Is It Hunting?

This essay is cross-posted with permission from Phillip Loughlin's Hog Blog.

Is It Hunting?

April 7, 2014

Last week, my brother and I spent two full days at Crystal Creek Bowhunting, a high fence ranch over near Del Rio, Texas.  Our plan was to target axis deer and hogs.  The package we paid for also allowed us to shoot a turkey.  We could swap the axis for any other exotic we encountered, which could have included sika deer, blackbuck antelope, or various sheep (ramboulet, mouflon, aoudad, or hybrids).

Each of us spent one arrow, shot at wild hogs during the last light of the first night’s hunt (neither of us connected).  Each of us also passed up a single shot opportunity at a ”wild” sheep during the trip.  I got caught flat-footed by a big tom turkey that snuck in through the brush and suddenly appeared, five yards away.  Other than that, we had no shot opportunities and spent the majority of the time in the field enjoying the plethora of birds that flock through Texas during the spring migration.  I may have napped a little in the warm, spring morning sun.  Neither of us killed anything except time.

During the trip, the contentious debate about high fence hunting kept running through my mind.  In particular, I kept thinking about the insistence by some folks that high fence hunting isn’t hunting at all.  The argument centers on the fact that high fence hunting is easy, and that the animals don’t have a fair chance of escape.

So is it the difficulty of the hunt that makes it “hunting”?

I’ve got a spot at the Tejon Ranch, back in California, where I could guarantee a shot at a wild hog.  Even better, I could just about pinpoint when the animals would appear, and where they’d show up first.  Everyone I ever took to that spot had at least one shot opportunity.  I am certain that, had I wanted to do so, I could have laid around camp all day long, driven out to that spot in the last half hour before sunset, and killed a hog (if I shot straight)… every trip.

Tejon isn’t a high fence ranch.  There were no feeders, and no food plots.  Was that “hunting”?

When I was guiding for mule deer out at Coon Camp Springs, in California’s eastern Sierra, my clients had a 100% shot opportunity rate.  Once I learned the lay of the land, I had specific areas that almost always produced deer.  By the time the clients showed up, I could usually have them tagged out within two days… often sooner.

Coon Camp Springs is about 7000 acres of unfenced land, surrounded by millions more acres of public and private property.  With the exception of some habitat restoration work, there is nothing unusual there to specifically attract or hold deer.  But the hunts were typically easy.  Was that “hunting”?

A few years back, I joined my brother on his first elk hunting trip.  The first morning, the sun came up on us about four or five miles into the Uncompahgre Wilderness.  We were surrounded by elk.  Fifteen minutes later, my brother had a 320″ bull on the ground.  The next morning, I set up on the edge of some dark timber while the guide and wrangler took the horses down to pack out my brother’s bull.  By the time they got back up the mountain to where I was, I had almost finished skinning and boning out my own bull.  Sure, it was a fairly long hike in and out, but it wasn’t what I’d call a “hard” hunt.  In fact, it was far easier than some high fenced, hog hunts I’ve been on.  Was it “hunting”?

Enough with the redundancy, then.

Besides the relative ease of all of those hunts, high fence and low, they share one other thing in common.  I enjoyed them.  Even the ostensibly “fruitless” bow hunt on the high fence ranch was a great time.  I had fun, and really, isn’t that what hunting is about?

There are people who would tell me that my visit to that high fence ranch wasn’t “hunting”.  But I have to say, it sure felt like it to me.  As I sat there with my release clipped on, waiting with ragged breath and racing pulse for the spotted boar to take just two more steps… it felt like any other time or place, sitting in the same position with the same apprehensive tension.  Or leaning back in the stand, nearly dozing under the late morning sun… I could have been on any hillside in any place.  And later, around the skinning pole with the guys who were successful, it was the same jokes and banter that I’ve heard around skinning poles in every state and setting I’ve ever experienced.

No, I was there… and I’m pretty certain I was hunting.  I am also dead sure that I enjoyed the experience, and it makes me wonder; in what world ruled by reason and logic could anyone tell me that I didn’t?

Isn’t that a foolish thought… to tell someone else that they couldn’t have enjoyed an experience because you wouldn’t enjoy it yourself?

Is it hunting?  It is to me.  Maybe it doesn’t meet your definition, but that’s alright.

