Remember this: Everything has its dark side.
In a passage from James Carmine’s book, Hunting
Philosophy for Everyone: In Search of the Wildlife, Carmine poses the
argument of hunting not being conservation.
This is the following except:
“Hunting is not conservation. No hunter goes off into the
woods to thin the herd. That is a lie hunters tell to mollify those who don’t
hunt, and perhaps to themselves to qualm their fears about their own bloodlust.
If hunting were really for the sake of conservation then early each spring we
would simply use our tax dollars to pay a small army of lab technicians to go
about the forests and fields with the most advanced satellite-enhanced
equipment and, with relative ease, find the most fragile fawns and other
animals scientifically deemed unbeneficial to the ecosystem, and euthanize then
efficiently, painlessly, and silently. “(Carmine 242)
It could be said that to employ plans of conservation the
hunters function in a utilitarian way. Hunters are used to address issues that
conservationists may not have the man power to meet. This practice also offsets
the cost of alleviating a problem though wage by relying on hunters need to
track, stalk, and kill.
In the previous article I related to called Preventing
the Establishment of a Wildlife Disease Reservoir: A Case Study of Bovine
Tuberculosis in Wild Deer in Minnesota by M. Cartensen and M.W. DonCarlos,
I surmised the necessity of the MNDNR to use sharpshooters to kill deer
suspected of infection. Even though this practice was not well received over a
period of time as the result of disease began to diminish people were not so
against it. In the Minnesota example we do not have lab technicians going in
the woods kindly putting sick animals down. Its shoot to kill without any
predetermined test to prove sickness. It’s the old ‘shoot first ask questions
later’ mentality. The hope here was maybe they could eradicate disease with a
mass death killing. Was this hunter mentality? No. Was it conservation? You
bet. Conservation has a dark side just like hunting with its good, bad, and
sometimes right down distasteful but necessary.
In order to have a healthy sustainable population of deer the
population had to be semi-eradicated in order for the Bovine TB to be hindered
in its spread. This activity on the part of the MNDNR helped to keep Bovine TB
from forming a stronghold in deer populations which would spread to others and
domesticated livestock.
Once again I thought of Carmine’s excerpt and the Missouri
Moose problem. Were DNR workers not fitting moose with high tech gadgetry to
monitor body temperature and other pertinent data of moose physiology? It has
been known that wolf populations have the random $4000 GPS and monitoring
devices around their neck as well as bear.
I then thought of what Carmine said about hunters not going
into the woods to thin the herd. If a hunter were to practice intentional
culling that deviated from hunt-stalk activities this would imply some sort of ownership.
The only way one would have ownership of wild game in America is if they ran or
worked a fenced game farm where domesticated wild stock were evaluated for
benefits and losses financially. This isn’t hunting. It is farming hands down.
Call a spade a spade I say.
Yes hunters may see the random wounded animal whereby
putting the animal out of its misery. Hunting is based on opportunity and then
you pick your target if you have more than one option.
Hunting and
Conservation are two different skill sets that comingle depending on the
overlap of need and the situation the two ideas are applied to.
If a hunter is using conservation as his springboard
platform for argument and evidence of validating the details of the hunting act
then maybe they need to sit in a deer stand and get their priorities straight.
Hunting and conservation can be integrated into another entity as a whole but
they tend to be separate concepts with different definitions and requirements.
Conservation tends to walk the line of monitoring and sustaining wildlife where
hunting rides the fence as partaking of.
As for hunters ideals of bloodlust not all hunters are
created equal, have the same mindset, come from the same culture, or even have
the same views of death. Subtracting the fact they actuallyl do hunt one could
ponder whether they have any respect for others, themselves, or decorum in
general.
Blood is blood. There are several schools of thought on
blood and gore in the hunting realm. Some are very adamant about being
comfortable with their bloodletting while not understanding or ridiculing a fellow
man for weakness and inability to perceive certain violent acts as “normal acts
of nature”. Violence again each other has become so prevalent and
sensationalized in the media we cringe at seeing animals doing it to one
another but on the other hand some sit in front of the TV during shark week
glorying in the sight of Sharks tossing seals. Other hunters do care about not forcing visual
aids off on people that would not want to see them because when it comes to
social media you never know when the random boob shot is coming. I have found
after actually having an intelligent conversation with non-hunting buddies that
I am actually okay with not showing them my personal photos of hunting outings.
My aspect of hunting is to promote life more because death is eventual and not
pretty. It’s not that I ignore death. Being enamored with death and shoving it
in people’s faces is almost like assault to me. There are people that get off
on other people being repulsed by blood, gore, and death. It gives them an ego
boost I guess that they can handle it and someone else is too fragile. This
behavior doesn’t make a hunter or person is strong by no means. It just means
death is on that person to the point the air he breathes is death with its
sickly sweet smell. These types court death with the false illusion of
adventure. If something directly threatens your life as an endeavor, it is not
adventure, that my friend is a death wish.
Sometimes ideals have to be tested as to their relevance.
What seems distasteful might have a far reaching benefit if no other workable
option exists to resolve problems. I enjoyed getting this pot load of gold out
of a small excerpt.
Written by W Harley Bloodworth
~Courtesy of the AOFH~
Sources Cited:Written by W Harley Bloodworth
~Courtesy of the AOFH~
Carmine, James. Hunting Philosophies for Everyone: In Search of Wildlife. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons (2010). pp 242. Print.
