- RALEIGH, N.C. - Steve Johnston
Jr. doesn't even notice the freezing rain heaving across Little Lick Creek
as he scans the brushy bank from his camouflaged boat.
-
- After an hour of spotting only a perturbed heron with
his binoculars, he suddenly blurts out "duck!" Three ringnecks
dart by. Mr. Johnston doesn't shoot them. Today is just a scouting mission
to prepare for his favorite activity: taking his teenage sons, Tripp and
Robert, hunting.
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- Johnston is hoping to imbue his sons with a love of hunting,
a pastime slowly on the wane in many parts of America. As fewer fathers
take youngsters out into the woods and more suburbanites balk at a sport
they see as both dangerous and cruel, some observers predict the number
of hunters in the United States could fall by as much as 50 percent in
the next 20 years.
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- For a number of states, that's becoming a concern. Hunters
keep deer populations in check and revenue from hunting licenses are key
to conservation revenues. Others lament the loss of a father-son ritual
that they consider as much a part of American life as the family farm.
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- As a result, several states - to the great dismay of
animal-rights groups - are taking steps to encourage more people to sit
in duck blinds and on deer stands:
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- ï North Carolina is launching its first-ever "let's
go hunting" campaign, in part as a game-management tool.
-
- ï Maine has introduced Young Hunter Days to encourage
adolescents to try the sport with the help of volunteer mentors who guide
them on their first outing.
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- ï Alabama gives new hunters first access to forests
at the start of deer season, so rookies can try their hand when the animals
are not as wary - an attempt to lure more to the sport.
-
- ï In Illinois, game managers are holding learn-to-hunt
classes for single mothers.
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- Even critics acknowledge that a lot is at stake for the
hunting community. "Without a major reversal, the decline in hunting
will mean that hunters are the next endangered species," says Heidi
Prescott, national director of the Fund for Animals in New York.
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- Typical hunter
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- Today, the average hunter is 42, male, white, and growing
older. As the suburbs expand, the areas available to go hunting in are
decreasing, and sportsmen have to travel farther afield to find pheasant
and partridge. A new US Fish and Wildlife survey shows that the number
of hunters has declined by 7 percent, to 13 million, in the past 5 years.
While a few states like Alaska and Minnesota have seen slight increases,
other areas are experiencing dramatic drops: Conservation officials in
Georgia predict a 50 percent decline in the number of hunters by 2026.
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- "There are three variables to what makes a hunter:
Whether their father hunted, whether they grew up in a rural area, and
whether they're male," says Thomas Heberlein, a sociology professor
at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
-
- Increasingly, he says, those factors are changing. More
children are growing up in cities and more are being raised by single mothers.
Fathers play a key role in passing on hunting traditions, since few people
take up the sport if they didn't do it as a kid.
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- Brad Herrin, for one, appreciates that his dad took him
shooting as soon as he could walk. The 19-year-old Hereford, Ariz., hunter
regularly travels across the Southwest in search of elk, deer, and quail.
But few people he knows do it. "My friends aren't opposed to hunting,
but they live in a big city and their dad doesn't do it, so they don't
have the opportunity," he says.
-
- Another factor contributing to disinterest in hunting
is that society is seeing "changing values toward animals," says
Ms. Prescott.
-
- Safety is an enduring concern, too. In Yarmouth, Maine,
for example, town officials last year placed tough restrictions on hunting
in a local woodland to help protect joggers and mothers with strollers.
-
- "The growing sentiment against firearms is a critical
factor" in antihunting ordinances recently passed by six towns in
Maine, says George Smith, the director of the Sportsmen's Alliance of Maine
in Portland.
-
- Hunting remains a hot political issue as well. Animal-rights
groups were successful in blocking a bill in New York that would have lowered
the big-game hunting age from 16 to 14. In Maryland, the Fund for Animals
is lobbying for a minimum age for hunters. "If you have to be 16 to
drive, 18 to vote, and 21 to drink, we think there should be some kind
of minimum age for children to carry guns in the woods, for their own safety
and for the safety of people in the area," says Mike Markarian, the
Fund's national president.
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- Countering a hunting backlash
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- Faced with a backlash against hunting, states such as
Alabama, Virginia, Minnesota, and North Dakota have amended their constitutions
to include the right to hunt and fish.
-
- Others are doing more to promote the sport. Illinois
is buying private lands slated for development to preserve as hunting grounds.
The state has even set up easy access to deer stands so wheelchair-bound
residents can hunt, says Carol Knowles of the Illinois Department of Natural
Resources.
