Suburbanization, animal rights, newcomers -- these and other social trends have Vermont's hunting culture on the run. In this special report, veteran field-and-stream journalist Matt Crawford examines what will be lost, why there might be hope and why even those who don't hunt should care. |
By Matt Crawford Can Localvores Save Hunting? "We're only ever going to have a certain percentage of people who hunt," said Eric Nuse, of Johnson, executive director of Orion–The Hunter's Institute, a national nonprofit that encourages ethical and responsible hunting. "With this new wave of back-to-earthers being spearheaded by people concerned about the origins of their food, we just might appeal a bit to those who will consider hunting." |
Showing posts with label Orion-The Hunter's Institute. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Orion-The Hunter's Institute. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
[Hunters] Endangered Species
The policy and politics behind Pete the Moose
WCAXhttp://www.wcax.com/story/15715058/the-policy-and-politics-behind-pete-the-moose
... you have to step back and say, wait a minute-- what are the bigger implications," Eric Nuse of Orion Hunters' Institute said February 2011. ...
... you have to step back and say, wait a minute-- what are the bigger implications," Eric Nuse of Orion Hunters' Institute said February 2011. ...
Friday, July 8, 2011
Orion updates
Dear readers,
Sorry for the lack of posts this last month. I've been on the road - canoeing in Quebec, fishing in Vermont and Montana and sight seeing in Washington.
The Montana trip included an Orion board meeting and meetings with the good folks at the Rocky Mountain Elk foundation and the National Wildlife Federation. Best of all was time talking and working with Jim Posewitz. He has taken on what he is billing as his "last fight". It is a project to repopulate a 3 million acre area with wild buffalo. The goal is to have an intact ecosystem with all the native wildlife present from buffalo to sandhill cranes. People are included as in hunters and fishers. More on this as the project moves forward.
Hopw you are all having a good summer...
Eric
Sorry for the lack of posts this last month. I've been on the road - canoeing in Quebec, fishing in Vermont and Montana and sight seeing in Washington.
The Montana trip included an Orion board meeting and meetings with the good folks at the Rocky Mountain Elk foundation and the National Wildlife Federation. Best of all was time talking and working with Jim Posewitz. He has taken on what he is billing as his "last fight". It is a project to repopulate a 3 million acre area with wild buffalo. The goal is to have an intact ecosystem with all the native wildlife present from buffalo to sandhill cranes. People are included as in hunters and fishers. More on this as the project moves forward.
Hopw you are all having a good summer...
Eric
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Outdoors: Bill protects Pete the Moose, Vermont's wildlife
Hallelujah! Pete the Moose is saved once again! Only this time, the good news is legislators were actually more concerned about protecting Vermont's wildlife and democratic hunting tradition than they were one misbegotten bull.
Conceding that he and other lawmakers made a mistake last year, Gov. Peter Shumlin signed into law Wednesday legislation that nullifies an amendment a few legislators put into the annual appropriations bill in the final hours of the 2010 session. That amendment stripped the state Fish and Wildlife Department of its authority to regulate a so-called "captive hunting facility" in Irasburg and, worse, it essentially transferred ownership of Pete and scores of other native moose and white-tailed deer trapped in the facility to its owner. He was then free to sell them to the highest rifle-toting bidder, despite a state Fish and Wildlife Board rule crafted with legislative oversight and considerable public input that forbids having native deer in a captive facility for wildlife health reasons.
The bill the governor signed Wednesday, H.91, not only overturned those provisions, but it also goes two significant steps further: It mandates that, with the exception of Pete, all the moose and whitetails in the high-fence facility be killed within three years, which is the only way to ensure that infectious diseases spread by non-native elk and red deer do not enter native populations; and it set in law once and for all that, "the fish and wildlife of Vermont are held in trust by the state for the benefit of the citizens of Vermont and shall not be reduced to private ownership."
That the 2010 law was nullified so quickly is a tribute to Shumlin and many other legislators, who openly regretted being duped by a "Save Pete the Moose" campaign that benefitted the owner of the Irasburg facility more than it did one photogenic moose -- a moose that was not only illegally taken from the wild, it somehow conveniently became a social media darling.
Credit also goes to Fish and Wildlife commissioner Patrick Berry and House Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources Committee clerk Kate Webb, D-Shelburne, who shepherded H.91 through the Legislature. And last but not least, kudos go to the many hunters and other wildlife advocates who worked since last summer to have the 2010 law overturned.
Ironically, what a few legislators surreptitiously did last year for the benefit of one private landowner in the end actually helped safeguard the health and public ownership of all wildlife."It was a bad law done badly, with all the last-minute, backroom stuff," said Eric Nuse of Johnson, a retired game warden who helped organize a coalition of hunting and environmental groups in support of H.91. "That made it a lot easier for legislators and other folks to get behind a good bill, even if it means killing some deer and moose that got trapped behind a fence through no fault of their own."
Read full articlehttp://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20110605/COLUMNISTS01/106050327/1050/COLUMNISTS/Outdoors-Bill-protects-Pete-Moose-Vermont-s-wildlife?odyssey=mod|homepromo|4
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
VT Gov. Shumlin Signs Wildlife Act
Measure will clarify that fish and wildlife are public resource
MONTPELIER -- Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin signed H.91 today, a bill passed by the Vermont Legislature clarifying that fish and wildlife of Vermont are a public, not private, resource.
“I want to thank our Legislature for passing this bill clearly stating that the fish and wildlife of Vermont are held in trust by the state for the benefit of the citizens of Vermont and that these resources shall not be reduced to private ownership,” said Gov. Shumlin. “It also helps reduce the possibility that our fish and wildlife could be harmed by diseases from outside Vermont.”
The bill says, “The State of Vermont, in its sovereign capacity as a trustee for the citizens of the state, shall have ownership, jurisdiction and control of all the fish and wildlife of Vermont.”
It goes on to say that the Commissioner of Fish and Wildlife shall manage and regulate the fish and wildlife of Vermont in accordance with legislation and rules of the Fish and Wildlife Board.
Resolving a long-standing issue regarding a captive herd of white-tailed deer and moose in Irasburg, the bill charges the Fish and Wildlife Board with adopting a regulated process through which the number of the animals will be brought to zero over a three-year period. It also requires that the deer and moose be examined for disease during the process, and it protects a moose known as Pete, while authorizing the relocation of that moose to another facility.
Vermont Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Patrick Berry applauded the diverse coalition of individuals and organizations passionate about fish and wildlife resources who came together to support the bill. “I want to thank the broad cross-section of Vermonters who worked tirelessly to help pass this bill. The collaborative effort shows our strong and unfailing appreciation of Vermont’s fish and wildlife, and it should serve as a model for future efforts,” said Berry. “As a result, these resources will be managed by the Fish and Wildlife Department for the benefit of current and future generations of Vermonters.”
Friday, March 11, 2011
H.91 Restoring the Public Trust of Wildlife passes out of committee 7-2 in favor
Future of Pete the Moose unclear
The Vermont House Fish and Wildlife Committee voted 7-2 Thursday to require an Irasburg game-hunting park to eliminate within five years all the wild white-tailed deer and moose mixed in with its imported elk. The park is home to Pete the Moose, who could possibly die of natural causes before the deadline or be moved to another location.
....
Last year’s measure essentially gave Nelson ownership of wild deer and moose, and he planned to sell the right to hunt the trophy animals.Uproar ensued. Vermont sportsmen argued that the 2010 law violated the longstanding legal tradition that wild animals are held in trust by the government for all the people of the state. They urged lawmakers to re-establish that principle. They also want the whitetails and moose killed for fear they could spread disease if they escape.
“The most important element in the bill is that it affirms that wildlife is owned by all Vermonters, not just one person,” Berry said. [Commissioner of VT Fish and Wildlife Dept Pat Berry]
Lewis, one of those who voted no on the bill, agreed.
“They belong to the people of Vermont,” he said. Nelson is one of Lewis’ constituents.
read full article
From the AP:
Vt. House panel works on wildlife bill
NECN
Now the House Fish and Wildlife Committee is drafting a bill that would reverse that action and clarify that Vermont's wild animals are a public trust owned by all residents of the state. But the panel is still debating a provision that would have the ...
See all stories on this topic »
Friday, February 11, 2011
Tester announces members of MT Sportsmen’s Caucus advisory group
From the Clark Fork Chronicle
Congratulations to Orion board members Gayle and Randy!
Thursday, February 10 2011 @ 10:19 AM MST
19 Montanans on panel ‘come from all walks of life’by Andrea Helling
Senator Jon Tester today announced members of the Montana Sportsmen’s Advisory Panel, a group of sportsmen and women from across Montana who will provide input to Tester in his new role as the Chairman of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus.
Tester’s 19-member panel of Montanans will share their experiences as men and women actively engaged in hunting, fishing and other outdoor activities. Tester plans to use the group’s input to craft legislation aimed at protecting Montana’s and America’s outdoor heritage.
Tester plans to focus the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus on working to strengthen gun rights, remove wolves from the endangered species list, improve access to public land, and fight for clean water and healthy wildlife.
“Montanans grow up surrounded by the many outdoor recreational opportunities our state has to offer and we learn from an early age that it is also our job to make sure we strengthen that heritage for our kids and grandkids,” Tester said. “The Montanans on this panel come from all walks of life, and all of them are experts in working together to make sure the next generation has the opportunities to hunt, fish, camp and hike. I look forward to their advice on how we can move forward legislation to protect Montana’s rich outdoor heritage.”
....The following Montana hunters, anglers and outdoor enthusiasts will be part of Tester’s Montana Sportsmen’s Advisory Panel:
Gayle Joslin is a wildlife biologist and worked for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks for 30 years. She is the secretary and founding board member of Orion—The Hunters Institute. Gayle is also the Issues Chair for the Helena Hunters and Anglers Association, an affiliate of the Montana Wildlife Federation. She has conducted Hunter Education Wildlife Identification courses and has taught riflery at Becoming an Outdoors Woman seminars.
...Randy Newberg currently is the host and producer of the critically acclaimed outdoor show On Your Own Adventures, a show focused on teaching hunters how to hunt on public lands, without guides. Newberg has been a committee chairman and board member for many conservation groups. He is currently Treasurer and past President of Orion the Hunters Institute. He is a co-founder of a local rod and gun club, Headwaters Fish and Game Association in Bozeman.
...Land Tawney is a 5th generation Montana who grew up with a fly rod and gun in hand. He served as the president of Hellgate Hunters and Anglers and Senior Manager of Sportsmen's leadership for the National Wildlife Federation. In addition he chairs the Private Land/Public Wildlife Council and serves as vice chair of the Phil Tawney Hunter Conservation Endowment.
...
Bill Geer has been a Fish and Wildlife professional for 38 years. He started as a project biologist on Georgetown Lake for fisheries research in 1973 for the Montana Fish and Game Department. In 1984, Geer became the Director of the Utah division of Wildlife Resources. Geer currently works at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, is a board member of Hellgate Hunters and Anglers, and is a Community Councilman in Lolo.
read the full article
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
VT Lawmakers Look To Reverse 'Pete The Moose" Law
The Public Trust of Wildlife got a boost today here in Vermont. Both the Burlington Free Press and Vermont Public Radio had feature pieces on a new bill designed to repeal the "Nelson Amendment" that passed in the 11th hour last year that gave control of native deer and moose to the operator of a shooting park in Irasburg. When the give-a-way of our public property became known, Orion began a campaign to educate Vermonters about the public trust doctrine. Using several papers commissioned by Orion in an earlier fight in Montana, it soon was clear to hunters and many legislators that this amendment was in violation of hundreds of years of common law and case law.
