many forms, some quick and violent, others lingering with suffering reduced at the end.  As a natural predator with an array of tools available, the human hunter is capable of effecting a quick and relatively painless death on the selected prey animal.  Relative to other predators, the duration of the killing is short and relatively painless.

 

One may argue that game animals have a more decent death than do domestic stock.  They retain their native genetic integrity, keeping their full adaptive array of traits.  They are able to live in natural habitat as free ranging individuals.  They exhibit normal behavior, including predator avoidance behavior, until they are killed.  The killing methods are designed to have immediate lethality.

Wounding and crippling losses are an inevitability in hunting.  These accidents are not desired or intended, but they will happen.  Hunter responsibility can minimize such losses and result in recovery and dispatching of most wounded animals within a very short time span.  Shock associated with the wound results in limited pain and mortally wounded animals usually can be recovered very quickly.  Those with sub-lethal crippling wounds usually are located and eaten by predators.  Animals with minor wounds, particularly those that are wounded with archery equipment, almost always recover fully.

 

Waste, in this context, lies only in the minds of people.  Ecological systems have no such mechanism.  Everything is used in some fashion, whether by predators, scavengers, decomposers, or plants, allowing the energy to pass through the system and the matter to be recycled.

Biological Balance and Change

 

Human predation has been a factor in the lives of wildlife for more than a million years.  The tools have changed.  Some of the reasons for hunting have changed.  The hunter has changed very little.  Humans have affected the population genetics of prey species by acting as a selective force for avoiding human predators.  Sometimes that has been very rapid, as in the development of the running habit in ring-necked pheasants.  Even in those situations, the impact on overall population genetics associated with other environmental challenges has been minimal.

 

Most wildlife is well adapted to withstand some predation loss.  Compensatory mortality has been discussed above, but some wildlife species show “compensatory” natality as well.  In these species, the birth rate is inversely proportional to the population size.  Recruitment rates often behave in a similar fashion.  While some wildlife must be managed to maintain environmental quality (usually these species are large and tolerant, like deer, elk, or elephants) and others must be managed to promote their survival (usually these are very intolerant species or isolated populations, like Key deer, golden-cheeked warbler or whooping crane), most species possess adequate tolerance and reproductive ability balanced by other controlling factors.  These species are among those that we can manage even though it is not a necessity.  Most game species fall in this category.  Management merely diverts some of the population surplus, which cannot be banked for later use, to human uses.

 

Management is more concerned with populations than it is with individuals.  The individuals are samples drawn from the genetic pool that is the population of the species.  Continuity is assured by taking portions of the population, generally at the time of year when habitat carrying capacity is declining.  Where random samples are drawn from the population and the number of individuals remaining in the breeding population is relatively large, the content of the gene pool should be impacted very little.  If sampling becomes non-random or populations are inadequate, directional change in the gene pool can take place.

 

One anti-hunting argument uses a limited set of studies to demonstrate that trophy hunting can alter the genetic material in deer populations.  The studies implied that intensive harvest of branched antlered bucks could result in increased proportions of spikes.  Extension of that observation to an implication of genetic inferiority in all traits is unjustified.  In fact, confounding features in the studies make it difficult to infer genetic inferiority in antler development, although that is theoretically possible under intense and very selective conditions.  Other studies have given evidence that results of intensive management for factors like antler development may disappear in as little as 8 to 10 generations, indicating that the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium in a large, freely reproducing population is very difficult to modify.  In part, this phenomenon is the result of post-breeding harvest, which creates a repository of genetic material.  In addition, management for trophy animals requires that a population be managed for an increased proportion of older animals.  That allows dominant, older animals to have preferential access to breeding and should, using the same logic applied above, result in enhancing the desired traits in the gene pool.

Labeling trophy hunting as an immoral activity depends upon waste of the non-trophy portion of the animal for general support.  It is important to note that both legal restrictions and fundamental hunter ethics demand that what is taken be used.  Trophies are physical reminders of hunts.  In that sense, they are little different from the hand print-signed pictures on cave walls.  Jackson and Norton, in their studies of hunter behavior, cite the trophy stage as the beginning of ethical hunting because it imposes personally defined pre-conditions on the taking of prey.  Certainly there are “trophy hunters” who are seeking status symbols, regardless of the hunt itself.  Recognize that fact, noting that only those who earn the name are worthy of the title.