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- Some state officials and others worry that a decline
in hunting will lead to imbalances in wildlife populations.
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- "It used to be a big deal in Wisconsin if you went
out and saw a deer or two in the woods," says Mr. Heberlein. "Now
hunters come back and say, 'I saw 30 or 40 deer and I was just waiting
for the big one.' "
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- Johnston, for his part, sees hunting as a vital part
of father-son bonding. Nor does he detect a drop in interest in the sport
in his area. "We had camo [camouflage] day at school a couple of weeks
ago, and practically everyone came wearing some," he says.
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- Comment
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- From Tim Letendre
- menokh@operamail.com
- 1-9-3
-
- Hunting is not a vital part of father son bonding nor
does it help the environment any. For centuries the majority has not hunted,
and the minority that has has always tried to convince people of the benifits
of hunting. The problem with fathers and sons today is not a lack of hunting,
but a lack of quality time together. I wouldn't consider going into the
woods and learning how to kill something that can't defend itself to be
good quality time.
-
- And studies in various countries(England comes to mind)
have shown that hunters do not have that large of an impact on populations
of most hunted species. And in areas where hunting has been stopped for
whatever reason, the animals have found a natural balance, even if it took
time for the predators that should be there to get there. More and more
hunters use the fact that many areas have no natural predators left as
justification for hunting; well just because these predators were wiped
out by humans in the past doesn't mean the won't come back, because they
always do if given the chance.
-
- Humans are animals, animals with a mutated brain, but
animals none-the-less. The significant evidence that we aren't designed
to eat meat tells me that we didn't always hunt. Hunting must have begun
thousands of years ago during some massive ecological crisis during the
Ice Age. So if we weren't designed to hunt(obviously, look at us, no claws,
no sharp teeth, we can't run fast; over all we make lousy predators), why
do we still allow it to go on?
-
- What did nature do to regulate itself before we came
along?
-
-
-
- Comment
-
- From Mike Andrews
ekim1792@highstream.net
1-10-3
-
-
- Hello, Jeff,
-
- I'd like to make some comments on the remarks made by
Mr. Tim Letendre regarding the article "Hunting On The Wane In America,"
by Patrik Jonsson.
-
- In Mr. Letendre's pat and amazingly ignorant condemnation
of hunting he shows his colors as a flippant animal rights activist and
one who has a rather jaded opinion of those who participate in the shooting
sports. In the preceding article Mr. Jonsson's assertion of father-son
bonding through hunting falls right into place in my view, despite Mr.
Letendre's denial of this reality. Why, I once knew of a father-son hunting
team whose forearms became bonded so badly that they had to be separated
by surgery! (I'm kidding) Still, I am forced to admit candidly that although
my father took me hunting when I was a boy he was no hunter himself, preferring
his banjo and home projects to woodsmanship. Usually Dad would drop me
off with some friends near the area to be hunted and return to pick us
up at the end of the day. So trusted (rightly so) were we boys in those
days (1950's) that such things were commonplace.
-
- Mr. Letendre also makes the assertion that for centuries
"the majority has not hunted." Possibly... but if so only in
the major cities... and for the sole reason that not all are capable of
locating, killing and preparing game meat for the table. Yet it can be
asserted unequivocally that the majority have certainly eaten, or else
where would Mr. Letendre be now? So Where does he think non-hunters' meat
came from during, say, Colonial times? There were farm animals then...
sure, but not in the abundance necessary to feed everyone in the colonies.
Someone had to be furnishing meat; who do you think that might have been?
And yes, it's true today just as it was during colonial times that not
all possess the necessary skills of the hunter-gatherer; but in my neck
of the woods more men do engage in some type of hunting than not, and I
believe I can prove it. (Not here).
-
- There will always be a number of individuals who are
either afraid to handle firearms or have no sense of the feeling it gives
a man to provide for his family using basic tools, and who are quick to
condemn the rest of us. People falling into this group of detractors have
evidently been reared under extremely sheltered conditions where there
were few wants, by parents who also had few wants... predisposing that
criticism from this lineage fairly smacks of an arrogant, aristocratic
haute couture. Although to me there's a great deal more in the balance...
in the overall concept of hunting than just the necessarian angle since
few of us really must hunt to survive, I nevertheless condemn those who
speak against hunting, because they are the very ones who would be most
dependent upon hunters' skills in the event of a calamitous natural or
man-made catastrophe. Or, perhaps not. Maybe they could survive on grass
and tree leaves! One day, perhaps these kind and benevolent non-hunters
will discover just how delicious saw grass can be.