We then convened a meeting of the hunter/conservation leaders and legislators to craft a coordinated plan for reversing the damage and restoring the public trust of wildlife. Representative Kate Webb and Fish and Wildlife Committee chair David Deen crafted a draft bill. After input from the group at our second meeting the bill was finalized. With over 30 sponsors and the support of Governor Elect Peter Shumlin, it appears there is a good chance it will pass. However, the owner of Big Rack Ridge is unlikely to return ownership of "his" deer and moose to the citizens without a fight.
From Vermont Public Radio:
A bill already in draft form restates the longstanding principle that wild animals belong to all people of Vermont. It requires the wild deer and moose trapped inside Doug Nelson’s elk hunting park to be removed, probably through hunting. It also allows for protection of young Pete the Moose, an orphaned resident of the park.
Read More
We then convened a meeting of the hunter/conservation leaders and legislators to craft a coordinated plan for reversing the damage and restoring the public trust of wildlife. Representative Kate Webb and Fish and Wildlife Committee chair David Deen crafted a draft bill. After input from the group at our second meeting the bill was finalized. With over 30 sponsors and the support of Governor Elect Peter Shumlin, it appears there is a good chance it will pass. However, the owner of Big Rack Ridge is unlikely to return ownership of "his" deer and moose to the citizens without a fight.
From Vermont Public Radio:
AP/Toby Talbot
Pete the moose eats leaves in a tree in Irasburg, Vt., Thursday, July 30, 2009.
Incoming Governor Peter Shumlin and other legislators are hoping to reverse a law that went into effect this year that ended up giving the owner of an elk hunting park custody of all the wild moose and deer on the property--including Pete the Moose. Burlington Free Press reporter Candace Page discusses the potential change to the law, and how it would impact Pete the Moose.
From the Burlington Free Press:
Vermont lawmakers set to reverse 'Pete the Moose' law
By Candace Page, Free Press Staff Writer • Monday, December 20, 2010
Key lawmakers and Gov.-elect Peter Shumlin are ready to reverse a 2010 law drafted in secret and passed at the 11th hour that gave an Northeast Kingdom farmer ownership of wild deer and moose on his property, an action that provoked an outcry among hunters.
Key lawmakers and Gov.-elect Peter Shumlin are ready to reverse a 2010 law drafted in secret and passed at the 11th hour that gave an Northeast Kingdom farmer ownership of wild deer and moose on his property, an action that provoked an outcry among hunters.Read More
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Honor the hunt by hunting with honor
We have had some discussion amongst the Orion board about having a “tagline” or a slogan to fix in people’s minds when they think of Orion. One candidate is the title of this post: “Honor the hunt by hunting with honor.”
Some of us like this line, some don’t. Advantages include the connotations with fair chase, respect for game animals and for the sport of hunting, and promoting the positive idea of “honorable behavior” or hunting honorably when no one is looking.
Negative reactions have focused on the aristocratic connotations of the term “honor.” As in “Your honor” and deference to high rank.
Although some our board members are sensitive to the negative connotations of “honor,” they argue that allowing some interpretation of what it means to hunt with honor isn't necessarily a bad thing. They point out that to some people honor will mean respecting the animal, to others it may mean respecting other hunters and landowners, and being true to their own value system.
To me, honor as an ethical term carries more positive than negative associations. When we speak of an honorable person, we think approvingly of an honest and trustworthy individual who is able to follow his/her convictions and act with integrity. In this way, honor and integrity function as moral virtues. “He is a man of honor and therefore will keep his word.”
In one of the few sustained book-length works on the topic, Honor, anthropologist Frank Henderson Stewart argues that honor is best understood as a right to respect. This interpretation, too, has certain advantages to hunters. Ethical hunters command the respect of their fellow hunters. At the same time ethical hunters ask that society extend the same respect to them and to ethical hunting.
Stewart reviews the range of meanings that includes the idea of honor as a moral virtue. He cites a famous passage by the Renaissance humanist François Rabelais that captures the essence of this meaning: “Free people, well-born, well-instructed, conversing in good company, have by nature an instinct and a spur that always impels them to virtuous behavior and restrains them from vice: they call it honor.”
For hunters, the Rabelaisian meaning is analogous: Ethical hunters, well-brought up, well-instructed, surrounded by a supportive hunting community, have instinctively a trait that always impels them to ethical hunting behavior and restrains them from its opposite: that trait is honor.
Or we might think in terms of sportsmanship. Sportsmen do not take advantage of the animal, rather they give it. Fair chase is all about giving every possible advantage to the animal within the limits of the hunter’s own individual abilities and skill level. The novice hunter begins on a more level playing field than the expert; the expert accordingly restricts his advantage over the game with ever more restrictive techniques, including stricter rules, less efficient technologies, and voluntary restraint. The advanced deer hunter may forego the gun for a bow, impose antler restrictions on himself, and hunt only by stalking his prey on the ground rather than using a tree stand. Each of these voluntary, self-imposed choices confer advantage to the animal while removing advantages from the hunter.
These voluntary choices are born of respect for the game animal, but they are also in an important sense born out of respect for the hunt itself. Hunting does not take place in a cultural vacuum, but instead occurs within an ongoing historical tradition that identifies the moral bounds of honorable and ethical hunting.
Fair chase is sportsmanship, therefore, in an important sense. Honorable fair chase hunting is hunting with honor, but fair chase hunting is also deserving of honor—that is, the honorable fair chase hunter is someone who has earned the right to society’s respect.
I believe this is the image of hunting that Orion the Hunter’s Institute wants to communicate and promote. We should embrace the fact that the ethical hunter deserves respect.
We should embrace the fact that the ethical hunter deserves a kind of “deference to high rank.” After all, the ethical hunter who holds to a high standard of fair chase is truly elite, in the best sense of the word.
We should embrace the fact that the ethical hunter is worthy of our respect and deference both. In the same way that we defer to skill and knowledge in other contexts—dentists and doctors come to mind—we should hold up the example of good hunters as models to follow. We can and should defer to the experience of skilled hunters, and we should hold their hunting knowledge in the high esteem it deserves.
In this way, Orion the Hunter’s Institute can promote a vision of admittedly elite hunting, and of elite hunters. Why wouldn’t we? Elite hunters, that is to say, who honor the hunt by hunting with honor.
Some of us like this line, some don’t. Advantages include the connotations with fair chase, respect for game animals and for the sport of hunting, and promoting the positive idea of “honorable behavior” or hunting honorably when no one is looking.
Negative reactions have focused on the aristocratic connotations of the term “honor.” As in “Your honor” and deference to high rank.
Although some our board members are sensitive to the negative connotations of “honor,” they argue that allowing some interpretation of what it means to hunt with honor isn't necessarily a bad thing. They point out that to some people honor will mean respecting the animal, to others it may mean respecting other hunters and landowners, and being true to their own value system.
To me, honor as an ethical term carries more positive than negative associations. When we speak of an honorable person, we think approvingly of an honest and trustworthy individual who is able to follow his/her convictions and act with integrity. In this way, honor and integrity function as moral virtues. “He is a man of honor and therefore will keep his word.”
In one of the few sustained book-length works on the topic, Honor, anthropologist Frank Henderson Stewart argues that honor is best understood as a right to respect. This interpretation, too, has certain advantages to hunters. Ethical hunters command the respect of their fellow hunters. At the same time ethical hunters ask that society extend the same respect to them and to ethical hunting.
Stewart reviews the range of meanings that includes the idea of honor as a moral virtue. He cites a famous passage by the Renaissance humanist François Rabelais that captures the essence of this meaning: “Free people, well-born, well-instructed, conversing in good company, have by nature an instinct and a spur that always impels them to virtuous behavior and restrains them from vice: they call it honor.”
For hunters, the Rabelaisian meaning is analogous: Ethical hunters, well-brought up, well-instructed, surrounded by a supportive hunting community, have instinctively a trait that always impels them to ethical hunting behavior and restrains them from its opposite: that trait is honor.
Or we might think in terms of sportsmanship. Sportsmen do not take advantage of the animal, rather they give it. Fair chase is all about giving every possible advantage to the animal within the limits of the hunter’s own individual abilities and skill level. The novice hunter begins on a more level playing field than the expert; the expert accordingly restricts his advantage over the game with ever more restrictive techniques, including stricter rules, less efficient technologies, and voluntary restraint. The advanced deer hunter may forego the gun for a bow, impose antler restrictions on himself, and hunt only by stalking his prey on the ground rather than using a tree stand. Each of these voluntary, self-imposed choices confer advantage to the animal while removing advantages from the hunter.
These voluntary choices are born of respect for the game animal, but they are also in an important sense born out of respect for the hunt itself. Hunting does not take place in a cultural vacuum, but instead occurs within an ongoing historical tradition that identifies the moral bounds of honorable and ethical hunting.
Fair chase is sportsmanship, therefore, in an important sense. Honorable fair chase hunting is hunting with honor, but fair chase hunting is also deserving of honor—that is, the honorable fair chase hunter is someone who has earned the right to society’s respect.
I believe this is the image of hunting that Orion the Hunter’s Institute wants to communicate and promote. We should embrace the fact that the ethical hunter deserves respect.
We should embrace the fact that the ethical hunter deserves a kind of “deference to high rank.” After all, the ethical hunter who holds to a high standard of fair chase is truly elite, in the best sense of the word.
We should embrace the fact that the ethical hunter is worthy of our respect and deference both. In the same way that we defer to skill and knowledge in other contexts—dentists and doctors come to mind—we should hold up the example of good hunters as models to follow. We can and should defer to the experience of skilled hunters, and we should hold their hunting knowledge in the high esteem it deserves.
In this way, Orion the Hunter’s Institute can promote a vision of admittedly elite hunting, and of elite hunters. Why wouldn’t we? Elite hunters, that is to say, who honor the hunt by hunting with honor.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Who Owns North America’s Wildlife?
The following article was put together by an Orion board member:
The answer to “who owns wildlife?” differs greatly in the United States and Canada from the rest of the world. In North America wildlife does not belong to individuals. Instead it belongs to everyone with federal, state and provincial governments responsible for managing wildlife on public land. However, this bedrock principle is being tested in Vermont now.
In the final days of Vermont’s 2010 legislative session, language known as the Nelson amendment was inserted in the appropriations bill (H.789 Sec E.702.1), which changed the status of native deer and moose enclosed on a captive shooting facility from the public domain to private ownership.
This legislation was reportedly passed to save a celebrity game preserve moose known as Pete from being culled. Rules governing captive-hunting facilities were adopted by Vermont’s Fish and Wildlife Board, and stipulated game preserves could not have any moose or white-tailed deer in their enclosures as way to protect wild herds from chronic wasting disease, tuberculosis and other diseases carried by captive animals.
The Nelson Amendment of H.789 contains language that transfers regulatory authority of illegally taken native deer and moose from the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department to the Vermont Department of Agriculture and permits an individual citizen to own and profit from those wild animals that rightfully belong to all Vermont citizens.
Several groups are up in arms over this threat to public ownership of wildlife including Orion-The Hunters’ Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to upholding hunting by providing intellectual leadership on hunting-related issues.
“This giveaway of public wildlife resources to a single individual for personal gain threatens wildlife management in Vermont and beyond,” said Eric Nuse, executive director of Orion - The Hunters' Institute. “To change this management system, just to solve a short-term problem without any debate or input from the public and the professionals at the Fish and Wildlife Department, is reckless governance.”
The concept of ownership by the people and management by federal, state and provincial governments is known as the public trust doctrine of wildlife. It’s one of the reasons why this country enjoys the greatest diversity, quality, and quantity of game animals and other wildlife in the world. The idea dates back to when America defeated the English during the Revolutionary War. When wildlife was transferred from the King to the new government and thus to the people, it nullified the centuries-old European model where wildlife was privately owned and hunting was reserved for the upper class. Since then, a series of Supreme Court rulings have firmly established the public trust as it relates to this country’s wildlife.
