As Each Individual Form Of
Animal Use Becomes Criminalized By The AR,
So Goes The Criminalization
Of All Animal Usedom
THE FUTURE OF HUNTING
“As
hunting goes, so goes fishing and trapping.” Anonymous.
Thirty-five
years ago there was a national eruption of environmental and animal rights
radicalism. Wilderness, Endangered Species, Marine Mammal Protection,
Environmental Protection and Animal Welfare laws were combined with revamped
Migratory Bird Treaties and United Nations Conventions to grow the Federal
government and diminish State and local government jurisdictions and
authorities. Federal land acquisition grew steadily while management of and
access to natural resources on Federal lands steadily diminished. Federal and
State “partnering” in the form of grants, cooperation, and tax breaks with
organizations like The Nature Conservancy, The Wilderness Society, and The
Sierra Club moved us toward Federal agencies that control Billions of dollars
and Millions of acres while pressing for new Federal authorities over Invasive
Species, Native Ecosystems, and Federal control of domestic animals. All of
these things have made hunting, fishing, and trapping more difficult. Indeed,
they are used on occasion to eliminate hunting for certain species or by certain
methods. Restricted access to Federal lands and other lands owned or eased by
government and environmental organizations combined with Federal requirements
and restrictions concerning fish and wildlife management on private lands for
game species have made hunting, fishing, and trapping more expensive and
inaccessible for the populace.
Simultaneously, in the past twenty years,
Federal and State fish and wildlife bureaucrats have spent Millions of excise
tax dollars annually to conduct a National Hunting and Fishing Survey. National
Census data is collected, interpreted, and massaged by a permanent staff of
Federal bureaucrats and a contingent of permanent and temporary contractors. The
title of the Survey is however, misleading. Hunting and fishing have, from the
get-go, been secondary purposes of the Survey. The real motivation was and
remains to identify and define all the non-hunters and non-fishermen in the
nation that have an interest in fish and wildlife. They are of primary interest
to Federal and State bureaucrats for two reasons. First, they are viewed as the
future financial supporters of Federal and State fish and wildlife agencies by
their support of massive funding from the US Congress. Second, they also consist
in large part of the opponents of hunting (Sierra Club, Humane Society of the
US, Defenders of Wildlife, Animal Welfare Institute, etc.). The bureaucrats want
to reach out to them and flatter them as they are described as legitimate
organizations with innocent concerns rather than radicals out to eliminate their
neighbors’ rights and transform the US into an oligarchy of bureaucrats
enforcing their agenda. The reason for this is the bureaucrats’ belief that
hunting will disappear and these radicals will be “the new constituency” for the
bureaucracies. One indication of the legitimacy of this assertion is that the
Survey has never been directed by anyone that hunted, fished, or trapped.
It is from Survey “findings” that things such as the “need for a mentor”
and “the dwindling interest of teenagers” and the “lack of places to hunt” and
the “growing support for humane animal treatment” language regarding hunting,
fishing, and trapping emerge. The way questions are phrased and the way they are
summarized can be very helpful to the environmental and animal rights radicals
while devastating hunters, fishermen, and trappers. For instance, asking if you
support more conservation of wild animals and more acquisition of habitat by
government always gets a strong showing of support. While hunters pay for such
things directly in addition to their general taxes, non-hunters envision no such
charge but only an imperceptible addition to everyone’s taxes. Some non-hunters
want government to buy more land and close it to all uses while others are
indifferent to government buying and closing more lands since they don’t use
them anyway. When asked to pay directly, like hunters, the “strong” support
becomes anemic in a heartbeat. The Survey and its’ “findings” have however gone
a long way toward reinforcing the anti-hunting agendas of a host of individuals,
bureaucrats, and organizations.
The decrease in persons purchasing
hunting, fishing, and trapping licenses is real. In addition to the things I
have mentioned, there are the anti-hunting teachers and the anti-gun agendas and
the international trends in the countries most like us (England, Canada, and
Australia) to ban hunting and guns. Much of the environmental and animal rights’
anti-hunting agenda in the US is underwritten by rich Foundations and mega-rich
individuals. Some States like New Jersey and Massachusetts add to the hunting
impediments by draconian state gun laws, trap restrictions, and the need for
police permissions for every sort of hunting or trapping activity. Can there be
any other conclusion but that hunting’s days are numbered?
The
future of hunting is inextricably intertwined with the future of the United
States of America. The freedoms and rights that have made America what it is,
are exactly what gave birth to and protects hunting as the American tradition we
know.
When we lived in caves, hunting was a dangerous but vital
activity. Hunters were men with certain skills that hunted both alone and in
groups. Some were probably scared to death but surely there were the few that
saw it as the epitome of their status within the tribe. Those few loved it and
spent their days and nights talking about it and thinking about it.