-
- There's something magnificent about being in the beautiful
fragrant forest carrying an accurate rifle, tracking or waiting for game.
The killing is what happens just before most hunters go home. It's the
end of the road... the coup de gras. To me the mystical attraction- the
anticipation of hunting is focused primarily on the hunt... not the kill.
Getting there is everything; taking the game is only an anecdotal anticlimax.
Of course, if one is starving the end game scenario takes on a different
significance, and yes, it's true that many hunters believe killing is the
main object.
-
- Yet on numerous occasions I've passed up shots because
I wasn't ready to depart with the prize, and I know of others, just as
Mr. Jonsson avers, who have done the same thing. I've always dreaded having
to Leave the beautiful forest, but I know that if I relent and take game
it must be placed into a refrigerated environment pronto, otherwise it'll
spoil. And since there aren't any deer coolers behind the oaks and hickories
of North Georgia woods, shooting a deer means a speedy departure. In Georgia
where day-time winter temperatures may reach the 60's, meat will not keep
for long. So I always put off getting serious about hunting until just
before I'm ready to leave. Besides, the killing phase of hunting is not
really so important to me these days... not like it was when I was a young
lad thinking that if I didn't take game the trip was a failure. On most
camping/hunting trips now I do very little the first few days but simply
enjoy the forest.
-
- The forgoing describes my sentiments about hunting; why
I go and what it means to me; but this doesn't accurately and fully make
my case against Mr. Letendre's anti-hunting rhetoric. There is yet more
exculpatory information than has been brought forth thus far, which is
about to be fully revealed. It all boils down to this: I can only accept
and respect Mr. Letendre's narrow opinions under one condition: That his
condemnation of hunters and hunting be justified... ethically and morally.
How can this be done? Those who criticize hunting, including the "bunny
huggers"... activists who deliberately provoke sportsmen while they're
in the forest pursuing game... should share one common characteristic between
them... they should all be strict vegetarians.
-
- Meat-eaters who criticize hunting are worse than bigots;
They're hypocrites and blackguards! So to all the Mr. Letendres of the
world I say... put up or shut up! Those who are openly critical of hunters
yet make frequent trips to the grocer for meats and meat by-products are
just as "guilty" of killing animals as the fellow who shoots
and drags his own deer from the woods! The difference is that whereas a
hunter gets his meat the honest way, doing all the dirty work himself...
the anti-hunting "shopper" participates in the killing and butchering
by proxy, paying someone else to do it for him. Which is the more honorable?
Stay tuned.
-
- In the final analogy, a well-placed bullet that kills
quickly is more humane than the assembly line slaughtering methods used
by big packing houses. On the slaughter lines animals are "shot"
between the eyes with a steel plug, which is fired from a high-pressure
pneumatic gun attached to a hose. Because the plugs are made from steel
and fired from smooth-bore guns they can be reused over and over again.
There's certainly no "sport" to it... the gun is merely a tool,
same as the grease gun found in any mechanic's garage.
-
- After the steer, sheep, hog or whatever it is has been
shot and it's staggering around in its enclosure trying to remain standing,
specially positioned hooks yank it off its feet and suspend it from a moving
overhead conveyor. Perhaps the still-struggling animal will appreciate
that the cruel hooks piercing its hocks have been "specially positioned."
But as far as the slaughter-line butchers are concerned, the animal is
dead from that point on. Oddly the hooked animals don't get the message
and thrash around for a brief interlude of unimaginable torture until the
evisceration man, who occupies the next station on the line, can perform
his gory task.
-
- Once eviscerated, the animal will stop its "danse
macabre" and properly emulate death. Most likely, the thrashing beast
deserves to be punished for its lack of "participatory spirit";
but before any whipping or flailing can be used as a "training"
aid the offending oaf is usually dead. Either way, the men who work in
slaughterhouses have little time to be concerned with the rude peccadilloes
of these ungrateful animals. Besides, one of the first things a person
must learn as a required slaughterhouse job skill is detachment. It's a
necessary adjunct to the work. So remember, all who pay the grocer for
meats: This is the industry you are supporting.
-
- Now I leave it to the reader to compare and decide which
is more humane... the swift killing of an animal with one well-placed bullet
or the preceding morbid chronology of the slaughterhouses that continues
unabated 24/7 at a rate of about one animal every 15 seconds? Sure- it's
okay if you want to buy meat at the store rather than going out and killing
it yourself. But unless you're a devout vegetarian, please don't criticize
those of us who hunt our own.
-
- Mike Andrews ekim1792@highstream.net
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