For more information about Vermont’s public trust doctrine issues, click here (link externally to http://fairchasehunting.blogspot.com/)
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Pat Hudak Joins Orion Board
Orion Welcomes Pat Hudak to the Board
JOHNSON, Vt. - Eric Nuse, executive director of Orion - The Hunter's Institute, announced the nonprofit organization's newest board member, Pat Hudak.
"With Pat's expertise in hunting issues and outdoor marketing, Orion - The Hunters' Institute will be able to take another step towards achieving its mission," Nuse said. "We're working diligently to become a leader in upholding our hunting heritage by providing intellectual leadership on hunting-related issues."
Hudak serves as vice president of marketing and membership at Delta Waterfowl Foundation, an organization committed to strengthening North America's waterfowl hunting culture. His knowledge and expertise in marketing, branding and advertising in the outdoor industry spans more than 20 years. He is an avid hunter, angler and conservationist who is extensively networked within the hunting community.
"Hunting and fishing are an important part of my life. I want to make sure it's here for generations to come," Hudak said. "I look forward to helping Orion grow and achieve its goals."
Hudak joins a team of dedicated professionals who serve on Orion's board including: President - Mark Hirvonen, Treasurer - Randy Newberg, Secretary - Gayle Joslin and board members Jim Posewitz, John Organ, Jim Tantillo and Tammy Sapp.
Orion, a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization founded in 1993, is dedicated to protecting the future of hunting by providing moral and intellectual leadership on the issues of responsible hunting, democratic hunting and the public trust of wildlife. For more information, visit www.huntright.org.
Contact:
Eric Nuse, (802) 730-8111 ericnuse@gmail.com or Mark Hirvonen, (906) 362-1969 hirv5@aol.com.
Note from Eric- I worked with Pat while I was with IHEA and Pat was the National Marketing director for Cabela's. He is a great supporter of ethical hunting and a great guy.
JOHNSON, Vt. - Eric Nuse, executive director of Orion - The Hunter's Institute, announced the nonprofit organization's newest board member, Pat Hudak.
"With Pat's expertise in hunting issues and outdoor marketing, Orion - The Hunters' Institute will be able to take another step towards achieving its mission," Nuse said. "We're working diligently to become a leader in upholding our hunting heritage by providing intellectual leadership on hunting-related issues."
Hudak serves as vice president of marketing and membership at Delta Waterfowl Foundation, an organization committed to strengthening North America's waterfowl hunting culture. His knowledge and expertise in marketing, branding and advertising in the outdoor industry spans more than 20 years. He is an avid hunter, angler and conservationist who is extensively networked within the hunting community.
"Hunting and fishing are an important part of my life. I want to make sure it's here for generations to come," Hudak said. "I look forward to helping Orion grow and achieve its goals."
Hudak joins a team of dedicated professionals who serve on Orion's board including: President - Mark Hirvonen, Treasurer - Randy Newberg, Secretary - Gayle Joslin and board members Jim Posewitz, John Organ, Jim Tantillo and Tammy Sapp.
Orion, a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization founded in 1993, is dedicated to protecting the future of hunting by providing moral and intellectual leadership on the issues of responsible hunting, democratic hunting and the public trust of wildlife. For more information, visit www.huntright.org.
Contact:
Eric Nuse, (802) 730-8111 ericnuse@gmail.com or Mark Hirvonen, (906) 362-1969 hirv5@aol.com.
Note from Eric- I worked with Pat while I was with IHEA and Pat was the National Marketing director for Cabela's. He is a great supporter of ethical hunting and a great guy.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Jim Poswitz and other former wildlife Officials ask for protection of the Rocky Mountain Front
Orion Founder and board member Jim Posewitz is named in this article from the Missoulian (MT).
HELENA - A group of former top wildlife management officials in Montana has sent a letter to the congressional delegation to push for more rapid protection for lands along the Rocky Mountain Front.
The letter is signed by former Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks directors Jeff Hagener, Pat Graham and Jim Flynn; former state director for the Bureau of Land Management Gene Terland; noted author and former state environmental services chief Jim Posewitz; and other former FWP supervisors, wildlife biologists and game wardens. They note that the Front has served as a working laboratory for wildlife managers for more than 100 years, and permanent protection is needed to ensure that it will remain that way forever.
"Currently, the RMF contains the second largest migratory elk herd in the lower 48; abundant bighorn sheep and mountain goat populations; a robust and growing raptor population; and the full complement of predators from the time of Lewis and Clark," the letter states.
They note that private landowners have been leading the way, with conservation easements already on more than 100,000 acres and another 100,000 acres under consideration for protection. With that in place, the letter authors say, it's now time for public land managers to ensure that the habitat remain intact.
"Time is not on our side when it comes to preserving those habitats," the letter states. "Acting now helps ensure that our children and their children will continue to enjoy the economies created by large, intact ecosystems. ..."
Last September, the Coalition for the Rocky Mountain Front unveiled the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act, which would add a new layer of protection to 307,000 acres along the Front, while adding 86,000 acres in six chunks to the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex. The proposal was a three-year effort put together mainly by people who live in the area.
Hagener said he was approached by members of the group who asked if he would sign the letter in support of the project.
"It's kind of languishing, so they asked several of us involved in wildlife management to sign on and try to move the process ahead more quickly," Hagener said.
He added that he was happy to do so, having spent time on the Front during his tenure with FWP, as well as having worked for an outfitter there in the 1970s. He also has friends who hunt there.
"My interest there is professional, but it's also personal," Hagener said.
***
Along with adding to the existing federal wilderness areas, the proposal creates new "conservation management area" designations, which act as buffer zones between private lands and wilderness. They're meant to provide fewer opportunities for road building, logging and development on forest lands along the Front.
In addition, the proposal includes provisions for an additional $200,000 per year to fight the spread of noxious weeds along the Front.
Jennifer Ferenstein, the Rocky Mountain Front coordinator for the Wilderness Society, said the proposal doesn't have a sponsor for a bill yet, and they're hoping this will prompt at least one member of Montana's congressional delegation to move it forward.
"With the delegation in the state meeting with people, it's a good opportunity to remind them about what's so special in Montana, including the Front," Ferenstein said.
She added that there's a possibility of an omnibus lands bill being created this year, and they hope the Heritage Act can be a part of that.
"There isn't one yet, but there's been a lot of rumblings about one because ... a number of folks around the country have been moving forward with proposals," Ferenstein said.
Reporter Eve Byron can be reached at (406) 447-4076 or at eve.byron@helenair.com.
Former wildlife officials ask for quicker protection of Rocky Mountain Front
HELENA - A group of former top wildlife management officials in Montana has sent a letter to the congressional delegation to push for more rapid protection for lands along the Rocky Mountain Front.
The letter is signed by former Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks directors Jeff Hagener, Pat Graham and Jim Flynn; former state director for the Bureau of Land Management Gene Terland; noted author and former state environmental services chief Jim Posewitz; and other former FWP supervisors, wildlife biologists and game wardens. They note that the Front has served as a working laboratory for wildlife managers for more than 100 years, and permanent protection is needed to ensure that it will remain that way forever.
"Currently, the RMF contains the second largest migratory elk herd in the lower 48; abundant bighorn sheep and mountain goat populations; a robust and growing raptor population; and the full complement of predators from the time of Lewis and Clark," the letter states.
They note that private landowners have been leading the way, with conservation easements already on more than 100,000 acres and another 100,000 acres under consideration for protection. With that in place, the letter authors say, it's now time for public land managers to ensure that the habitat remain intact.
"Time is not on our side when it comes to preserving those habitats," the letter states. "Acting now helps ensure that our children and their children will continue to enjoy the economies created by large, intact ecosystems. ..."
Last September, the Coalition for the Rocky Mountain Front unveiled the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act, which would add a new layer of protection to 307,000 acres along the Front, while adding 86,000 acres in six chunks to the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex. The proposal was a three-year effort put together mainly by people who live in the area.
Hagener said he was approached by members of the group who asked if he would sign the letter in support of the project.
"It's kind of languishing, so they asked several of us involved in wildlife management to sign on and try to move the process ahead more quickly," Hagener said.
He added that he was happy to do so, having spent time on the Front during his tenure with FWP, as well as having worked for an outfitter there in the 1970s. He also has friends who hunt there.
"My interest there is professional, but it's also personal," Hagener said.
***
Along with adding to the existing federal wilderness areas, the proposal creates new "conservation management area" designations, which act as buffer zones between private lands and wilderness. They're meant to provide fewer opportunities for road building, logging and development on forest lands along the Front.
In addition, the proposal includes provisions for an additional $200,000 per year to fight the spread of noxious weeds along the Front.
Jennifer Ferenstein, the Rocky Mountain Front coordinator for the Wilderness Society, said the proposal doesn't have a sponsor for a bill yet, and they're hoping this will prompt at least one member of Montana's congressional delegation to move it forward.
"With the delegation in the state meeting with people, it's a good opportunity to remind them about what's so special in Montana, including the Front," Ferenstein said.
She added that there's a possibility of an omnibus lands bill being created this year, and they hope the Heritage Act can be a part of that.
"There isn't one yet, but there's been a lot of rumblings about one because ... a number of folks around the country have been moving forward with proposals," Ferenstein said.
Reporter Eve Byron can be reached at (406) 447-4076 or at eve.byron@helenair.com.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Violation of public trust article
This from the Rutland Herald:
That is the view expressed by some members of the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Board, The Wildlife Society and Orion The Hunter's Institute.
But state Sen. Susan Bartlett, D-Lamoille, who is widely identified as having been instrumental in fashioning the legislation, says it was simply about sparing a celebrity moose the bullet. She said concerns that animal disease could be spread from the facility, which prompted a notification that the whitetail deer and moose there would have to be destroyed, are unfounded.
One of those moose, nicknamed Pete, became a cause celebre, with a website and a Facebook page and supporters who rallied at Vermont's Statehouse. The animal, a 700-pound bull, had been adopted as a calf by a local man and taken to the fenced 700-acre game reserve.
"When Fish & Wildlife decided that Pete needed to be shot … there was the fear that wardens were going to show up with papers and go in and shoot Pete," Bartlett said. "That just made the Northeast Kingdom and the Pete the Moose fan club not only angry, they were scared."
Bartlett, who is running for the Democratic nomination for governor, said she understands the Department of Fish & Wildlife's concerns that the imported elk at the site could spread chronic wasting disease, a fatal brain ailment, to the native deer and moose herd.
However, slaughtered animals have been routinely tested at the reserve and not a single case of chronic wasting disease has been found, she said.
"If any of us thought there was danger of chronic wasting disease for the Vermont deer herd, we would say 'shoot them,'" Bartlett said.
For more than six years, the wildlife department and the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Board had tried to work out an agreement with Doug Nelson, the owner of the Irasburg reserve, which charges hunters to target the elk within its fences.
Bartlett is chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and the issue of herd management at the elk reserve was added to an appropriations bill on the last day of the Legislature's session in May. Under the provision, the animals can stay, but Nelson will have to do more to ensure they haven't become sick and don't come in contact with animals outside the fence.
"Special favors'
Fish & Wildlife Commissioner Wayne Laroche and his team of biologists say they believe the moose and deer held on Nelson's land could contract any number of diseases, including chronic wasting disease, and ultimately should be destroyed. Any animals, wild or tame, escaping from there could pass the devastating disease to animals in the wild, they have argued.