 

Reducing Fitness

 

Confusion over the meaning of fitness adds fuel to this argument.  Removing the confusion by differentiating between physical fitness or comeliness and Darwinian fitness eliminates its influence for most people.  Darwinian fitness measures the relative proportions of genes in a source generation and the one that follows it.  The term may be used more loosely in some contexts, but it always refers to genetic contributions, not condition.  The argument rests on an assumption that hunters pick the best (“most fit”) individuals as prey, thereby removing their genetic codes from the population and reducing the population’s ability to survive.  The complex of genes providing the basic survival characteristics of the species is common in the gene pool and treated very conservatively.  The external characteristics used in selection criteria for discriminating hunters (most are not, but take the first legal animal) represent only a minute fraction of the genetic code, which may or may not give the animal a selective (breeding and survival) advantage.

 

One may argue the notion that human and non-human predators operate differently as well.  Well-adapted and well-conditioned predators are capable of taking their normal prey without any need of prey disability.  Disadvantaged prey (young, old, weakened, injured, sick, parasitized, or in difficult circumstances) are more likely to be taken by predators, illustrating the opportunistic nature of “prudent predators.”  Predators, who must kill to survive use any advantage.  Research on predators like mountain lions and gray foxes reveals that their hunting behavior is similar to that of human hunters.  Mountain lions, for example, tend to select large, prime mule deer as prey.  Gray foxes tend to spend most of their foraging time pursuing rabbits and mid-sized game birds, but small rodents are basic and easily taken prey taken at will.  The co-evolution of predator and prey is part of the struggle for existence.  Human predation becomes the dominating selection factor in the genetics of the prey species; it will not compete with other traits.  If anything, human predation tends to produce a prey animal better adapted to escape human predation.  In many species, this is an insignificant factor.  In others, it may have a substantial impact.

 

The notion that an animal may be more fit by dying than by continuing to live is clearly counter-intuitive, yet it is true.  An active and successful breeder that either exposes itself to predation or depletes its reserves to the point of starving or succumbing to disease is likely to make a greater contribution to the next generation’s gene pool than is an animal that restricts its reproductive behavior to conserve energy reserves or to avoid predation.  While the second animal may live longer, the first had greater fitness in the biological sense.

 

An additional and related area of confusion stems from the idea that decreasing population size can benefit the population.  Although it seems counter-intuitive, the validity of the concept can be illustrated easily.  Large, dominant, relatively non-migratory, habitat-impacting herbivores like deer, elk, and elephants are capable of damaging their habitat to the point of imposing relatively permanent reductions in carrying capacity.  Since the recovery rates of the habitat may be tens of thousands of times slower than the recovery rates of populations and extirpation of components may be permanent, population control is infinitely better than allowing the population to hit the habitat wall.

Population reductions can be helpful in other situations as well.  High densities of predators, like wolves, can impact prey populations to the point where recruitment is suppressed and attrition of adults prolongs recovery.  Where few alternative prey species exist, the predator population tends to follow fluctuations in prey populations with a time lag.  This can increase the amplitude of population cycles.  Reducing the predator load to permit greater recruitment and survivorship in the prey species (if predation is the primary determinant of those factors) can actually enhance or stabilize predator populations.

 

Reducing populations in the face parasitic or infectious disease can also have stabilizing impacts on populations.  For example, reducing the red fox population to the point where den sites that have been contaminated with sarcoptic mange mites are not visited for several weeks can reduce the impacts of this devastating parasite on the fox population.  The same thing might be noted for reducing the probability of infectious diseases like distemper.

 

Note that the influence is on the frequency or probability of disease epidemics, not on the control of epidemics once they are in progress.  Some anti-management groups frequently cite the National Centers for Disease Control stating that trapping (and by extension other population control measures) is ineffective in controlling epidemic fox-skunk rabies (and by extension, all other infectious diseases and parasite outbreaks).  The influence of behavior altering effects of the disease is one reason for this observation.  The extension of the statement to the potential for reducing the incidence or probability of such outbreaks seems to have little justification.

 

Hunting is a Threat to Wildlife

 

Regulated hunting is not a threat to the continued existence of wildlife species.  This fact has been demonstrated over a half-century of increasingly complex wildlife management.  In fact, regulated hunting creates a vested interest in wildlife by a segment of human society.  Noted ecologist and environmental activist, Paul Ehrlich, once said that, “if bald eagles were good to eat or came readily to decoys, they would not be endangered.”  He went on to note that the presence of a group with vested interests in the survival of the species tended to act as a buffer against serious depletion of the species and its habitat.  If one wishes to continue hunting a species, an automatic requirement for stewardship of the species and those environmental components it depends upon is minimal.