Beagling For Bunnies

(I thought a story about hounding rabbits would sit well next to a story about hounding bears.) I started to learn about rabbit hunting after Nancy’s dad introduced me to beagles and Adirondack snowshoe hares on our first Christmas together. Within several weeks I had my first shotgun and a beagle pup, but barely a clue how to bring a brace of bunnies home for dinner.

Jupp was a “brace beagle;” he slowly, carefully followed a hare’s track. His tortoise pace, and his use of nose rather than eyes to follow the hare, meant that my hunting buddies never accused him of chasing a rabbit.

One of my many rookie mistakes, however, was chasing after Jupp as he was bawling behind a bunny. I learned from experience that rabbits more or less circle from where they were first sniffed out, and that “dog the farthest, rabbit the closest.” So my strategy became a waiting game at the point of first contact. When I heard Jupp far away but just beginning to track back, that’s when I’d finally pump a shell into the Mossberg 500’s chamber and start looking for that tell-tale beady black eye.

I think that the beagle may have been engaged in fair chase; I’m pretty sure that beagles and bunnies don’t “understand” what “fair” is, so how can they elect to engage in a fair chase? At any rate, certainly the beagle had no unfair advantages. But is a stationary rabbit hunter also engaged in fair chase? If so, maybe Orion’s Small Game Division needs an alternate phrase to characterize how its hunters honorably engage in their sports’ traditions. Claiming there’s “fair chase” when there is no “chase” may, I fear, offer a cheap opportunity for an anti hunting critique. As a hunter, I’d hate to cut the switch for hunting’s critics to whack my own arse with.

After I’d hunted bunnies for more than a few years, a new wrinkle to my strategy seemed right. So when a rabbit back tracked the first time, I’d let it scoot by, and hope for a shot on a second, or third, pass. By this time I’d learned that my favorite part of the hunt was listening to “beagle music,” a realization that’s definitely not mine alone. As more time went on, I was shooting at only every third rabbit or so that went by, just, as my father in law taught me, “to keep the dog interested.” Looking back, that’s about as close as you can get to “catch and release” hunting. Would some consider this only-occasionally lethal behavior as wrong headed at best?

Canned Hunts, Fair Chase, and the Sorites Paradox

In a recent article, “Canned Hunting: Don’t Call It Hunting!” outdoor writer David Petersen discusses the difference between fair chase and canned hunts, and he quotes Orion founder Jim Posewitz approvingly. 

“A fenced shoot,” Posewitz writes, “is just the sale of a fabricated image to people who have neither the skill nor the inclination to obtain the real thing.”

Petersen agrees, and argues, “There is honorable hunting, and there is cowardly captive killing. The motivations and characters defining each are as distinct as day and night.”

Petersen is wrong.  The motivations and character of hunters are NOT as distinct as day and night.  There is no distinct line between canned hunts on the one hand, and fair chase on the other.

The difference between honorable hunting and cowardly hunting does not depend on the presence or absence of a fence.  Ideals of honor and cowardice, however, as well as ideals of fair chase, depend crucially on the hunter, and upon the hunter’s skills and aptitude. 

Fair chase has traditionally been defined relative to the animal—in particular, to the animal’s ability to escape. 

What’s missing in most debates about fair chase is the awareness that we need also to define fair chase relative to the human hunter—and to be specific, to the individual hunter’s ability to hunt. (And here we also know that hunters come in all shapes, sizes, interests, and abilities.)

Furthermore, we must acknowledge that there is a fundamental ambiguity to the very concept of fair chase. This ambiguity involves the philosophical problem of vagueness, a problem that has long been identified by philosophers as the sorites paradox, from the Greek term meaning “heap” or “pile.” 

The paradox is this:  start with a pile of sand, and begin removing the sand, one grain at a time.  At what point does the pile or heap become a “non-heap”?

The thought experiment can also be run in reverse: start with a grain of sand, and add to it another grain of sand. Do you now have a pile of sand?  Of course not.  Now add a third grain.  Is it a heap yet?  Of course not.  Now, continue adding sand, one grain at a time . . .  at what point do you have a heap of sand? 

The upshot is that there is no clear dividing line between having one or two grains of sand (that might constitute the concept dust) and having a pile, or a heap, or even a mountain of sand.  Thus the very concept of heap or pile or mountain is ambiguous.