In August, the department notified Nelson that the wild moose and deer on his property were being held there illegally and would have to be destroyed.
Nelson has opposed the move from the start and has reportedly told board members that the deer and moose on his land belong to him.
Attempts to reach Nelson for this story were unsuccessful.
Members of the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Board, including its chairman, Brian Ames, were livid about the fact that, after many years of study and discussion, the Nelson game preserve matter was suddenly — and without their knowledge — turned over to the Agency of Agriculture.
But no one interviewed was more forceful in his condemnation of what happened on that last day of the Statehouse session than Bob Shannon, the Lamoille County representative on the board.
Nelson was given "special favors" by the Legislature, said Shannon, who runs a fly fishing shop in Stowe.
"We were completely in the dark," he said. "Quite frankly, for the Legislature to take the authority from the Fish & Wildlife Board and the department without asking anyone from the board or the Fish & Wildlife Department to testify is a concern to me because they allowed Mr. Nelson to provide a one-sided story to the Legislature and basically in a closed-door session."
The Legislature's decision to transfer oversight is a "major turning point for the state," Shannon said. "Every sportsman in the state should be outraged over what the Vermont Legislature did."
"This has destroyed the Vermont hunting and fishing heritage," he said, because it allows a private citizen to gain ownership of wildlife, something that has never occurred in Vermont.
That concern was shared by Eric Nuse, the executive director of Orion, a nonprofit based in Johnson that describes itself as dedicated to the preservation of hunting as an important part of the North American conservation heritage.
The decision by the Legislature will have far-reaching effects, Shannon said.
"Now, anybody else that has deep enough pockets and special favors can go into the state of Vermont, put up a fence and start selling hunts, just like Mr. Nelson is going to do," he said.
Sparing Pete
But Bartlett said all parties were invited to make their cases before a joint hearing of the Senate Appropriations and Agriculture committees in February.
Bartlett said the Legislature took on the matter because the Fish & Wildlife Department and Nelson — after many years — could not reach a solution for the captive herd issue.
"House members and Senate folks worked with the (Douglas) administration and came up with the solution," she said.
Fish & Wildlife Department officials and Fish & Wildlife Board members say they now believe that the Legislature's decision gives Nelson the green light to offer paid hunts for the moose and deer in his enclosure, as he does for the elk.
The Wildlife Society, which describes itself as an international nonprofit association dedicated to excellence in wildlife stewardship, has written letters to state legislators calling for a repeal of the law and "restoration of Vermont's wildlife to its rightful owners, the public."
The language of the provision "amounts to little more than a license for Mr. Nelson to profit from Vermont's publicly owned wildlife," the society said in a news release. "… the language was quietly added without the benefit of a public hearing, opportunity for expert testimony or engagement of the Fish & Wildlife Department or any conservation or sportsmen groups."
'Political deal'
Meanwhile, Elizabeth "Wibs" McLain, a special assistant to Gov. James Douglas, appeared at the May 26 meeting of the Fish & Wildlife Board to answer members' questions about what she termed the "special provision that was made to the farm in Irasburg."
Several board members, including Shannon, Ames and Jeremy Baker, said they were stunned by some of the frank comments that McLain made about how that decision was reached.
McLain's comments are documented in the minutes of the May 26 meeting.
In response to a question by Laroche, McLain said that when the two Senate committees held the joint hearing, "it was very clear to me … that they were going to do something. … The whole thing was a set-up; the testimony was a set-up …"
McLain told the board that she was well aware of how long and hard the Fish & Wildlife Board had worked to resolve the issue with Nelson.
"The traditional approaches for resolving this issue have not been effective for a variety of reasons and, so while we can look at it as a reward for illegal behavior, I think you can also look it as a way to kind of stop the bleeding on this one issue."
Board member Wayne Barrows told McLain that he was concerned that the Legislature's decision could open doors for similar animal facilities in Vermont.
McLain told Barrows not to worry, for the wording in the legislation makes it clear it applies only to Nelson's facility.
"Somebody could step forward and make his or her own argument that they want another special deal like this special deal, but they can't come in under his special deal," she said.
"I wouldn't say it was a backdoor political deal," she told the board, "but it was certainly a political deal and it was certainly the result of a special interest who had the ear of the Legislature."
Nelson, McLain said, "has been flaunting, if I can say that, the law for years."
McLain argued that Nelson doesn't get off lightly under the arrangement. He has agreed to put up a second fence around the facility.
Also, "Mr. Nelson will have to capture, mark and test all cervids and not just the elk, but the deer and the moose that are inside that enclosure. … He will have a lot of things to do in order to address the issue of disease escaping his facility into the wild," she said.
Nelson maintains that there are about a dozen moose and 120 whitetail deer on his spread, while Fish & Wildlife says the figures for both species are double that.
Baker, the Rutland County representative on the Fish & Wildlife Board, said the Legislature's decision put politics before the health of the deer herd in Vermont.
"A very small group of legislators in the Northeast Kingdom, which Doug Nelson has strong ties to, want his continued support so they fixed this rule to benefit Doug Nelson," Baker said. "I don't think they understand the potential damage that could take place if those animals escape that enclosure."
dennis.jensen@rutlandherald.com
Wildlife transfer under fire
 |
By Dennis Jensen Staff Writer - Published: June 13, 2010
The last-minute decision by the Legislature to transfer oversight of wild deer and moose at a fenced elk reserve in Irasburg from wildlife officials to the state Agency of Agriculture has come under fire because it took wild animals out of the public domain and into the hands of a private businessman.That is the view expressed by some members of the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Board, The Wildlife Society and Orion The Hunter's Institute.
But state Sen. Susan Bartlett, D-Lamoille, who is widely identified as having been instrumental in fashioning the legislation, says it was simply about sparing a celebrity moose the bullet. She said concerns that animal disease could be spread from the facility, which prompted a notification that the whitetail deer and moose there would have to be destroyed, are unfounded.
One of those moose, nicknamed Pete, became a cause celebre, with a website and a Facebook page and supporters who rallied at Vermont's Statehouse. The animal, a 700-pound bull, had been adopted as a calf by a local man and taken to the fenced 700-acre game reserve.
"When Fish & Wildlife decided that Pete needed to be shot … there was the fear that wardens were going to show up with papers and go in and shoot Pete," Bartlett said. "That just made the Northeast Kingdom and the Pete the Moose fan club not only angry, they were scared."
Bartlett, who is running for the Democratic nomination for governor, said she understands the Department of Fish & Wildlife's concerns that the imported elk at the site could spread chronic wasting disease, a fatal brain ailment, to the native deer and moose herd.
However, slaughtered animals have been routinely tested at the reserve and not a single case of chronic wasting disease has been found, she said.
"If any of us thought there was danger of chronic wasting disease for the Vermont deer herd, we would say 'shoot them,'" Bartlett said.
For more than six years, the wildlife department and the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Board had tried to work out an agreement with Doug Nelson, the owner of the Irasburg reserve, which charges hunters to target the elk within its fences.
Bartlett is chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and the issue of herd management at the elk reserve was added to an appropriations bill on the last day of the Legislature's session in May. Under the provision, the animals can stay, but Nelson will have to do more to ensure they haven't become sick and don't come in contact with animals outside the fence.
"Special favors'
Fish & Wildlife Commissioner Wayne Laroche and his team of biologists say they believe the moose and deer held on Nelson's land could contract any number of diseases, including chronic wasting disease, and ultimately should be destroyed. Any animals, wild or tame, escaping from there could pass the devastating disease to animals in the wild, they have argued.
In August, the department notified Nelson that the wild moose and deer on his property were being held there illegally and would have to be destroyed.
Nelson has opposed the move from the start and has reportedly told board members that the deer and moose on his land belong to him.
Attempts to reach Nelson for this story were unsuccessful.
Members of the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Board, including its chairman, Brian Ames, were livid about the fact that, after many years of study and discussion, the Nelson game preserve matter was suddenly — and without their knowledge — turned over to the Agency of Agriculture.
But no one interviewed was more forceful in his condemnation of what happened on that last day of the Statehouse session than Bob Shannon, the Lamoille County representative on the board.
Nelson was given "special favors" by the Legislature, said Shannon, who runs a fly fishing shop in Stowe.
"We were completely in the dark," he said. "Quite frankly, for the Legislature to take the authority from the Fish & Wildlife Board and the department without asking anyone from the board or the Fish & Wildlife Department to testify is a concern to me because they allowed Mr. Nelson to provide a one-sided story to the Legislature and basically in a closed-door session."
The Legislature's decision to transfer oversight is a "major turning point for the state," Shannon said. "Every sportsman in the state should be outraged over what the Vermont Legislature did."
"This has destroyed the Vermont hunting and fishing heritage," he said, because it allows a private citizen to gain ownership of wildlife, something that has never occurred in Vermont.
That concern was shared by Eric Nuse, the executive director of Orion, a nonprofit based in Johnson that describes itself as dedicated to the preservation of hunting as an important part of the North American conservation heritage.
The decision by the Legislature will have far-reaching effects, Shannon said.
"Now, anybody else that has deep enough pockets and special favors can go into the state of Vermont, put up a fence and start selling hunts, just like Mr. Nelson is going to do," he said.
Sparing Pete
But Bartlett said all parties were invited to make their cases before a joint hearing of the Senate Appropriations and Agriculture committees in February.
Bartlett said the Legislature took on the matter because the Fish & Wildlife Department and Nelson — after many years — could not reach a solution for the captive herd issue.
"House members and Senate folks worked with the (Douglas) administration and came up with the solution," she said.
Fish & Wildlife Department officials and Fish & Wildlife Board members say they now believe that the Legislature's decision gives Nelson the green light to offer paid hunts for the moose and deer in his enclosure, as he does for the elk.
The Wildlife Society, which describes itself as an international nonprofit association dedicated to excellence in wildlife stewardship, has written letters to state legislators calling for a repeal of the law and "restoration of Vermont's wildlife to its rightful owners, the public."
The language of the provision "amounts to little more than a license for Mr. Nelson to profit from Vermont's publicly owned wildlife," the society said in a news release. "… the language was quietly added without the benefit of a public hearing, opportunity for expert testimony or engagement of the Fish & Wildlife Department or any conservation or sportsmen groups."
'Political deal'
Meanwhile, Elizabeth "Wibs" McLain, a special assistant to Gov. James Douglas, appeared at the May 26 meeting of the Fish & Wildlife Board to answer members' questions about what she termed the "special provision that was made to the farm in Irasburg."
Several board members, including Shannon, Ames and Jeremy Baker, said they were stunned by some of the frank comments that McLain made about how that decision was reached.
McLain's comments are documented in the minutes of the May 26 meeting.
In response to a question by Laroche, McLain said that when the two Senate committees held the joint hearing, "it was very clear to me … that they were going to do something. … The whole thing was a set-up; the testimony was a set-up …"
McLain told the board that she was well aware of how long and hard the Fish & Wildlife Board had worked to resolve the issue with Nelson.
"The traditional approaches for resolving this issue have not been effective for a variety of reasons and, so while we can look at it as a reward for illegal behavior, I think you can also look it as a way to kind of stop the bleeding on this one issue."
Board member Wayne Barrows told McLain that he was concerned that the Legislature's decision could open doors for similar animal facilities in Vermont.
McLain told Barrows not to worry, for the wording in the legislation makes it clear it applies only to Nelson's facility.
"Somebody could step forward and make his or her own argument that they want another special deal like this special deal, but they can't come in under his special deal," she said.
"I wouldn't say it was a backdoor political deal," she told the board, "but it was certainly a political deal and it was certainly the result of a special interest who had the ear of the Legislature."
Nelson, McLain said, "has been flaunting, if I can say that, the law for years."