 

A second argument in this group states that wildlife management only benefits game species and is a detriment to non-game species.  In fact, since the primary means of enhancing wildlife populations is to manipulate habitat, all species that use that habitat are benefited as a group.  Single species management is nearly an impossibility and seldom desirable even when it might be feasible.  Hunters are either directly or indirectly responsible for successful management programs for a wide variety of species that are not hunted; including recovery of several endangered or threatened species and reintroductions of extirpated species.  This list includes the osprey, bald eagle, American alligator, Kirtland’s warbler, and the whooping crane, among others.

 

Potential impacts on endangered species are also cited as negative points to hunting.  Secondary lead poisoning of several bald eagles feeding on dead waterfowl is a real example.  An isolated incident has been addressed with the requirement for using steel shot on waterfowl.  Incidents of endangered species being shot are not hunting mistakes, but the action of wildlife vandals.  Hunters deplore these actins and strongly support strong law enforcement and penalties for these vandals.  Dr. Tom Cade, leader of the Peregrine Fund and a pioneer in backing endangered raptors, concluded that shootings of peregrines and eagles were the deliberate acts of “nuts” not casual killing by misguided or ignorant hunters.  The endangered species list shows species that were commercially hunted or fished to economic extinction, species with high black market value, species with rare and highly specialized requirements, species that are in the twilight of their evolutionary specialization, relict populations, species severely impacted by the effects of human population and domestication of the landscape, and species that are harmed by over-population of competitors or dominant, landscape changing wildlife.  Pointing fingers at other factions while the species continue to decline is an invitation to disaster, and the tactic of filing lawsuits to make political points dilutes the time available for professionals to do their work as well as diverting management funds for legal fees.  The same might be said of efforts to prolong and litigate management proposals and accompanying environmental impact statements (EIS).

 

Hunters have been and continue to be conservation leaders.  Aside from providing a voice for wildlife, hunters have an outstanding record of putting their money where their mouths are.  The vast majority of all wildlife management is accomplished through license sales, stamp purchases, and special taxes on arms and ammunition that were promoted by hunters themselves.  Additional funding comes through voluntary contributions, either personally or through the actions of private wildlife organizations.  Some of them, like the National Wildlife Federation, Ducks Unlimited, Quail Unlimited, The National Wild Turkey Federation, Pheasants Forever, The Ruffed Grouse Society, Whitetails Unlimited, and many others, are national and may be specialized in scope.  Others, like the Hunter Education Association, are international.  Many more are state or local.  All of them have a positive impact on wildlife.  Many hunters go beyond their purse strings to their time and sweat.  They get involved in personal or group efforts to improve wildlife habitat, assist with management efforts, or support wildlife law enforcement.  They also monitor the status of wildlife where they are, providing more eyes and ears for management agencies or supplying information to state or federal management agencies.

 

The notion that wildlife managers work for hunters is seldom justifiable.  Wildlife managers generally define “wildlife” extremely broadly and most are very uncomfortable with the artificially defined split between “game” and “non-game” programs.  Managers must think beyond their titles (small game biologist, deer program leader, bear biologist, endangered species program leader…) to communities and ecological regions to develop effective program plans.  Their profession is extremely demanding educationally, requiring a combination of ecological, management, and human relations curricula.  They seldom please everyone and often are unable to please anyone in their constituency, but most attempt to do what they see as best in “the art and science of manipulating populations and the habitats they depend upon to achieve societal goals.”  Most positions pay rather poorly for the level of training and responsibility required, but wildlife managers are strongly committed to their profession and its objectives.

 

The wildlife management profession has an enviable track record of success.  Such common species as white-tailed deer, pronghorns, wood ducks, wild turkeys, elk, and beaver have been re-established or brought back to acceptable levels by management efforts.  Others have been reclaimed from the endangered species list, including trumpeter swans, alligators, ospreys, brown pelicans, and peregrine falcons.  Still others have been maintained against strong odds, including Kirtland’s warbler, whooping cranes, Indiana bats, Attwater’s prairie chicken, and snail darters (among others) with continuing hope that their status can be upgraded.  The young profession has changed a great deal and in continuing to evolve.  This change has been driven more from the inside of the profession and its maturation than from the outside pressures and agitation for special interests.