Baldness is another inherently ambiguous concept (my own baldness, however, is clearly unambiguous). Begin with a full head of hair and remove it one hair at a time. When do you cross the line from having hair to being bald? (For me, it was around the age of 20!) 

Author Jim Tantillo

 

Trying to define fair chase is exactly like this—like trying to define “baldness” or “pile.”

So what does all this have to do with hunting?

On the one hand, or to be more precise, on one end of the spectrum (and spectrum, a term from physics, is exactly the right term to use) we have hunting practices that are clearly akin to a single grain of sand or to my gloriously bald pate. 

 
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To illustrate the point: imagine a deer chained to a post in a 10’x10’ chain-link enclosed pen, being shot at close range. Clearly this is not fair chase:  the deer has no ability to avoid death, and the hunter needs no ability at such close range either to pursue or to shoot the tethered animal.

Remove the tether.  Now the deer is in a 10 x 10 enclosure, but can move around.  Is this fair chase?  Clearly the hunter is at more of a disadvantage than in the first scenario: the deer may jump at precisely the same moment as he/she squeezes the trigger, and the hunter may wound the animal or possibly even miss entirely.  It may take two shots to bring the animal down, particularly for a poor marksman.

Does this second scenario constitute fair chase?  Clearly not, the animal is still enclosed, and little to no skill is needed on the part of the hunter.

Let us now imagine that we expand the enclosure—how about a full acre?  And while we are at it, let’s add an acre’s worth of brushy vegetation.  The deer has the ability to roam about, but the hunter must still stay out of the fence to shoot the animal.

All the hunter need do in this case, is wait patiently for the deer to come along within view inside the fence, and take a killing shot.

Is this fair chase?  Probably not, although now the lines are getting a little more fuzzy.  How does waiting outside the fence differ from an archer sitting and waiting in a tree stand?  But I’ll leave that question for another essay.

Let’s keep going, trying to get closer to fair chase.  Let’s put a gate in the fence, and allow the hunter to enter and pursue the animal within the one-acre confines of the enclosure.  The animal can still move around and has plenty of early-successional shrubland (let’s go ahead and fill the enclosure with thorny multiflora rose and honeysuckle) in which to hide.

Now it takes the hunter the better part of a morning to locate, stalk, and shoot the deer.  But after several hours of patient stalking, the hunter is successful.

Does this “hunt” now constitute “fair chase”?  Observe that we have come a fair way from shooting the animal that was tethered inside what was essentially a dog pen.  

Most hunters still would not be comfortable labeling the one-acre stalk on a deer--multiflora rose or not--as a fair chase hunt.  And yet notice that some hunters might . . . .  We can imagine hunters with disabilities, for example, who might be content with such a one-acre stalk if confined to a wheel chair. Or a young hunter, just starting out, may appreciate and learn from such an experience.

Note that I am not implying that this necessarily would be a good hunt, for young hunters or hunters with disabilities.  I am simply suggesting that the hunt might provide sufficient challenge to each individual hunter, and each hunter might possibly go home satisfied with their hunting experience. 

Now let’s continue the sorites part of our thought experiment.  Let’s rerun the thought experiment a thousand times, adding one additional acre with each repetition.  First the hunter pursues the deer in a two-acre enclosure, and then in a three-acre enclosure . . . and so on, and so on, and so on.  (And let’s, for the sake of argument, assume there is only a single, individual deer to be pursued—not legions of overpopulated deer as occur in many areas of the country.)

At what point does the enclosure become large enough that we cross a line between canned hunting and fair chase?

Perhaps never, for some hunters.  For them, hunting inside a fence is always unethical.  But for others, trying to pursue a single deer in a 1,000-acre enclosure, or a 5,000-acre enclosure, or a 20,000-acre enclosure, would be challenging and fair regardless of the proximity of the fence. 

So now let’s just remove the fence.  And imagine the same, solitary, single deer roaming about unrestricted over a 20,000-acre, or 50,000-acre, fenceless area.  Would this hunt now constitute fair chase?

I’m pretty sure if you plunked down a hard-core deer hunter, and took away his tree stand, and made him stalk a single deer over 50,000 acres (that’s 78.125 square miles!), he or she would most likely call that a fair chase hunt.

