HUNTING AND TROPHY GAINING HONOR THROUGH EFFORT

by Jim Posewitz
November 2010

Hunting in this creative “New World” democracy we call America is still carving a sustainable niche for itself as our rapidly evolving culture closes the first decade of the 21^st Century.  A lot has happened since we became a nation in the 18^th Century, declared wildlife a public resource in the 19^th Century, exploited many species to near extinction in that same century, and then restored almost all the hunted species to a wonderful abundance by the close of the 20^th Century.

            Introduction of a hunter’s sporting code and the emergence of a conservation ethic late in the 19^th Century, advanced by people like George Bird Grinnell, Theodore Roosevelt, and Gifford Pinchot, led to the restoration of a wonderful wildlife abundance.  As this was occurring, hunters gained the cultural respect of the people.  The respect was earned through the conservation investment of sportsmen; and, through the image they presented as hardy outdoorsmen in fair chase pursuit of wild, elusive, maybe even a few dangerous, game animals.  In the process, the animals pursued also acquired a value with the idea of trophy very much a part of the social value of wildlife.  In the process, wildlife trophies became symbols representing hunters gaining honor through effort and the animals too were thus valued.

            As with any activity in a free-enterprise market driven economy, things of value are coveted, taken as commodities, and peddled for a price.  This was true in the 19^th Century when the last buffalo seeking sanctuary in Yellowstone Park were poached for profit.  It is true today as game farmers and high-fence ranchers domesticate deer, elk, and other species for profit.  The peril is that each purchased pseudo-trophy devalues the real thing the community had come to value as totally wild and traditionally earned through personal effort.

            The privatizing, commercializing and domesticating of American wildlife is not a new phenomenon.  Theodore Roosevelt spoke directly to the subject in Outdoor Pastimes of An American Hunter in 1905 when he wrote: “The professional market hunter who kills game for the hide or for the feathers or for the meat or to sell antlers and other trophies ….and the rich people, who are content to buy what they have not the skill to get by their own exertions – these are the men who are the real enemies of game.”  At the time, he was President of the United States.

            On the positive side, there are still legions of American hunters in fair chase pursuit of wildlife out on the great American commons – gaining honor through effort and collecting trophies as honorable and rock solid as Mount Rushmore.  Their activity and character was described by the last president whose image we chiseled into that national icon.  Here is how TR described the hunter and the hunt:

When hunting him (wapiti) …he must be followed on foot, and the man who follows him must be sound in limb and wind.”

“…skill and patience, and the capacity to endure fatigue and exposure, must be shown by the successful hunter.”

“We knew toil and hardship and thirst…but we felt the beat of hardy life in our veins, and ours was the glory of work and the joy of living.”

“If they would only keep to rowboats or canoes, and use oar or paddle themselves, they would get infinitely more benefit than by having their work done for them by gasoline.”

“I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach the highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.”

            Writing in his biography Gifford Pinchot, the father of American forestry, had cause to describe the character of TR.  While scores of biographers have written volumes trying to capture the essence of TR, it took Pinchot only nine words to describe what the man was all about.  Pinchot wrote: “He was an outdoor man – more a wilderness hunter.” TR’s observations on gaining honor through effort are as valuable today as they were the day he penned them.  The value our society places on wildlife trophies was built on the reality of what it takes to earn success afield – not really on the dimensions of the animal thus taken.  Each commercially manufactured pseudo-trophy or catered easy kill only contributes to the inevitable erosion and ultimate loss of those values.

Quality Deer Management and the hunt

Cross-posted from the Grousers hunting blog.

I am currently working my way through Marc Boglioli's A Matter of Life and Death: Hunting in Contemporary Vermont, and I know that Eric has already read the book.

Boglioli has some interesting things to say about "Quality Deer Management," or QDM. The following paragraph caught my eye in light of a comment Eric has made on this blog recently about things that "take the hunt out of hunting," e.g., hunting gadgets, or high-fence. Does QDM fall into this category of potential threats to hunting's future?

Boglioli writes:

"While QDM may be an unqualified success for deer management in Vermont, it could well alter local meanings of hunting because of its emphasis on 'the trophy.' Most hunters, while certainly not opposed to the idea of bagging a 'Rackasaurus' on opening day, are thrilled to bring home any deer at all. If it happens to be unusually large, or has a trophy rack, so much the better. But QDM is a different philosophy. It focuses on the size of the deer and/or its rack as a way of determining the value of a hunting experience. This thought first crossed my mind when I initially learned about QDM in 2002 r 2003, and it was emphasized again in a conversation with a Vermont game warden in 2004, who said, 'The cultural perception of hunting has gone from process to product. . . . They're taking the hunt out of hunting.' A man at a local deer camp shared similar sentiments and pointed out (even though he agreed that it might be good for growing bigger deer) that QDM was a completely different approach from what he referred to as the Vermont 'family' hunting tradition, which is not oriented around a quest for trophy bucks but rather around the love of fresh venison, the enjoyment of family and friends, and the chance to spend some time in the woods rather than at work. Considering how many times I have heard hunters say 'You can't eat the horns,' I think this guy had a point." (p. 29)

Well, what do you think? Does QDM, Earn-a-Buck programs, and the like "take the hunt out of hunting"? Do we risk altering the "family hunting tradition" if we change the focus of hunting from process to product? Is this the end of hunting as we know it?