McLain argued that Nelson doesn't get off lightly under the arrangement. He has agreed to put up a second fence around the facility.
Also, "Mr. Nelson will have to capture, mark and test all cervids and not just the elk, but the deer and the moose that are inside that enclosure. … He will have a lot of things to do in order to address the issue of disease escaping his facility into the wild," she said.
Nelson maintains that there are about a dozen moose and 120 whitetail deer on his spread, while Fish & Wildlife says the figures for both species are double that.
Baker, the Rutland County representative on the Fish & Wildlife Board, said the Legislature's decision put politics before the health of the deer herd in Vermont.
"A very small group of legislators in the Northeast Kingdom, which Doug Nelson has strong ties to, want his continued support so they fixed this rule to benefit Doug Nelson," Baker said. "I don't think they understand the potential damage that could take place if those animals escape that enclosure."
dennis.jensen@rutlandherald.com
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Monday, April 5, 2010
A HERITAGE LIKE NO OTHER
From Orion founder Jim Posewitz:
A HERITAGE LIKE NO OTHER
In 1885 a cowboy looking for open range grazing opportunity rode from Little Missouri, North Dakota to the base of Rocky Mountains and back. It was a journey of a thousand miles across America’s Northern Plains. Upon his return he told a young Dakota rancher and hunter, Theodore Roosevelt (TR), “I was never out of sight of a dead buffalo and never in sight of a live one.” It was a dramatic moment in a nation without a conservation ethic. A French nobleman, Alexis de Tocquville studying “Democracy in America” earlier observed we were “insensible to the wonders of nature.” To be sure, the pine forests of the lake states and a wildlife resource once described as something that “exceeded anything the eye of man had ever looked upon,” lay in ruins.
There were some who saw the unfolding tragedy. In 1858, the year of TR’s birth, Concorde naturalist Henry David Thoreau wrote: “Why should not we have our national preserves … in which the bear and panther, and …the hunter … may… not be civilized off the face of the earth.” Thoreau’s vision was described as “a mere whisper in the popular conscience.” When TR the hunter/conservationist became our president forty-two years later that whisper became a roar as he and associates endowed America with 230 million acres of national forests, wildlife refuges, game ranges, parks and monuments. It was 9.9 percent of America held for the restoration of wildlife. Perhaps more important, it was done for “the average man and average woman who make up the body of the American people” that we might all enjoy “the sturdy pleasure of the chase.”
It was not an easy road. When the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drove our continent to its knees Franklin Roosevelt called the First North American Wildlife Conference. He told the assembled sportsmen and that this was their fight to win or loose. The challenge was accepted and today we are blessed with a new wild abundance from sea to shining sea. This endowment, passed to our custody, is a heritage like no other. This history of restoration, conservation and sharing through a little more than a century stands as living testimony to the common man’s power to change what exists.
We are again challenged, the economic times are not easy and the earth itself needs attention. The good news is that as hunters and anglers we have been here before, we have the “model” that works. A century and a half ago, Thoreau worried about saving a place for the hunter in civilization. Today, the conservation ethic those hunters brought to our culture, holds the answer to saving an environment capable of sustaining civilization.
A HERITAGE LIKE NO OTHER
In 1885 a cowboy looking for open range grazing opportunity rode from Little Missouri, North Dakota to the base of Rocky Mountains and back. It was a journey of a thousand miles across America’s Northern Plains. Upon his return he told a young Dakota rancher and hunter, Theodore Roosevelt (TR), “I was never out of sight of a dead buffalo and never in sight of a live one.” It was a dramatic moment in a nation without a conservation ethic. A French nobleman, Alexis de Tocquville studying “Democracy in America” earlier observed we were “insensible to the wonders of nature.” To be sure, the pine forests of the lake states and a wildlife resource once described as something that “exceeded anything the eye of man had ever looked upon,” lay in ruins.
There were some who saw the unfolding tragedy. In 1858, the year of TR’s birth, Concorde naturalist Henry David Thoreau wrote: “Why should not we have our national preserves … in which the bear and panther, and …the hunter … may… not be civilized off the face of the earth.” Thoreau’s vision was described as “a mere whisper in the popular conscience.” When TR the hunter/conservationist became our president forty-two years later that whisper became a roar as he and associates endowed America with 230 million acres of national forests, wildlife refuges, game ranges, parks and monuments. It was 9.9 percent of America held for the restoration of wildlife. Perhaps more important, it was done for “the average man and average woman who make up the body of the American people” that we might all enjoy “the sturdy pleasure of the chase.”
It was not an easy road. When the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drove our continent to its knees Franklin Roosevelt called the First North American Wildlife Conference. He told the assembled sportsmen and that this was their fight to win or loose. The challenge was accepted and today we are blessed with a new wild abundance from sea to shining sea. This endowment, passed to our custody, is a heritage like no other. This history of restoration, conservation and sharing through a little more than a century stands as living testimony to the common man’s power to change what exists.
We are again challenged, the economic times are not easy and the earth itself needs attention. The good news is that as hunters and anglers we have been here before, we have the “model” that works. A century and a half ago, Thoreau worried about saving a place for the hunter in civilization. Today, the conservation ethic those hunters brought to our culture, holds the answer to saving an environment capable of sustaining civilization.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Call to Reform of Wildlife Conservation
The following is from The Wildlife Society Blog Making Tracks John Organ is a board member of Orion. I am on the steering committee for The Vermont Wildlife Partnership, a coalition of hunting, conservation, environmental and business groups is working for broad based, adequate and sustainable funding for the VT Fish and Wildlife Dept.
A Call for Reform
Writing in The Journal of Wildlife Management this month, Cynthia Jacobson, John Organ, Dan Decker, and other leaders in the wildlife field argue that,”The wildlife conservation institution needs to reform to maintain legitimacy and relevancy in the 21st century.”To be sure, times have changed since the tenets of wildlife conservation were established in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, hunters and anglers–upon whom state wildlife agencies depend for financing–aren’t as numerous. Other stakeholder groups have legitimate interests in managing and maintaining wildlife populations. Wildlife habitat is giving way to development. Myriad federal and state laws and policies now regulate how we study, manage, and conserve animals and populations.
Because of these and other changes, the authors suggest four considerations for reform:
1) funding should be broad-based (not relying primarily on proceeds from hunting license and gun sales),
2) agencies should be governed by trustees (rather than depend on a revolving door of directors),3) science should provide the basis for professional recommendations (politics should not), and
4) a wide range of stakeholders and partners should play a role in the institution (not just those interested in consumptive use of wildlife).
Read the article to learn more about the authors’ views. Do you think wildlife conservation needs to undergo reform? If so, how should we proceed?
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Tammy Sapp Named Board Member of Orion-The Hunter's Institute
Eric Nuse, executive director of Orion - The Hunter's Institute, announced the organization's newest board member, conservation communications professional Tammy Sapp.
Sapp is an award-winning writer with 24 years of experience in the outdoor communications field with a focus on hunting and target shooting. She possesses project management and team development know-how through her work at the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation and the National Wild Turkey Federation. As the NWTF's senior vice president of communications, Tammy coordinated hunter recruitment and retention efforts in addition to planning and implementing numerous national marketing communications campaigns to encourage understanding of a range of conservation issues. Today, Tammy freelances for a variety of Web sites and magazines, edits the women's section of The Outdoor Wire and provides communications and public relations services through her company Tammy Sapp Communications.
Sapp joins a team of dedicated professionals who serve on Orion's board including:
President - Mark Hirvonen, Treasurer - Randy Newberg, Secretary - Gayle Joslin and board members John Organ, Jim Posewitz and Jim Tantillo .
Orion is a 501 (c) (3) organization dedicated to ethical hunting and the wild resources essential to that purpose. Founded by Jim Posewitz in 1993, the organization is dedicated to preserving hunting as an important part of our North American conservation heritage through teaching hunter ethics and expanding society's knowledge of the conservation legacy that was born in the embers of the hunter's fire.
Orion is best known for its strong stance on ethical hunting and promoting the value of North American's hunting heritage. "Beyond Fair Chase," which was written by Posewitz, is a standard for hunter education classes in North America with 500,000 copies in circulation. For more information, please contact us at 802-730-8111 or visit www.huntright.org
Contact:
Eric Nuse, (802) 730-8111 ericnuse@gmail.com or Mark Hirvonen, (906) 362-1969 hirv5@aol.com
Friday, January 29, 2010
What is Hunting - a philosophical view
There is an interesting series of posts going on at the Hog Blog started on The Thinking Hunter titled An Approach To The Hunter Ethic Problem. Due to the depth of the discussion they have decided to discuss it as a blog forum. To catch up please click on the above links and read the posts. It will be worth your time.
As the readers of this blog know the topic of ethical hunting and the concept of fair chase is at the core of the founding of Orion-The Hunters' Institute, founder Jim Posewitz's books and much of my work at VT Fish and Wildlife and with the IHEA.
Last winter Orion teamed up with the Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation and Colorado State University to host a think tank on hunting and how hunting could be framed so society would view it in a positive light in the 21st century. Participants included PhD's, state and federal folks, academics and a some NGO leaders. As many of these things go the discussion led to some very interesting but different than planned places. Copied below is an edited version of the report I put together following the retreat. Dr. James Tantillo is currently working on an in depth article as a follow up to our work.
Hunting Think Tank Report
16-18 January 2009
Why are our experiences and this discussion relevant?
The future of hunting is uncertain with hunter numbers on the decline and a big drop off coming as the baby boomers become too old to actively hunt. How we define ourselves will have an impact on this future. If the threshold of what is allowed, either legally or ethically, is set too low, people could decide not to try hunting because they don’t want to associate with folks they perceive to be behaving poorly. To offset this we could take the “elitist, yet democratically available notion” that narrowly defines hunting and makes all other practices illegal.
On the other hand, if the bar is set too high some people will be excluded and never get started. Taking an inclusive approach allows a diversity of philosophies, motivations, and behaviors and follows the Jeffersonian notion of live and let live.
What are the pros and cons of using a broad or narrow definition of hunting?
On the pro side, the higher numbers of hunters translates into financial and political support for agencies and conservation. However, this user-pays model is not viable now and will be less viable in the future, as more non-traditional wildlife users demand more services from Fish and Wildlife agencies.
More hunters also help with hunter recruitment (it takes a hunter to make a hunter has been the mantra).
On the con side, the attractiveness of hunting diminishes as it moves towards the lowest denominator. Non-hunters’ support for hunting in the context of hunter conduct, fair chase, utilization, etc. could and probably will erode if the definition is too inclusive.
Eric Nuse - Is sport an adequate term to explain hunting? It doesn’t seem to go quite far enough to justify the death of the animal. Should we coin a new word or find a better one to represent the context of what hunting represents? Words that come to mind are: the sacred sport or beyond sport, spirit of sport…
Should we come up with an adjective to describe hunting such as: responsible hunting, modern hunting, certified hunter…Or would it be better (although harder) to elevate the term hunting to where we feel it should be and debunk the negatives now attached to it by some?
What is recreational hunting: a conceptual model
Dr. Tantillo presented his research on hunting as a sport. Starting with play (unstructured or free, done for pure enjoyment) to games (rules, specific setting, goals, can be competitive, but done for its own sake) to sport (physical, written and unwritten rules, takes effort, competitive, done for the enjoyment).
Logically speaking, hunting as a voluntary leisure activity (play) has structure and rules that make it structured play (game) and a physical aspect that make it a physical game (sport). These relations are logically entwined whether we like the term 'sport' or not.
Why this matters is because the structure and rules of the game give rise to our concepts and beliefs about fair play and fair chase. Again, this is true whether we like the term 'sport' or not.
