“The Hunt That Must Survive”
By
Jim Posewitz
As
If there was an omission, it was that we lost sight of the people and the principles that carried us through the challenges and obstacles of the past 100 years. We were too preoccupied with wildlife restoration and the pleasure of the hunt to keep a collective eye on where we came from. Little note was taken of Aldo Leopold’s council: “To think straight on recreational quality, an historical perspective is essential.” Likewise forgotten was the observation of Ding Darling: “I’m learning one thing the hard way, and that is that you have to re-educate the public mind about every fifteen or twenty years or it forgets everything learned a while back.”
We need to address our future with one eye firmly fixed on the same star our forefathers followed. It is an ethical code built on the principle of common ownership, conservation of the hunted, preservation of wild places, and always, “fair chase.”
By themselves, those who whine about animal rights and rail against killing animals are not going to destroy hunting. An equally serious threat to hunting is brought to our threshold by a host of questionable ‘fellow travelers’ trying to crowd under the hunter’s banner:
· Hunting is threatened by those who throw up high fences to make something private out of the public’s wildlife and make captive animals out of what must remain wild.
· The hunt fades when participants are required to pay private fees to follow the track of a public resource.
· Domesticated wildlife spreading diseases into wild populations is clearly a threat, as are baiting and feeding practices that spread the pathogens.
· The peril to hunting escalates as gadgets replace competence, and catered, quick kills replace patience and an honest relationship with nature.
· Rock bottom is reached when shooters buy captive animals so they can kill them to have a ‘trophy’—and a lie—to hang on the wall.
· The ultimate mockery is the shooting of captive animals—promoted, advertised and sold as a hunt. Theodore Roosevelt’s vision of ‘honor through effort’ is ridiculed and shamed by genetically boosted, antler-stimulated, mutant, tamed trophies.
· Finally, the wild places where we go to become hunters continue to erode. This century’s motorized contraptions, high-tech advantages, urban sprawl, and the malls all add to the toll.
These are our challenges and they must be addressed with the same vigor shown by the hunters who came before us. Likewise, we must reject the argument that all forms of shooting animals—wild, semi-wild, and domestic—must be defended for the sake of hunter unity. Tolerance of the lowest ethical standards for the sake of unity simply demeans us all. We must travel the road of high principle and not compromise to the notion of ‘circling the wagons’ in hunting’s defense.
Challenges to hunting are real.
Honoring the principles of fair chase, maintaining the public-trust in wildlife
management, and protecting our vanishing wild places will be difficult.
However, they must be our agenda and we must engage the issues with
intellectual energy and physical vigor. We cannot leave it to someone else. The
question now is the same as it was in 1909. Are we capable of protecting the
North American hunting heritage? Will we measure up to the expectation passed
to us by history? The principles followed by
(Reprinted with permission from “Rifle in Hand: How
Hunters Saved Wild America” by Jim Posewitz, Riverbend Publishing.)
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By Jim Posewitz
112 pages, 5 ½ x 8 ½ inches
$9.95 Paperback ISBN 1-931832-41-2
$19.95 Hardcover ISBN 1-931832-45-5
Riverbend Publishing,
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