While I myself might never hunt a captive animal in a high fence setting, unlike David Petersen I am not about to tell someone else that they should not do so.  As long as a hunter conscientiously strives for a clean, quick, one-shot kill, and does so safely while respecting the law, then that hunter acts ethically and morally.

The difference between canned hunting and fair chase is like the difference between a grain of sand and a pile of sand.  When viewed on each end of the hunting spectrum, fair chase and canned hunting are clearly different.  But there is no distinct line, no clearly unambiguous boundary, to be drawn between fair chase and canned hunts, or between honorable hunters and cowards.

____________________________

Jim Tantillo is the Executive Director of Orion, The Hunters’ Institute. He has M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Cornell University, where he currently also teaches ethics and environmental philosophy in the Department of Natural Resources.

A grouse hunting purist, Jim will generally argue until he is blue in the face that the One, True, Correct Way to Hunt Grouse is with a 16 gauge Parker double gun over the staunch point of a well-trained English setter.  In the spirit of political toleration, however, he also argues until he is equally blue in the face that his retriever- and spaniel-owning friends be permitted to hunt grouse legally as they see fit, despite their aesthetically misguided preferences for flushing dogs or 12 gauge autoloaders!

 

Technology and fair chase

Terrific video from the NSSF about the AR-15 and its use in hunting. They make the point that virtually ALL conventional sporting arms started out as "military guns."



My thanks to Cagey for passing this along.

The Baiting Wars - Continued

This video is from the North Dakota Game and Fish Dept looking at the baiting of deer. Issues examined include: disease, drawing animals off public land on to restricted public land resulting in reducing the overall kill, and fair chase concerns. The first two concerns were why VT several years ago outlawed feeding and baiting. The definition of fair chase hunting is from the Boone and Crockett Club.

http://gf.nd.gov/multimedia/pubs/baiting-video.html

North Dakota Hunters for Fair Chase is a group looking to close down the states high fence shooting operations. Lot's of interesting stuff going on in ND. Better lat than never?

The dog-hunting debate and fair chase

The following is a link to an article from North American Whitetail about the hunting of deer using hounds as is practiced in the American South.

http://www.northamericanwhitetail.com/deermanagement/NAW_debate_1009/

I'll include some excerpts here.

Does the use of hounds to hunt deer violate the norms of fair chase? Why or why not? Is the use of hounds to hunt deer below the threshold of what "ethical hunters" should tolerate or support? Should there be a national prohibition against the hunting of deer with hounds?

To some, hunting whitetails with dogs is a rich tradition that has been around since colonial days, and for those hunters there is nothing more exciting than hearing the music of the dogs as they get on the trail of a deer. To others, hunting deer with dogs is an annoying and outdated method of hunting that ought to be outlawed. Here is an in-depth look at dog deer hunting in America today.

By John Hay Rabb

According to archeologists and historians, man has used domesticated canines to hunt wild game for as long as 15,000 years. When European settlers reached North America in the 1600s, they brought their hunting dog traditions with them. Experts believe that the first authentic pack of hunting dogs in the colonies was established by Robert Brooke of Maryland in 1650.

But hunting with dogs in early North America represented a tectonic cultural shift away from the European style of hunting. For centuries in Europe, hunting wild game was a diversion available only to the rich and powerful. Game animals traditionally belonged to royalty and the landed gentry. Peasants caught "poaching the King's deer" often met their fate at the end of a hangman's noose.

In the colonies and later in the newly independent United States, wild game belonged to all free white males, regardless of their wealth or social class. Unfortunately, women and people of color had no similar rights, but that injustice was eventually rectified. The influx of Scotch-Irish immigrants to America in the mid-1700s ushered in the use of trained hounds to hunt so-called "Virginia deer" in Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

But storm clouds began to gather early for dog-hunting in America. (Note: Hunting deer with dogs is commonly referred to as "dog-hunting.") In 1738, the Virginia House of Burgesses passed a law that required owners of deer dogs to keep their animals confined except when they were actually involved in a deer hunt. In 1876, Wisconsin became the first state to ban dog-hunting altogether. The bitterly debated Adirondack Deer Law of 1888 imposed tight strictures on dog-hunting in New York. By 1920, all of the Northeastern states had outlawed dog-hunting for deer.