TR the conservationist president

I just finished reading Edmund Morris's The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. I highly recommend it if you haven't read it yet. I didn't realize that Roosevelt was in Vermont attending a luncheon of the Vermont Fish and Game League on Isle La Motte when president McKinley was shot on Sept 6, 1901. Better known is Roosevelt was on Mt Marcy in the Adirondacks when McKinley died and he became president.
I found the following write up on the Sagamore Hill National Historic site web page that contains an interesting view on Roosevelt's role as a conservationist and how hunting and trophy hunting was compatable with his leadership in this role. Click on the Handbook for Leaders button for more interesting information
More at http://www.nps.gov/sahi

Conservation, Preservation, Taxidermy, Hunting Trophies,
(Dead Animal Parts on display in Sagamore Hill)

TR is often held up as the first conservation president, and indeed his record of conservation and preservation is
almost unmatched. But, how does one explain all the taxidermy on display in his house? It is one of the paradoxes
about this complicated man that needs examination and explanation in order to come to an understanding.

First of all, it is a general rule of examining history, that we cannot use the standards of today to judge the stan-
dards of another time. Today we think of preservation and conservation in very rigid terms. The only thought of
going on a safari in Africa today would be to collect photographs and film footage, but TR was hired by the Smith-
sonian and the American Museum of Natural History to collect samples for display in these museums. In TR's
youth and even during his presidency there was a general feeling that the natural resources were almost inexhausti-
ble.

During TR's youth, there was a huge wave of exploration and investigation of uncharted lands and the emphasis
was on identification and documentation (maps, charts, etc.) and, by extension, the species of flora and fauna that
lived there. The motivation of documentation required the collection of the life forms, so samples were taken for
later classification. Plant samples were collected, pressed and dried, and animal species were killed and preserved
in various ways for later cataloging and documentation.

TR had come from a well-to-do family who lived in bustling Manhattan. The earliest mention of his fascination
of wildlife forms was after he visited a market where a dead seal (yes, seals used to live in the waters surrounding
New York City) was displayed. The sight of this dead seal prompted a life-long curiosity, fascination with and
study of natural history fauna life forms. Indeed he began collecting specimens as a youth which he displayed in a
closet in his boyhood home and called the "Roosevelt Museum." We are not sure if this coincided with his father's
founding of the American Museum of Natural History.

But TR, a sickly child troubled by asthma, who often suffered greatly as a result of its effects, was granted two
rather unusual wishes as a youth: Boxing lessons (as a form of exercise suggested by his father to help build up his
strength); and taxidermy lessons. TR began his collection, classification and display of taxidermy samples early in
his life, and this collection continued throughout his life. Many of these (75 objects) are displayed at Sagamore
Hill in various forms: Rugs, trophy mounts, three are fashioned into decorative or "useful" objects (elephant tusks,
an elephant foot as waste receptacle and rhino foot as an ink well).

In addition it was very much the fashion to display and decorate with animal trophies. The curiosity that drove the
exploration of strange lands was tangibly shown by using these trophies as decorative objects, and they were very
much status symbols. In the same way we join certain organization or clubs, drive particular makes and models of
cars, and wear certain shoes or garments, these items were a way of stating to all a certain status level.

For further thought:

What are the status symbols of today, --what watches, shoes, jackets, cars or trips to far-off lands do we regard as
marks of status?

How about collections?

Does anyone collect sea shells? Do people realize that a shell is actually a dead animal part, that the shell was the
outer protective covering of an animal.?

Note: Shells are a good way to bring collecting animal trophies into discussion. There are few people that have
the same reaction to a shell collection as to animal trophies, yet for all of them the animal had to die to permit dis-
play of the item, whether head, skin antlers or shell. While shells may be collected at the shore where the animals
presumably have died of natural causes, most serious collections result from collecting the live animal, so that the
shell or shells are pristine and not buffed by the waves.

But how about leather shoes? How about fur coats? Animals die for these common items in our life today.

Conservation and preservation and TR

TR is often regarded as the first "conservation president" because he saw and began actions to conserve natural
resources and preserve sites of archaeological significance, particularly in the Southwest.

Conservation is the term usually used for the act of preserving and saving natural resources, (forests, wildlife-
preserves, lands, etc.). America had gone through a period of growth and development during which the use of
these natural reserves, originally seen as inexhaustible, began to become depleted. The move to limit this usage
and development was not at all popular because merchant developers saw this activity as a limitation of their in-
come-producing ability. Forestry and logging for example, especially in the Northwest, threatened the destruction
of the vast reserves of trees that had taken centuries to develop. The naturalists John Muir and Gifford Pinchot,
though their individual goals differed considerably, were among those who encouraged Roosevelt to develop his
conservation ethic as they saw these reserves being depleted. In addition to the conservation efforts of TR¸ the
development of the science of forestry by Pinchot (who endowed a Chair at Yale), and the establishment the Sierra
Club, (Muir) and the Boone and Crockett Club were direct outgrowths of this conservation effort.

Further investigation:
Those wishing to investigate this area further may wish to look up the following items: Gifford Pinchot; US For-
estry Service; John Muir; Sierra Club; Boone and Crockett Club