Hunting nakedly: A twist on a classic hunting ethics test

Photo illustration by Holly Heyser

One excellent measure of your hunting ethics is asking yourself this question: How would I feel if what I’m doing on this hunt was blasted onto TV screens across America? If the answer is “like a total loser,” then you probably shouldn’t be doing it.

Recently, though, I faced a flipped version of that test: I actually was being followed by a filmmaker who had the potential to blast what I was doing onto TV screens across America, and I faced a situation that I thought would look bad, but that passed my personal ethics test.

The question I faced was this: Do I do what I’d do in this situation if I were hunting alone and present myself honestly, or do I alter my behavior rather than explain myself on camera?

If you’re familiar with my old blog NorCal Cazadora, you’ll be able to answer this question easily. If you don’t, allow me to explain: I’m so unflinchingly honest that my mother once aptly described my writing style as “naked.”

The scenario I faced with the filmmaker in tow was a small pack of jack rabbits a good 100 yards ahead of me on a trail, out of range because I was using a shotgun. When they spotted me, most started heading up a levee for an easy exit, but one of them inexplicably began hopping toward me.

While this scene met a literal definition of fair chase--this was a wild rabbit, not confined in any way--there was a good chance that this was an animal somewhat habituated to humans, and therefore in a poor position to exercise his ability to escape. I've watched a lot of animal-rights videos and I knew this was right up their alley: Mean ole hunter shoots a tame bunny.

I stifled a groan. Why this rabbit on this day?

And when he got close enough, I shot him.

You can read the full story here at Shotgun Life – including exactly what the filmmaker caught on camera – but I’d love to hear your thoughts. Would your decision change depending on the presence or absence of the filmmaker? Did I make hunters as a group look bad?

I’ll kickstart the conversation by saying this: One of the reasons I’m ridiculously honest in all aspects of my life is that it’s easier to be honest than to perform perpetual maintenance on lies and omissions. When I first started hunting, I wasn’t so open, but I quickly learned that lying or even holding back about any aspect of the hunt only cedes points to anti-hunters in our great ongoing debate about hunting.

So now I’ve had my say. What say you?

Holly Heyser is a hunter, forager, writer, photographer and college journalism lecturer who lives in Sacramento, California.

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?