DOG-HUNTING IN THE DEEP SOUTH

As many deer hunters know, dog-hunting can be highly effective. By 1900, whitetail numbers were at an all-time low. Thanks to conservation efforts, the ever-resilient whitetails made a dramatic recovery in the last century. Now there are an estimated 30 million "Virginia deer" spread across 45 states.

Today, 11 states still allow deer hunting with dogs. However, two of the states, California and Hawaii, have no whitetail populations, and state game management officials tightly control the use of dogs to hunt axis, blacktail and mule deer. So the last bastion of dog-hunting for whitetails is found in nine states that were once part of the Old Confederacy: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. Another former Confederate state, Texas, allowed dog-hunting until 1990, when it was banned due to a flood of complaints from landowners and non-hunters. Incidentally, Texas now has an estimated 4 million whitetails, which is the largest population in any individual state or Canadian province.

Deer hunters who believe that their sport is under attack may be surprised and pleased to learn that the country as a whole still overwhelmingly supports the preservation of our hunting tradition. An extensive 2008 public opinion survey indicated that 78 percent of Americans approve of continued legal hunting for wild game. Unfortunately, the same poll showed that support for dog-hunting is dangerously low.

Read the rest of the article here. Enjoy.

For Discussion: Wanton Waste and Going Above and Beyond Beyond Fair Chase

Wanton Waste and Going Above and Beyond Beyond Fair Chase

I admit I have been feeling uncomfortable, even troubled by the recent attention being paid to the issue of wanton waste as it pertains to hunting. States such as Vermont are considering legislation to make it a crime to “waste” animals. I take it that the intent of such legislation is to motivate hunters to search longer and harder for downed animals before giving up the search.

But I believe that the idea of creating a “law” against wanton waste may open up more problems than such laws might solve. Part of the difficulty as I see it is the nearly-impossible task of defining such basic concepts as “waste” and “use” as these terms typically are employed in discussions of hunter ethics.

For example, consider the website for the Oregon hunting advocacy organization, Back Country Hunters and Anglers. The group credits Jim Posewitz of the Orion Institute with advising them on organizational matters, and their site includes the following excerpt from one of Posewitz’s books on hunting:

Field Dressing an Animal, (from Beyond Fair Chase):

In the beginning, humans hunted to live. Today some still live to hunt. Originally it was a matter of survival to utilize what was killed. Today, using what is killed is essential to ethical hunting.

After you have taken possession of the animal you have killed and taken time to appreciate it, it is then time to care for your gift. The task at hand will vary. For some animals it is simply a matter of putting it into your game pouch and continuing. For big game there is field dressing and properly caring for all the useable parts.

Under all circumstances, the ethical hunter cares for harvested game in a respectful manner, leaving no waste. Field dressing has several advantages. It reduces the risk of spoiling edible parts, and it returns parts of the animal to the earth where it found life.

Field dressing begins the natural recycling process that involves scavenging birds, insects, and decay as the unused parts return energy and nutrient cycles to the ecosystem. This is a marvelous process of renewal, and surplus parts of what you harvest should be thoughtfully returned to the earth (http://www.backcountryhunters.org ).

Now, in what follows, I don't mean to pick on Posewitz or to appear as overly-critical of his book, which I greatly admire. But what caught my eye was the apparent contradiction in the first paragraph:

“Under all circumstances, the ethical hunter cares for harvested game in a respectful manner, leaving no waste.”

This absolutist admonition to “leave no waste under all circumstances” is then followed by a paean about recycling the dead animal’s body parts to the earth. “Field dressing has several advantages,” Posewitz intones. “It reduces the risk of spoiling edible parts, and it returns parts of the animal to the earth where it found life.”

Here is where I believe hunters such as Posewitz are inconsistent in their views about “full utilization” of the resource. Notice how Posewitz defines an ethical hunter as one who conscientiously uses the animal he/she kills. But there is an unaddressed threshold question here for Posewitz: where should we draw the line between conscientious use and wanton waste?

Consider the fact that for many bird hunters, “breasting out” the bird is the norm. I myself consider the practice to be fairly abhorrent. But I am also aware that for serious waterfowlers who may shoot and consume upwards of 100 ducks in a season, the idea of laboriously plucking each and every duck in preparation for oven roasting seems to be an unrealistic expectation. Would Posewitz insist that as a moral rule, “under all circumstances, the ethical hunter cares for harvested game . . . leaving no waste” should apply to the dedicated waterfowler who only breasts out his ducks ? What about the drumsticks? What about the feet? (my wife showed me a recipe for Casserole of Braised Duck Feet in the cookbook, Working a Duck –perhaps I’ll post it here).