 

Misinterpreting Predator Avoidance

 

Predator avoidance involves a suite of adaptations.  Some of the behaviors or actions that take place may give the appearance of human emotive responses.  These behaviors or physiological changes take many forms.  Some permit the animal to avoid detection.  Many animals freeze, crouch, or flatten into the cover when a predator is detected.  These animals are not “frozen in terror.”  They are using their disruptive or camouflage patterns to full advantage.  Being completely still forces the predator to use edge-detecting vision rather than movement-detecting vision to locate prey.  Waiting until the predator is very close before exploding into flight is not “fleeing in panic.”  It is an excellent means of startling a potential predator and gaining the advantage of the momentary surprise.  Wariness (constant testing for predators) is long-range predator avoidance.  It does not imply “anxiety” or “fear,” but gives evidence that selection has favored the development of a cautious nature in prey species.  When flight from the predator does not hold high potential for success, most animals will turn to fight in some fashion.  This may be resorting to tooth, beak, claw, spur, or wings.  It may start with menacing acts, such as baring teeth, hissing, spreading the wings, raising a clawed foot, or erecting the hair.  It may include warnings, like the rattle of a rattlesnake or the coloration of a striped skunk.  It may merely make the animal look too large to eat, like toads puffing up with air.  These are not acts of “bravery.”  They are defensive mechanisms with a history of aiding animals in their survival.  Attaching human thought processes and emotions goes beyond the limits of what is known to inductive assignment of anthropomorphic characters.

 

Impacts on the Human Character

 

The allegation of negative impacts on the human character is based upon ignorance of hunter motivations, satisfactions, and characteristics.  Direct participation with wildlife has positive impacts on people as well as their treatment of the environment.  Direct involvement tends to increase the level of interest, knowledge and personal involvement with environmental stewardship.  This includes having a sense of personal responsibility and impact on environmental issues.  That sense of empowerment relieves stress and frustration over environmental concerns while the involvement with living things increases the appreciation of living things.

 

Hunting provides atavistic linkages to human history.  Many hunters experience a deep feeling of satisfaction in providing food for themselves or their families by using ancient skills under controlled conditions.  Serving the hunter-gatherer within by participation in hunting provides both stress relief and tangible rewards that have real, direct value to the individual.

 

Hunting provides a forum for ethical development.  Choices to live up to or deny one’s ethics are made without audiences, referees or threat of litigation.  They are simply choices one faces, often instantaneously, in the course of a hunt.  Personal decision making in that atmosphere has the potential to impact personal ethics either positively or negatively, as does every other personal and private decision with an ethical connotation.  Hunting also involves long periods of intense concentration of the task at hand with ample opportunity to think, reflect and ponder.  This provides mental refreshment and renewal.

 

The issue of taking pleasure in killing is extremely complicated.  Unlike fishing, hunting dies not permit “catch and release” except by “counting coup” on animals that are not taken.  Reducing the animal to possession is the consumptive act in hunting.  Killing is a necessary element in reducing the object of the chase to possession.  Ortega was right in his assessment of the role of killing in the hunt.  The potential must be there in order to have truly hunted.  In addition, the process of making a good, clean kill or a difficult shot can bring pleasure.  In this instance, the pleasure is derived from the exercise of skills and equipment.  The kill was an element in that process but not the object of the pleasure.  Killing per se is not the object of enjoyment, but the potential to make a kill is an essential element of the hunt.  If it were the object, killing would be more easily and profitably “enjoyed” by working in a slaughterhouse.  Shooting would be more easily and consistently enjoyed on a range.  The time spent not shooting and not killing, the time spent hunting, is the essence or the hunt.

 

When hunters are asked to list the motivations and satisfactions related to hunting a long list develops.  Active involvement with nature, satisfying atavistic needs, recreation and renewal, stress relief, renewing ancient skills, using equipment, seeing wildlife and many other motivating factors are listed.  Killing things does not show up on the list.

 

Danger to Human Life and Property

 

The danger to human life and property involved with hunting is grossly exaggerated.  Fear of firearms is a different, but related, issue.  Firearms are only as dangerous as their users.  Safety training has been extremely effective, reducing accidents by one or two orders of magnitude, from as many as 100 per million man-days of hunting to levels of 3 to 4 per million man-days.  That makes hunting much safer than many common and non-threatening activities.  It is safer than taking a bath, safer than tennis, safer than any team sport, and much safer than boating or driving a car.  In heavily populated states with intense hunting pressure, it is safer to hunt than to go to a concert or a college athletic event.  For example, I calculated that it was approximately 80 to 100 times safer to hunt deer in the northern tier of New York (hunter densities of about 35 hunters per square mile) than to attend a Cornell University hockey game with respect to being injured or killed.  One hunting accident is one too many, but the notion that hunting is extremely dangerous does not coincide with the data we currently have.