Some sports are a variation referred to as athletics. Here the goal is to get the prize, to beat the competition and win. The goal of sports like hunting is in the enjoyment, or recreation of the activity itself ---getting the deer is icing on the cake. The possibility of the kill is necessary but accomplishing it is not, because the joy is in the striving or the hunt.
J.W. Keating addresses this in his1964 article in the journal Ethics, "Sportsmanship as a Moral Category," where he writes about the "purpose" of sport: The primary purpose of sport is not to win the match, to catch the fish or kill the animal, but to derive pleasure from the attempt to do so and to afford pleasure to one's fellow participants in the process.
Tantillo thinks this gets the issue exactly right, and offers one reason why food-based justifications fail: they make hunting ALL about the results, meaning, all about the killing. A hunt is not successful unless it yields meat. The pleasure of the hunt is the hunt itself.
Understanding hunting as a sport helps to cut through the complexity and diversity of hunting practices. Hunting as a sport and the concept of fair play or fair chase in hunting have infinite variety; thus, the notion that hunting is an open concept. It can be defined at the value level in the context of sport, but definitions seem to fall apart at the position or specific practice level.
This understanding could help hunters think about what they do, align their behavior with their reasons for hunting and assist in communicating this clearly to others. If we are successful, hunters will not have to sell the value of hunting. We will have to demonstrate that it is part of our sacred world and as important to our lives as religion and other types of recreation are to all people.
The importance of placing hunting right in the middle of the play universe, delays the tricky question (justifying death of animal) for later.
Additional Comments
Jim Posewitz summed it up: “Play>recreation>re-creation>eating the hunted validates the hunter and the hunted. "The Hunt" is born as play amid the pure joy of nature; the game becomes recreation to nature as re-creation. Through the kill and utilization, the hunted and hunter becomes one. When the hunted's renewal precedes all else, the circle closes and the game, sealed in blood, becomes sacred. They become one. Hunters validate the relationship when they assure the environment is suitable for the hunter and the hunted.
John Edwards – Rather than spend our energy defending the term sport hunting -that we already know many hunters and non-hunters find distasteful- maybe a better approach is to define what hunting is in the context of sport and pleasure without using the modifier.
Jim Tantillo - The importance of keeping the modifier 'sport' in mind is that logically this concept provides the only possible explanation of where ideas of "fair chase" come from, i.e. from ideals of "fair play" and sportsmanship--and explains why these ideals are important for thinking about recreational hunting. Whereas law obligates us to maintain the bare minimum standards of codified acceptable behavior, sportsmanship holds us to higher, uncodified standards of behavior, i.e. to standards of fair chase.
And we *voluntarily* elect to follow these higher standards, as opposed to being obligated (legally or otherwise) to follow them.
Other benefits of hunting; and confusing these benefits with why we hunt
If you want to play, you need a playground. Our playground is the environment and all the necessities of life, which are necessary for our lives and the lives of all the animals including those we don’t hunt. Creating this playground takes money, knowledge and skill. All of which hunters have supplied, thus the success of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. But all of these good things are not why we hunt.
When we try to justify hunting on these results, it comes off as self-serving and is easily countered. For example, a common justification for hunting is controlling populations. This falls apart when you look at a hunted species such as woodcock. There is no overpopulation of woodcock, yet we hunt them (and many other species like them). Does that mean they should not be hunted? Even species that need population control can be controlled by many other means such as sharp shooters, elimination of critical habitat or the introduction of predators.
Sacred vs. Profane
The profane world is the world of work and subsistence. You do work because you must in order to live. The sacred world gives you the reason to live beyond the basics of reproduction and survival. Play/games/sport are in the sacred sphere and are critical for man’s psychological and spiritual well-being.
History shows that the Greeks hunted rabbits for fun. Sport hunting has a far longer history than the 100 year span that most people think.
(The rest of this section was added by Jim Tantillo)
The connection of sport to religion is made most explicitly in the literature pertaining to the philosophy of sport, for example in Charles Prebish's anthology, Religion and Sport: The Meeting of Sacred and Profane.
But before we ask how sport can be seen as religious, we need first to see more fundamentally how play and leisure are sacred to humans.
At the risk of over generalizing, the sociology of religion typically characterizes our daily work or our routine daily toil as the realm of the ordinary, i.e., as the realm of the profane; whereas play, leisure, festivity, and celebration are the realm of the sacred.
In Leisure as the Basis of Culture, Josef Pieper writes, "Leisure is only possible when a man is at one with himself, when he acquiesces to his own being. . . . Leisure, it must be clearly understood, is a mental and spiritual attitude."
This insight highlights the importance of meaningful leisure activities such as hunting for human happiness. In this sense leisure (as is play) is generally seen in contrast to work. Pieper comments:
"Compared with the exclusive ideal of work as toil, leisure appears . . . in its character as an attitude of contemplative 'celebration,' a word that, properly understood, goes to the very heart of what we mean by leisure."
As regards hunting, one might argue that it is the experience of authentic leisure in hunting that is the spiritual experience, not necessarily the experience of hunting per se. Or stated another way, it is the contemplative aspect of hunting that we enjoy most when hunting,.
Here again we see the importance of interpreting hunting fundamentally as a form of play, i.e., as first and foremost a form of recreational activity. As Huizinga writes in Homo Ludens:
"PLAY. It is an activity that proceeds within certain limits of time and space, in a visible order, according to rules freely accepted, and outside the sphere of necessity or material utility. The play-mood is one of rapture and enthusiasm, and is sacred or festive in accordance with the occasion. A feeling of exaltation and tension accompanies the action."
Essayist Diane Ackerman builds upon Huizinga's themes in her book, Deep Play, and she emphasizes both the religious aspects of play but also echoes Pieper's view that leisure is a spiritual attitude:
"Deep play is the ecstatic form of play. In its thrall, all the play elements are visible, but they're taken to intense and transcendent heights. Thus, deep play should really be classified by mood, not activity. It testifies to how something happens, not what happens. Games don't guarantee deep play, but some activities are prone to it: art, religion, risk-taking, and some sports-especially those that take place in relatively remote, silent, and floaty environments, such as scuba diving, parachuting, hang gliding, mountain climbing.
"Deep play always involves the sacred and holy, sometimes hidden in the most unlikely or humble places-amid towering shelves of rock in Nepal; crouched over print in a dimly lit room; slipping on AstroTurf; wearing a coconut-shell mask. We spend our lives in pursuit of moments that will allow these altered states to happen. The Australian Aborigines search for it on wilderness treks called walkabouts, during which young men of the tribe go alone into the dangerous outback to gain strength and wisdom. Buddhist lamas and Hindu sadhus travel, nearly naked, to pray atop glacial mountains in Tibet. People from many cultures have gone on soul journeys into the wilderness, where risk, hunger, pain, exhaustion, and sometimes self-torture might inspire visions. Young Masai men set off on a pilgrimage to Mount Kilimanjaro, the sacred center of their world, as part of the initiation rite known as Moranism. Native Americans have often used ritualized running to scale mental heights. The Hopis stage many such races every year, featuring paint, costumes, fasts, and prayer. The Crow Indians run to exhaustion to persuade the gods that they deserve good luck. The Zuni run twenty to forty miles while kicking a sacred stick. The official purpose of these ordeals may be religious, but the physiological goal is to impel the initiate into a higher state of consciousness that kindles visions and insights, in a locale where survival may depend on a combination of ingenuity and nerve."
The literature on play, deep play, and the theology of play is vast. I used "sacred" and "profane" at the McGraw think tank as a kind of shorthand for the entire subject. To me the concept of hunting as play, i.e. as deep play, again is what explains so much, from understanding the rules of fair chase as resulting from the structure of hunting as play to the experience of the spiritual felt by hunters when they truly lose themselves in the activity.
Harm vs. Offense
This concept can be summed up as follows: “Your freedom to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose.” Swinging a fist may be offensive but it is tolerated up to the point of doing harm. The American form of democracy allows for offensive people to do what they want as long as they do no harm.
This question gets tricky when you try to look at hunting practices through the eyes of non-hunters and when you project into the future. How much political consideration should be included in our decision making on practices that may hurt the future of hunting?
Definition of Hunting
Sunday morning we came back to the definition of hunting. On Saturday, we were divided on whether we should try to draw a line in the sand – on this side was hunting; on that side was shooting or killing or something else. Was high-fence hunting doing us harm or was it offensive? (It was noted that reasons to oppose high fence operations-such as denial of wildlife as a public resource; thus the denial of several components of the North American Model, such as “public resource”, “democracy of allocation” and allocation by law, among others-are the best arguments against captive shooting operations.)
How about preserve bird hunting such as is practiced on the grounds where we were meeting? Again, evaluation of the circumstances is important, in this case looking at it from topography or location. The McGraw Center is an island of opportunity set in a sea of concrete/suburbia 40 minutes from downtown Chicago. It is as good as could be done in this place and time. Whereas, a western wilderness of millions of acres of public lands is as good as could be done in that place and time- both the product of the conservation ethic of hunters.
Conversely, a high fence operation out on the vast open spaces of
Texas represents a denial of the North American Model and a retreat to the fortress that is not necessary for any real conservation purpose.
Consensus began to emerge that most of these practices did not rise to the level of harm, from the hunter ethic view. Most of us felt that they and some other hunting methods did serve as an entry point for new hunters and opened the possibility for them to gain more skill, so they too could eventually enjoy a wilder and more challenging hunting experience in the future.
Edwards’ comment - We started to consider the benefits of hunting and hunter numbers and explored the idea that if the results of the hunting practice are positive then the practice should be accepted and would constitute hunting. Much of this we wrestled with and I don’t think that we really arrived at a consensus – several unresolved issues. Do we want to make these “open” ideas available to misinterpretation?
Framework for thinking through hunting ethics and esthetics/preferences
We decided it would be very helpful for agencies, rule-making boards and hunters to develop a framework to assist in working through what is acceptable hunting and what is not. This could be in the form of a series of questions, a decision tree or something else. If we do this well, such a framework could over time become the equivalent of the seven sisters of the North American model, and we could offer talks, workshops, and guidelines for asking these questions and making informed decisions. This process could also help locate areas of disagreement and help focus the debate where it will do the most good. Currently there is a lot of time is wasted on fighting over preferences (mistaken for ethics), which only divides hunters and distracts from the pressing issues.
As the readers of this blog know the topic of ethical hunting and the concept of fair chase is at the core of the founding of Orion-The Hunters' Institute, founder Jim Posewitz's books and much of my work at VT Fish and Wildlife and with the IHEA.
Last winter Orion teamed up with the Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation and Colorado State University to host a think tank on hunting and how hunting could be framed so society would view it in a positive light in the 21st century. Participants included PhD's, state and federal folks, academics and a some NGO leaders. As many of these things go the discussion led to some very interesting but different than planned places. Copied below is an edited version of the report I put together following the retreat. Dr. James Tantillo is currently working on an in depth article as a follow up to our work.
Hunting Think Tank Report
16-18 January 2009
Why are our experiences and this discussion relevant?
The future of hunting is uncertain with hunter numbers on the decline and a big drop off coming as the baby boomers become too old to actively hunt. How we define ourselves will have an impact on this future. If the threshold of what is allowed, either legally or ethically, is set too low, people could decide not to try hunting because they don’t want to associate with folks they perceive to be behaving poorly. To offset this we could take the “elitist, yet democratically available notion” that narrowly defines hunting and makes all other practices illegal.
On the other hand, if the bar is set too high some people will be excluded and never get started. Taking an inclusive approach allows a diversity of philosophies, motivations, and behaviors and follows the Jeffersonian notion of live and let live.
What are the pros and cons of using a broad or narrow definition of hunting?