Or take big game hunting. Is Posewitz really insisting that under all circumstances, the moose or elk hunter must leave no waste? What about the tongue? Heart? Other organ meat?

Or what of the bone and sinew? One could always save every bone to make soup stock. Why not clean the intestines and save them for use in making elk sausage? “Under all circumstances . . . leave no waste.”

That’s a pretty all-encompassing moral injunction. But a fairly hopeless one it seems to me.

The plain fact of the matter is that industrial factory farming practices do a far better job of “full utilization of the resource” than recreational (or subsistence) hunters will ever do. As William Cronon’s history of the Chicago meat-packing industry shows, meat companies like Armour and Swift have always excelled at using 100% of the animals they killed: “The meat packers used every part of the pig except the squeal.”

And aboriginal peoples don’t necessarily do any better than today’s recreational hunter. “In the beginning, humans hunted to live,” Posewitz tells us. “Originally it was a matter of survival to utilize what was killed.” Well, as anthropologists have shown, survival doesn’t necessarily guarantee utilization. Shepard Krech’s book, The Ecological Indian: Myth and History, provides numerous examples of buffalo being killed by American Indians just for their tongues and other select body parts, with the rest of the animals’ bodies left to rot. Thousands of buffalo stampeded over the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump were likewise left to rot—although this was likely more an indicator of Indian butchers having run out of time than of any conscious intention on their part to waste meat. The point being, however, the fact that nineteenth century market hunters were not the only ones who could waste buffalo meat. American Indian hunting done for survival (not sport) was no guarantee that hunted animals would be fully utilized.

Yet Posewitz concludes that leaving an animal to rot—or at least, leaving the parts of an animal that you don’t want—is a natural part of the cycle of life:

Field dressing begins the natural recycling process that involves scavenging birds, insects, and decay as the unused parts return energy and nutrient cycles to the ecosystem. This is a marvelous process of renewal, and surplus parts of what you harvest should be thoughtfully returned to the earth.

Why is leaving any animal parts to rot, even if “thoughtfully returned to the earth,” morally okay? By that logic, why wouldn’t leaving MORE animal parts to rot be even better? After all, wouldn’t scavenging birds and insects benefit even more from a bigger amount of unused parts being returned to the ecosystem as energy and nutrients?

In short, there seems to be nowhere within Posewitz’s ethical framework to draw a line between “leaving no waste under all circumstances” and “leaving an appropriate amount of waste in all circumstances.”

So where does this leave us with wanton waste laws? Clearly, as hunters we all want hunters to eat or otherwise utilize whatever they kill. But I don't think we necessarily want to make it a crime for hunters to leave a gut pile in the woods. Or to leave duck legs in the swamp. Or make it illegal for a hunter to leave the heart, liver, or other organ meat of a dead animal if he simply does not care to eat the organ meat of the animal he has killed.

The problem is that one man’s edible drumstick is another man’s wanton waste. Where one hunter sees pickled moose tongue and stuffed elk heart, another hunter sees food for carrion beetles and “the marvelous process of renewal.”

Here is another example where by all means we should try to persuade hunters to “use what they kill.” But by the same token, we should stay out of the business of making it a criminal law to force hunters to “use what they kill.”

I believe that in general we should stay away from wanton waste laws and from preachy sermons about leaving no waste under all circumstances.

Moreover, I also believe that the question of what constitutes “full” or “appropriate” utilization of the resource is best seen as something that ethicists call supererogation. Supererogation is the ethical idea of performing morally commendable acts that are not morally obligatory—rather, such acts are voluntary. The idea of supererogation is well captured by the phrase, “going above and beyond the call of duty.”

An act of charity, for example, is clearly a morally commendable behavior. And yet we as a society do not morally require people to give ten percent, or twenty percent, or ninety percent of their income to charity each year. Instead, we leave it to each individual to decide for herself how morally virtuous she will be each year when it comes to her being charitable. A voluntary act of charity is thus a supererogatory action, in that it is (a) voluntary, and it is (b) good, but it is (c) not morally required.