Both conservation law and hunter education have contributed to this safety record for both hunters and non-hunters.  Safety zones and discharge laws move firearms discharge outside the immediate vicinity of dwellings and away from areas of human travel.  Courses in hunter education, mandatory in most of North America, provide a minimum level of basic safety knowledge.  Site and time restrictions as well as equipment restrictions reduce the potential for mental errors or inadvertent injury.  Clothing regulations have aided in hunter visibility (although this is not a panacea).  The most important contribution to the safety of hunting is personal responsibility and constant learning by the participants.  Responsible use of sporting arms is one of the best ways to keep them from becoming weapons.

 

Hunting as Sport

 

Hunting is not a sport in the same sense that football and softball are sports.  Those athletic contests are paralleled by competitive shooting games.  Equality between the teams is promoted by rules and regulations that are enforced by officials on the field.  Hunting is not a competitive event.  It does not require equality of risk or potential for injury.  It is a sport only in the sense that sport or recreational hunting is a recreational activity with certain rules and ethics that were devised by people to govern their own actions.  It embodies the concept of fair chase with no requirement of equality between predator and prey.  Exercising self-control and restraint are key elements.  The sport lies in matching survival skills (wariness, speed, sensory perception, knowledge of terrain) against the skills of the hunter in locating and approaching game, using equipment effectively and exercising self-control in the field.  As a contest of skills, it qualifies as sport.  As a contest with rules and guidelines, it qualifies as sport.  As quality recreation, it qualifies as sport.  The concept of sport hunting came into being to differentiate between the recreational and commercial forms of a common activity, just as the terms sport and commercial fishing are used.

 

The Best Defense is a Good Offense

 

Anti-hunting groups have tended to take the offensive in the past, publishing or stating their objections to hunting and challenging proponents to respond.  Unfortunately, this resulted in many years of defensive behavior by hunters.  Those defensive behaviors have ranged from ignoring the arguments to justifying hunting on management grounds – meeting emotion with data.  This response has been only modestly effective.  Explaining or interpreting hunting is a much better approach.  It is pro-active and positive, and it forces the opposition to defend their statements in response.  In this case, the best defense is an outstanding offense.  Hunters must learn to interpret their sport for themselves and challenge their opposite number to defend their points of view.

 

Avenues of discussion must be expanded as well.  Meeting with school, club or youth groups is one means of creating a positive image for hunting.  Keep in mind that effective programs for these types of groups need to share a few characteristics.  First, keep them relatively short, particularly if they are associated with dinners, lunches or similar occasions.  Next, make sure that your information is factual with appropriate documentation available.  Third, make a concerted effort to keep the program interesting.  Keeping it active and moving along helps, as do visual aids that are designed for effect.  Fourth, make sure the content is informative.  It is easy to hold interest if people are learning something.  Finally, remember that any program contains an element of entertainment as well as information.  Practice using a style of presentation that helps people learn and maintain interest by anticipating what will be said or done.  Your purpose is to teach.  Your approach is to keep the message light, positive and exciting.  Limit yourself to a few main points, particularly with kids.  They will only remember a little of what is shared, so make sure your program drives home the point you want to make most effectively.

 

Be prepared completely and thoroughly.  Remember that planning and preparation time should increase as the time for a presentation decreases.  A one-minute presentation may take several hours to perfect.  Spend the time up front.  You do not have any time during the presentation.

 

Promote a positive image.  Watch your dress and language.  People are most comfortable when the barriers between them and the speaker are minimal.  Over-dressing can be as damaging as under-dressing for your presentation.  Foul language or denigrating other people damages your image and your message.  Finally, select any illustrations carefully and with an eye to the image they promote.  Shots of people, dogs and wildlife are easier to handle than a traditional happy hunter – dead, glassy-eyed deer shot.  If the headshot is needed, make sure it is clean with the mouth closed and tongue in the mouth.  Stage your “prop” shots carefully to make the image as clean as possible.  Remember, you are talking to non-hunters who are willing to make up their minds either way.

 

Get involved in non-hunting groups and organizations like church groups, civic clubs, community service clubs and hobby groups (gardening clubs, birding groups, etc.).  It helps you meet other people who are non-hunters.  Discuss your hunting interests only as others show an interest or as opportunities to have one-on-one discussions present themselves.  By being active, involved and responsible you are showing the membership of those other groups that “hunters” must be normal people.  Knowing you personally makes it difficult to accept false statements about you or the things you seem to enjoy.  Your involvement must be honest.  Any attempt to infiltrate a group to influence it will merely injure your cause.