On the pro side, the higher numbers of hunters translates into financial and political support for agencies and conservation. However, this user-pays model is not viable now and will be less viable in the future, as more non-traditional wildlife users demand more services from Fish and Wildlife agencies.
More hunters also help with hunter recruitment (it takes a hunter to make a hunter has been the mantra).
On the con side, the attractiveness of hunting diminishes as it moves towards the lowest denominator. Non-hunters’ support for hunting in the context of hunter conduct, fair chase, utilization, etc. could and probably will erode if the definition is too inclusive.
Eric Nuse - Is sport an adequate term to explain hunting? It doesn’t seem to go quite far enough to justify the death of the animal. Should we coin a new word or find a better one to represent the context of what hunting represents? Words that come to mind are: the sacred sport or beyond sport, spirit of sport…
Should we come up with an adjective to describe hunting such as: responsible hunting, modern hunting, certified hunter…Or would it be better (although harder) to elevate the term hunting to where we feel it should be and debunk the negatives now attached to it by some?
What is recreational hunting: a conceptual model
Dr. Tantillo presented his research on hunting as a sport. Starting with play (unstructured or free, done for pure enjoyment) to games (rules, specific setting, goals, can be competitive, but done for its own sake) to sport (physical, written and unwritten rules, takes effort, competitive, done for the enjoyment).
Logically speaking, hunting as a voluntary leisure activity (play) has structure and rules that make it structured play (game) and a physical aspect that make it a physical game (sport). These relations are logically entwined whether we like the term 'sport' or not.
Why this matters is because the structure and rules of the game give rise to our concepts and beliefs about fair play and fair chase. Again, this is true whether we like the term 'sport' or not.
Some sports are a variation referred to as athletics. Here the goal is to get the prize, to beat the competition and win. The goal of sports like hunting is in the enjoyment, or recreation of the activity itself ---getting the deer is icing on the cake. The possibility of the kill is necessary but accomplishing it is not, because the joy is in the striving or the hunt.
J.W. Keating addresses this in his1964 article in the journal Ethics, "Sportsmanship as a Moral Category," where he writes about the "purpose" of sport: The primary purpose of sport is not to win the match, to catch the fish or kill the animal, but to derive pleasure from the attempt to do so and to afford pleasure to one's fellow participants in the process.
Tantillo thinks this gets the issue exactly right, and offers one reason why food-based justifications fail: they make hunting ALL about the results, meaning, all about the killing. A hunt is not successful unless it yields meat. The pleasure of the hunt is the hunt itself.
Understanding hunting as a sport helps to cut through the complexity and diversity of hunting practices. Hunting as a sport and the concept of fair play or fair chase in hunting have infinite variety; thus, the notion that hunting is an open concept. It can be defined at the value level in the context of sport, but definitions seem to fall apart at the position or specific practice level.
This understanding could help hunters think about what they do, align their behavior with their reasons for hunting and assist in communicating this clearly to others. If we are successful, hunters will not have to sell the value of hunting. We will have to demonstrate that it is part of our sacred world and as important to our lives as religion and other types of recreation are to all people.
The importance of placing hunting right in the middle of the play universe, delays the tricky question (justifying death of animal) for later.
Additional Comments
Jim Posewitz summed it up: “Play>recreation>re-creation>eating the hunted validates the hunter and the hunted. "The Hunt" is born as play amid the pure joy of nature; the game becomes recreation to nature as re-creation. Through the kill and utilization, the hunted and hunter becomes one. When the hunted's renewal precedes all else, the circle closes and the game, sealed in blood, becomes sacred. They become one. Hunters validate the relationship when they assure the environment is suitable for the hunter and the hunted.
John Edwards – Rather than spend our energy defending the term sport hunting -that we already know many hunters and non-hunters find distasteful- maybe a better approach is to define what hunting is in the context of sport and pleasure without using the modifier.
Jim Tantillo - The importance of keeping the modifier 'sport' in mind is that logically this concept provides the only possible explanation of where ideas of "fair chase" come from, i.e. from ideals of "fair play" and sportsmanship--and explains why these ideals are important for thinking about recreational hunting. Whereas law obligates us to maintain the bare minimum standards of codified acceptable behavior, sportsmanship holds us to higher, uncodified standards of behavior, i.e. to standards of fair chase.
And we *voluntarily* elect to follow these higher standards, as opposed to being obligated (legally or otherwise) to follow them.
Other benefits of hunting; and confusing these benefits with why we hunt
If you want to play, you need a playground. Our playground is the environment and all the necessities of life, which are necessary for our lives and the lives of all the animals including those we don’t hunt. Creating this playground takes money, knowledge and skill. All of which hunters have supplied, thus the success of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. But all of these good things are not why we hunt.
When we try to justify hunting on these results, it comes off as self-serving and is easily countered. For example, a common justification for hunting is controlling populations. This falls apart when you look at a hunted species such as woodcock. There is no overpopulation of woodcock, yet we hunt them (and many other species like them). Does that mean they should not be hunted? Even species that need population control can be controlled by many other means such as sharp shooters, elimination of critical habitat or the introduction of predators.
Sacred vs. Profane
The profane world is the world of work and subsistence. You do work because you must in order to live. The sacred world gives you the reason to live beyond the basics of reproduction and survival. Play/games/sport are in the sacred sphere and are critical for man’s psychological and spiritual well-being.
History shows that the Greeks hunted rabbits for fun. Sport hunting has a far longer history than the 100 year span that most people think.
(The rest of this section was added by Jim Tantillo)
The connection of sport to religion is made most explicitly in the literature pertaining to the philosophy of sport, for example in Charles Prebish's anthology, Religion and Sport: The Meeting of Sacred and Profane.
But before we ask how sport can be seen as religious, we need first to see more fundamentally how play and leisure are sacred to humans.
At the risk of over generalizing, the sociology of religion typically characterizes our daily work or our routine daily toil as the realm of the ordinary, i.e., as the realm of the profane; whereas play, leisure, festivity, and celebration are the realm of the sacred.
In Leisure as the Basis of Culture, Josef Pieper writes, "Leisure is only possible when a man is at one with himself, when he acquiesces to his own being. . . . Leisure, it must be clearly understood, is a mental and spiritual attitude."
This insight highlights the importance of meaningful leisure activities such as hunting for human happiness. In this sense leisure (as is play) is generally seen in contrast to work. Pieper comments:
"Compared with the exclusive ideal of work as toil, leisure appears . . . in its character as an attitude of contemplative 'celebration,' a word that, properly understood, goes to the very heart of what we mean by leisure."
As regards hunting, one might argue that it is the experience of authentic leisure in hunting that is the spiritual experience, not necessarily the experience of hunting per se. Or stated another way, it is the contemplative aspect of hunting that we enjoy most when hunting,.
Here again we see the importance of interpreting hunting fundamentally as a form of play, i.e., as first and foremost a form of recreational activity. As Huizinga writes in Homo Ludens:
"PLAY. It is an activity that proceeds within certain limits of time and space, in a visible order, according to rules freely accepted, and outside the sphere of necessity or material utility. The play-mood is one of rapture and enthusiasm, and is sacred or festive in accordance with the occasion. A feeling of exaltation and tension accompanies the action."
Essayist Diane Ackerman builds upon Huizinga's themes in her book, Deep Play, and she emphasizes both the religious aspects of play but also echoes Pieper's view that leisure is a spiritual attitude:
"Deep play is the ecstatic form of play. In its thrall, all the play elements are visible, but they're taken to intense and transcendent heights. Thus, deep play should really be classified by mood, not activity. It testifies to how something happens, not what happens. Games don't guarantee deep play, but some activities are prone to it: art, religion, risk-taking, and some sports-especially those that take place in relatively remote, silent, and floaty environments, such as scuba diving, parachuting, hang gliding, mountain climbing.
"Deep play always involves the sacred and holy, sometimes hidden in the most unlikely or humble places-amid towering shelves of rock in Nepal; crouched over print in a dimly lit room; slipping on AstroTurf; wearing a coconut-shell mask. We spend our lives in pursuit of moments that will allow these altered states to happen. The Australian Aborigines search for it on wilderness treks called walkabouts, during which young men of the tribe go alone into the dangerous outback to gain strength and wisdom. Buddhist lamas and Hindu sadhus travel, nearly naked, to pray atop glacial mountains in Tibet. People from many cultures have gone on soul journeys into the wilderness, where risk, hunger, pain, exhaustion, and sometimes self-torture might inspire visions. Young Masai men set off on a pilgrimage to Mount Kilimanjaro, the sacred center of their world, as part of the initiation rite known as Moranism. Native Americans have often used ritualized running to scale mental heights. The Hopis stage many such races every year, featuring paint, costumes, fasts, and prayer. The Crow Indians run to exhaustion to persuade the gods that they deserve good luck. The Zuni run twenty to forty miles while kicking a sacred stick. The official purpose of these ordeals may be religious, but the physiological goal is to impel the initiate into a higher state of consciousness that kindles visions and insights, in a locale where survival may depend on a combination of ingenuity and nerve."
The literature on play, deep play, and the theology of play is vast. I used "sacred" and "profane" at the McGraw think tank as a kind of shorthand for the entire subject. To me the concept of hunting as play, i.e. as deep play, again is what explains so much, from understanding the rules of fair chase as resulting from the structure of hunting as play to the experience of the spiritual felt by hunters when they truly lose themselves in the activity.
Harm vs. Offense
This concept can be summed up as follows: “Your freedom to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose.” Swinging a fist may be offensive but it is tolerated up to the point of doing harm. The American form of democracy allows for offensive people to do what they want as long as they do no harm.
This question gets tricky when you try to look at hunting practices through the eyes of non-hunters and when you project into the future. How much political consideration should be included in our decision making on practices that may hurt the future of hunting?
Definition of Hunting
Sunday morning we came back to the definition of hunting. On Saturday, we were divided on whether we should try to draw a line in the sand – on this side was hunting; on that side was shooting or killing or something else. Was high-fence hunting doing us harm or was it offensive? (It was noted that reasons to oppose high fence operations-such as denial of wildlife as a public resource; thus the denial of several components of the North American Model, such as “public resource”, “democracy of allocation” and allocation by law, among others-are the best arguments against captive shooting operations.)
How about preserve bird hunting such as is practiced on the grounds where we were meeting? Again, evaluation of the circumstances is important, in this case looking at it from topography or location. The McGraw Center is an island of opportunity set in a sea of concrete/suburbia 40 minutes from downtown Chicago. It is as good as could be done in this place and time. Whereas, a western wilderness of millions of acres of public lands is as good as could be done in that place and time- both the product of the conservation ethic of hunters.
Conversely, a high fence operation out on the vast open spaces of
Texas represents a denial of the North American Model and a retreat to the fortress that is not necessary for any real conservation purpose.
Consensus began to emerge that most of these practices did not rise to the level of harm, from the hunter ethic view. Most of us felt that they and some other hunting methods did serve as an entry point for new hunters and opened the possibility for them to gain more skill, so they too could eventually enjoy a wilder and more challenging hunting experience in the future.
Edwards’ comment - We started to consider the benefits of hunting and hunter numbers and explored the idea that if the results of the hunting practice are positive then the practice should be accepted and would constitute hunting. Much of this we wrestled with and I don’t think that we really arrived at a consensus – several unresolved issues. Do we want to make these “open” ideas available to misinterpretation?