I believe that the full utilization of a downed game animal similarly belongs in the category of supererogatory actions. A hunter's full use of the hunted game animal is a morally commendable and morally admirable action. But I would argue that the full use of a hunted game animal does not belong in the category of a morally required behavior.

Now, with that said, using as much of the hunted animal as you possibly can is undeniably a morally virtuous act. But we need to remember that the question of how much use constitutes “full use” will vary with each individual hunter. Whereas one hunter might utilize 95% of the animal, another hunter may only use 25% of the animal.

(And, as an aside, how we would measure such a thing anyway? By weight? by biomass? Viewed this way, anyway you slice it, a conscientious and ethical elk hunter would still end up wasting more than a slob quail hunter. And surely, that can’t be right.)

In any event I would argue that the question of wanton waste and of the full utilization of animals that are killed is largely (but not always) a question of supererogatory behavior— behavior that is morally commendable, behavior that should be encouraged, and behavior that we admire—but not behavior that we need or want to force or compel others to follow.

An amazon.com book review of Beyond Fair Chase makes the point succinctly:

Posewitz, though well meaning, sets back our understanding of ethical hunting by confusing "difficulty of taking" an animal with ethics. He further does not seem to know that "fair chase" is a term created by the Boone & Crockett Club to describe their tournament rules for entering animals into their record books, much like golfing's rule that mechanized golf carts cannot be used by contestants. In spite of this, no one seriously suggests that it is unethical for recreational golfers to use golf carts, however. Ethical hunting is hunting that is: (1) Safe, (2) Conserves game populations for future generations, and (3) Respects the choices and rights of other hunters within the same boundaries. Whether I hunt with my bare hands, walking miles to get to the game, or select some easier way has nothing to do with ethics. Posewitz is entitled to hunt as he wishes, but he should not try to impose his views on others (John London (USA) - February 3, 2001).

I believe that Mr. London has it roughly correct in this evaluation of Beyond Fair Chase. Posewitz is indeed entitled to hunt as he wishes. It is another thing entirely to try to impose his ethical views on others through legislation, ballot referendum, or other politically coercive means.

This holds for other hunters and their views. Nuisance hunters of woodchucks, prairie dogs, coyotes, or foxes rarely eat what they kill. Must we therefore conclude that the hunting of nuisance species is unethical?

Some but not all hunters utilize the pelts of some but not all of these animals. Must we therefore attempt to draw a line between ethical pelt users who go above and beyond the call of duty and unethical wasters of animal carcasses who simply leave dead "varmints" to rot in the sun?

I for one don't think we should go there, at least not if we don't have to. Again, I think hunters tend to be their own worst enemy: I don't like the way you hunt, so let's pass a law against the way you hunt.

I simply believe we need to come up with better arguments than that.

Crossbows in New York State

from today's Ithaca Journal.

February 12, 2009

Dave Henderson: Two bills sure to anger some sportsmen

There are any number of bills wandering about the Democratic-controlled legislature these days that concern, if not frighten sportsmen, but two recent ones have provoked immediate controversy.

One, Assembly Bill A00924, would amend Environmental Conservation law to authorize the use of crossbows as legal hunting implements for able-bodied hunters. Crossbows are currently allowed for severely handicapped hunters, but the Assembly bill (which has no Senate counterpart yet) would allow for a special crossbow season.

It would also allow the use of a crossbow on private property in any deer season — a stipulation that will render those vehement anti-crossbow members of the bowhunting community apoplectic.

The bill calls for a minimum 14-inch bolt (arrow), a safety, a minimum limb width of 17 inches, a minimum draw weight of 100 pounds and maximum weight of 200 pounds.

The bill's justification states that "in states that allow crossbow hunting, including Georgia, Michigan, and Ohio (and now Pennsylvania) crossbows appear to be an important recruitment and retention tool for hunters.

"Further, these states found that crossbow use has not resulted in a decrease in bag limits, nor has poaching increased. As expected, where crossbow hunting is permitted, it has been documented as a safe, responsible and popular means of hunting, and it has had no ill effect on wildlife resources or on any other group of sportsmen."

Virtually identical bills died in the Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee in 2005-06 and 2007-08, but Commissioner Grannis, whose party is now in the majority in both houses, has now indicated an interest in seeing it passed.

The second controversial bill is Senate Bill S1598, which would require all pistol permits (outside of New York City) to be renewed every five years, for a fee, and for all first-time permit applicants to take a safety course.

The renewal is currently required in New York City, Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester and pre-application training in other counties.

The bill's "Justification" notes that "Firearms are clearly a lethal product and the owner of a firearm must know how to operate it and store it properly to prevent needless death and injury. The state requires a person who is going to operate a car to prove that he or she knows how and issues a license. Similarly, the state needs some assurance that an individual knows how to safely use his or her firearm."

License renewal would help account for all licensed firearms in the event of theft, death or other change in permit holder's condition.

This bill will definitely have life, since the sponsor is Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, chairman of the Codes Committee. There is a companion bill, A801, in the Senate.

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"a safe, responsible and popular means of hunting . . ."

Profile of a responsible hunter

We've all seen slob hunters - similar to the description of pornography by one of our Supreme Court Justices - "you know it when you see it". That is one extreme, but what criteria needs to be met to be a responsible hunter? We all think we are one, but are we?

Here is my opinion of the criteria that needs to be met:

1) Safe - bottom line is you must follow the safety rules for gun handling and hunting. If you endanger yourself, others or property you are not a responsible hunter.

2) Lawful - Game laws can be complicated and tempting to bend or break. But they have a vital purpose and must be followed to the letter and spirit.

3) Clean Kill - Responsible hunters only shoot at game they know they can kill, not to see if they can hit it. Stuff happens, but we do everything we can to make one-shot kills. Excuses like I didn't have time to sight in, or practice or check my pattern don't make it. Taking shots byond your ability to hit the vital area, moving shots if you are proficient at them and high risk angle shots are other no-no's. Among the worst are the "bowhunters" who brag about sticking deer - ahhhh - a great way to lose hunting.

4) Full Utilization - If you kill it; you (or someone else) eat it. If you don't like mergansers and don't know anyone who does - don't shoot them. For game like moose, it takes planning ahead to be sure you can get it out of the woods and cool it down before it spoils, not as easy as you might think. The exception to this rule is damage shooting. But that is different than hunting and I still think the critter should be used if at all possible, even if it is just cleaning the coyote skull for the local Boy Scout troop.

5) Practice Fair Chase - If it is a 100% guaranteed kill or the animal can't get away, it is not an ethical hunt. The outcome of the hunt must be in doubt up to the instant the trigger is pulled. Anything else is just shooting or slaughtering. Within this definition is lots of room and it will vary between hunters and even for the same hunter at different times of their lives.

There is inherent conflict between fair chase and clean kill. If you erect to high a barrier to harvest, say using a homemade stick bow, you could without a lot of discipline, set your self up for wounding animals because your skill level is not high enough to be successful under reasonable conditions. More on fair chase and hunter preference in future posts!

6) Support Conservation – This applies primarily to more experienced hunters. I don’t think you can call yourself a responsible hunter unless you are actively supporting wildlife conservation beyond buying licenses and paying tax on equipment and ammo. We need to be in the arena supporting scientific management and environmentally sound policies both politically, physically and monetarily.

I also don’t think paying dues to a hunting club or conservation organization is enough. It is a great start but not enough. We need to be actively engaged with that club, doing habitat work on the ground and making those phone calls to legislators. It also means building support for conservation and hunting, like taking a kid hunting and showing the neighbor kids how to read sign.

As you can see, I think there is more to being a responsible hunter than what happens at the instant you touch the trigger. All of this together is what makes hunting such an engaging and ever new and challenging activity.

I’d love to hear your thoughts ….

Captive Hunt rule passed finally!

Good news for Vermont and our wildlife. The VT Fish and Wildlife Board has passed the rule defining how captive (canned) big game hunting operations can function in Vermont. The really good news is it bans any new facilities. According to Department sources six other groups were considering starting operations in Vermont. This would have meant huge amounts of land fenced off for from democratic hunting and native wildlife; not to mention the disease threat to our whitetail deer herd from things like chronic wasting disease and bovine TB.
Congratulations to the hard working members of the FW Board for sticking it out and doing the right thing!
Now we need to stop the expansion of all domestic deer and elk farming operations and sunset the existing ones. The small economic gain for so few farmers does not off-set the risk to our wildlife and the hunting/wildlife viewing industry. This will have to be done thru legislation and will take strong leadership.