Framework for thinking through hunting ethics and esthetics/preferences
We decided it would be very helpful for agencies, rule-making boards and hunters to develop a framework to assist in working through what is acceptable hunting and what is not. This could be in the form of a series of questions, a decision tree or something else. If we do this well, such a framework could over time become the equivalent of the seven sisters of the North American model, and we could offer talks, workshops, and guidelines for asking these questions and making informed decisions. This process could also help locate areas of disagreement and help focus the debate where it will do the most good. Currently there is a lot of time is wasted on fighting over preferences (mistaken for ethics), which only divides hunters and distracts from the pressing issues.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Nuse named Executive Director
Press release sent out for Orion by me:
For immediate release
Orion-The Hunters’ Institute Names Vermonter Executive Director
Orion is pleased to announce the promotion of Eric Nuse to executive director.
Nuse served 33 years with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department as the game warden for Lamoille County and State hunter education training coordinator. He is the former executive vice president of the International Hunter Education Association. After retiring in 1996 he joined the board of Orion becoming president in 2009. Orion founder Jim Posewitz notes that, because of Eric’s experience and his personal commitment to hunting, he is in an excellent position to take Orion across the start-up threshold and strengthen the organization’s educational mission as hunters and hunting find their course in the 21st century.
The Montana based organization is also moving its business office to Vermont. Orion is best known for its strong stance on ethical hunting and promoting the value of North American’s hunting heritage. Posewitz’s book, Beyond Fair Chase, is a standard for hunter education classes in North America with 500,000 copies in circulation. For more information please contact us at 802-730-8111, or visit www.huntright.org
Contacts:
Eric Nuse, (802) 730-8111 ericnuse@gmail.com
Jim Posewitz (406) 229-2795 orionhi@bresnan.net
For immediate release
Orion-The Hunters’ Institute Names Vermonter Executive Director
Orion is pleased to announce the promotion of Eric Nuse to executive director.
Nuse served 33 years with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department as the game warden for Lamoille County and State hunter education training coordinator. He is the former executive vice president of the International Hunter Education Association. After retiring in 1996 he joined the board of Orion becoming president in 2009. Orion founder Jim Posewitz notes that, because of Eric’s experience and his personal commitment to hunting, he is in an excellent position to take Orion across the start-up threshold and strengthen the organization’s educational mission as hunters and hunting find their course in the 21st century.
The Montana based organization is also moving its business office to Vermont. Orion is best known for its strong stance on ethical hunting and promoting the value of North American’s hunting heritage. Posewitz’s book, Beyond Fair Chase, is a standard for hunter education classes in North America with 500,000 copies in circulation. For more information please contact us at 802-730-8111, or visit www.huntright.org
Contacts:
Eric Nuse, (802) 730-8111 ericnuse@gmail.com
Jim Posewitz (406) 229-2795 orionhi@bresnan.net
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Otter Creek decision reminiscent of old buffalo hunter
From the Great Fall Tribune:
December 31, 2009
Otter Creek decision reminiscent of old buffalo hunter
By JIM POSEWITZ
I attended the State Land Board Hearing Dec. 21, not to testify, since I had done that in writing, but to watch the political theater around a major decision.
The rationalization that emerged to cause four of the five board members to vote in favor of leasing Otter Creek coal was that somebody was going to supply the coal, so why not us. After all, regulatory safeguards will protect us, there is an export potential to Pacific Rim countries, and we can pick up some big revenue.
It was, however, not possible to view the proceedings solely in the context of Otter Creek coal and the Tongue River Railroad to haul it away. There was more before the board than a simple decision to lease or not to lease coal.
The testimony relative to pollution, climate change, high-sodium coal, ruptured aquifers, tons of carbon emissions, and unsustainability mounted as witnesses presented their views.
The board's carefully crafted responses carried the hearing through the morning. Listening to the board, my mind drifted back to Charles "Buffalo" Jones, a 19th century commercial hide hunter.
Here is what he said:
"Often while hunting these animals as a business, I fully realized the cruelty of slaying the poor creatures. Many times did I 'swear off,' and fully determine I would break my gun over a wagon-wheel when I arrived at camp. ... The next morning I would hear the guns of other hunters booming in all directions and would make up my mind that even if I did not kill any more, the buffalo would soon all be slain just the same."
In the winter of 1882-83 ranch hands of Levi Howe shot the last buffalo on Horse Creek, tributary to Otter Creek. In the summer of 1883 rancher Walt Alderson shot one lonely old bull near Tongue River — the last of millions. This hearing was about the very same landscape — only deeper!
The majority presenting testimony pleaded for the current sustainable ranch economy, the people's fish and wildlife, and a healthy planet.
The commercial boosters were also there to make argument for industrial strength employment and revenue. Both the commercial boosters and the board placed reliance on the Montana regulatory structure to insure temperance.
The fact is, the regulatory structure put in place over 35 years ago, has been severely depleted by legislative erosion and a lack of regulatory resolve. In essence, those very same interest groups who traditionally line up for lowering environmental protection were now offering the regulatory residual as
assurance for our future.
Those original protections were put in place in a precious period in Montana history, a time when there were progressive politicians on both side of the political aisle.
That "golden moment" in history was replaced with one where one side of the aisle resembles little more than a population of corporate lemmings, while the other holds all the seats on the board. That expectation of the electorate was a misplaced hope.
As a result, addressing the environmental peril at hand once again falls to the people, who carry the burden of Sisyphus, and to one board member with the courage and wisdom to say "no."
Everyone ignored the real possibility that this buried carbon at rest called coal, may well be burned in China. Current events just concluded in Copenhagen reveal the Chinese diplomats as less than enthusiastic about curbing global contamination.
We can still remember they had to momentarily shut down their industries just to get through the Olympics. Also ignored was a promised Montana ballot issue that will seek to impose a "takings" claim with the potential to either raid state funds or cripple the already compromised regulatory process.
The most refreshing part of the hearing was the testimony of students from Missoula's Big Sky High School. The students presented factual, emotional and inspirational testimony; but, then it is their future on this planet that is at stake.
However, the moment they finished, the board, without pause, began reading carefully prepared motions and statements — statements obviously prepared long before the morning's proceeding.
Positions prepared before the students wrote theirs, before their icy drive from Missoula, and before listening to their emotional but reasoned pleas.
Granted, the board already had substantial input, but still, this was a government body with an educational trust responsibility. They chose to give the students a tough civics lesson in real world politics.
Finally, Jeanie Alderson presented testimony relative to the value of sustainable agriculture and the benefits of non-industrial landscapes.
Her testimony returns the buffalo to the story, since it was her great, great uncle Walt who shot that lonely bull above Tongue River in 1883.
It was her great, great aunt Nannie who clipped the old bull's curly mane to stuff a pillow. The Alderson testimony was a dramatic demonstration of the conservation ethic that emerged and grew strong in our Montana culture, generation upon generation.
It is a land ethic now held at the grassroots level in this state. It is an ethic that deserved better political representation than the single lonely vote of one board member.
For the Montana Land Board it is now the same next morning experienced by Charles "Buffalo" Jones.
Four of the five could only hear the guns of other planetary polluters. Only one had the courage to break my gun over a wagon-wheel and stand on principle. Denise Juneau was that person when she voted "no" and told us why.
They are words that warrant repetition: "We cannot vote as if we have blinders on and only see our
present economic picture. We must take lessons from the past seven generations and also look forward and provide for the interests of the next seven generations."
She only had one vote, but it keeps hope alive.
December 31, 2009
Otter Creek decision reminiscent of old buffalo hunter
By JIM POSEWITZ
I attended the State Land Board Hearing Dec. 21, not to testify, since I had done that in writing, but to watch the political theater around a major decision.
The rationalization that emerged to cause four of the five board members to vote in favor of leasing Otter Creek coal was that somebody was going to supply the coal, so why not us. After all, regulatory safeguards will protect us, there is an export potential to Pacific Rim countries, and we can pick up some big revenue.
It was, however, not possible to view the proceedings solely in the context of Otter Creek coal and the Tongue River Railroad to haul it away. There was more before the board than a simple decision to lease or not to lease coal.
The testimony relative to pollution, climate change, high-sodium coal, ruptured aquifers, tons of carbon emissions, and unsustainability mounted as witnesses presented their views.
The board's carefully crafted responses carried the hearing through the morning. Listening to the board, my mind drifted back to Charles "Buffalo" Jones, a 19th century commercial hide hunter.
Here is what he said:
"Often while hunting these animals as a business, I fully realized the cruelty of slaying the poor creatures. Many times did I 'swear off,' and fully determine I would break my gun over a wagon-wheel when I arrived at camp. ... The next morning I would hear the guns of other hunters booming in all directions and would make up my mind that even if I did not kill any more, the buffalo would soon all be slain just the same."
In the winter of 1882-83 ranch hands of Levi Howe shot the last buffalo on Horse Creek, tributary to Otter Creek. In the summer of 1883 rancher Walt Alderson shot one lonely old bull near Tongue River — the last of millions. This hearing was about the very same landscape — only deeper!
The majority presenting testimony pleaded for the current sustainable ranch economy, the people's fish and wildlife, and a healthy planet.
The commercial boosters were also there to make argument for industrial strength employment and revenue. Both the commercial boosters and the board placed reliance on the Montana regulatory structure to insure temperance.
The fact is, the regulatory structure put in place over 35 years ago, has been severely depleted by legislative erosion and a lack of regulatory resolve. In essence, those very same interest groups who traditionally line up for lowering environmental protection were now offering the regulatory residual as
assurance for our future.
Those original protections were put in place in a precious period in Montana history, a time when there were progressive politicians on both side of the political aisle.
That "golden moment" in history was replaced with one where one side of the aisle resembles little more than a population of corporate lemmings, while the other holds all the seats on the board. That expectation of the electorate was a misplaced hope.
As a result, addressing the environmental peril at hand once again falls to the people, who carry the burden of Sisyphus, and to one board member with the courage and wisdom to say "no."
Everyone ignored the real possibility that this buried carbon at rest called coal, may well be burned in China. Current events just concluded in Copenhagen reveal the Chinese diplomats as less than enthusiastic about curbing global contamination.
We can still remember they had to momentarily shut down their industries just to get through the Olympics. Also ignored was a promised Montana ballot issue that will seek to impose a "takings" claim with the potential to either raid state funds or cripple the already compromised regulatory process.
The most refreshing part of the hearing was the testimony of students from Missoula's Big Sky High School. The students presented factual, emotional and inspirational testimony; but, then it is their future on this planet that is at stake.
However, the moment they finished, the board, without pause, began reading carefully prepared motions and statements — statements obviously prepared long before the morning's proceeding.
Positions prepared before the students wrote theirs, before their icy drive from Missoula, and before listening to their emotional but reasoned pleas.
Granted, the board already had substantial input, but still, this was a government body with an educational trust responsibility. They chose to give the students a tough civics lesson in real world politics.
Finally, Jeanie Alderson presented testimony relative to the value of sustainable agriculture and the benefits of non-industrial landscapes.
Her testimony returns the buffalo to the story, since it was her great, great uncle Walt who shot that lonely bull above Tongue River in 1883.
It was her great, great aunt Nannie who clipped the old bull's curly mane to stuff a pillow. The Alderson testimony was a dramatic demonstration of the conservation ethic that emerged and grew strong in our Montana culture, generation upon generation.
It is a land ethic now held at the grassroots level in this state. It is an ethic that deserved better political representation than the single lonely vote of one board member.
For the Montana Land Board it is now the same next morning experienced by Charles "Buffalo" Jones.
Four of the five could only hear the guns of other planetary polluters. Only one had the courage to break my gun over a wagon-wheel and stand on principle. Denise Juneau was that person when she voted "no" and told us why.
They are words that warrant repetition: "We cannot vote as if we have blinders on and only see our
present economic picture. We must take lessons from the past seven generations and also look forward and provide for the interests of the next seven generations."
She only had one vote, but it keeps hope alive.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