In
pre-Christian societies, hunting was often circumscribed by taboos and customs
dictated by pagan priests. Certain species or certain areas or certain means
were off limits. As domestic animals became more common the need for wild
animals for food decreased and the need to control predators and animals that
competed with domestic animals for food and space increased. More and more,
hunting was carried out by those who loved it and were deeply fascinated by it.
The association between the hunter and the valuable soldier or defender of
others in an emergency grew as non-hunters increased in populations.
In
post-Christian times, Emperors and Kings, and powerful chiefs claimed not only
land but also all the fish and wildlife. Hunting for sport and sumptuous food
grew in popularity and was found in nearly all civilizations. Gamekeepers,
poachers, and royalty were composed of persons with both casual and intense
interest in hunting and using fish and wildlife. As gamekeepers perfected
techniques to please royalty and as poachers and royalty discovered techniques
that were either silent or more efficient or more enjoyable, the core of men and
some women consumed by all-encompassing fascination with hunting waxed and waned
as wars and other developments in society came and went.
The unique
hunting development credited to the United States was the concept that all fish
and wildlife belonged to “We the People”. It no longer belonged to a Parliament
(like the one that just outlawed British foxhunting). Our State governments
fulfilled community wishes about exterminating wolves and protecting ducks and
deer. They learned how to increase elk and wood ducks. They were subject to
criticism when animals harmed persons or hunting was not provided when feasible.
Hunting was further advanced in the United States because of the Constitutional
guarantee (unique in all the world but for Switzerland) that the “right of the
people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” The common ownership of
fish and wildlife and the guarantee of gun ownership are why more people hunt in
the US per capita than anywhere in the world. They are the reason why wildlife
management techniques were developed here. They are why an abundance of wildlife
areas where wildlife is raised and public access is maintained complement
private properties that teem with fish and wildlife. They are why young boys
trap in ditches and streams near their home and housewives hunt resident geese
in urban cornfields for an hour or two on fall mornings. They are why we have
wildlife refuges and wildlife areas that provide wildlife in both urban areas
and wild backcountry where ranching and farming can be enhanced by wise
management of fish and wildlife and their habitat. All this is thanks to the
same core hunters that have throughout history placed hunting right up next to
family and country as the most important things in their life. Just as Russia’s
hero of Stalingrad was a Siberian hunter turned sniper; so also today, young men
who have hunted and are comfortable with guns are valuable soldiers and
policemen.
No, I do not think that hunting’s days are numbered. The
forces arrayed against hunting today are reborn Victorian anti-vivisectionists
and people opposed to American freedoms and traditions. They come and go and are
always with us. They do not choose to enjoy America’s freedoms by choosing not
to do certain things they do not like; they choose rather to eliminate all those
things they despise, and they despise a lot.
As the threats to our way
of life grow around us, we each begin to defend ourselves and our threatened
freedom. Pet owners, loggers, ranchers, rodeo cowboys, zoo-goers, gun owners,
property owners, farmers, boaters, rural residents, hunters, fishermen,
trappers, campers, taxpayers, energy users, water users, and all manner of
natural resource users are all increasingly threatened and increasingly
defending their rights. There are many of us and many things threatened but we
are beginning to understand our common cause and the importance of defending
freedom both at home as well as abroad. Today we see groups fighting local
governments that seize property through unlawful regulation and regulatory
taking, environmental organizations that use courts to get what they cannot get
from legislators, and Federal bureaucracies that take property without
compensation and completely destroy friendly rural environments by forced
introduction over State and local objections of dangerous and harmful predators.
Through it all hunting, fishing, and trapping licenses have dropped, but they
will not go away. Can you tease all these things away from American society to
eliminate them and still have a free society with Constitutional guarantees as
we know it? Of course not! If these things are eliminated and controlled into
the ground, the remaining society will cry out for change as did the colonies
under King George.
Hunting and hunters will always be replenished by
young men (and today, many young women) who see through teacher propaganda and
either see or hear about or experience a hunt or fishing trip or even read a
book about running a trapline and cleaning, drying, and selling furs. This will
not change. They will learn about the history and traditions and do just as the
members of my generation did, and my fathers’ generation, and my grandfathers’
generation; they will learn and some will be intrigued for the rest of their
lives. Some will discover it later in life when a friend takes them on a hunt or
on a fishing trip that is both fun and results in things good to eat for a
family or other friends. Discover it they will, and the unique American freedoms
will make it even better than the great joy known to our ancestors. The lower
participation today is but a blip on a long screen. When participation goes
down, opportunity goes up.
The only thing threatening hunting is what is
threatening America. If they bring down America from within, hunting as we know
it will change but not disappear. If an American dictatorship mimics Britain’s
seizure of guns or banning of hunting, we either submit for a period or change
the government. Hunting may decrease for a period under the sort of dictatorship
that our enemies envision but their governmental vision and their ideas of how
we should live are far more despicable to us than we ever were to them. They can
never ban all the books or stifle all the speech or control all the property or
public lands. Their lies and propaganda about animals and plants and natural
resource non-management can only be told for so long before the facts overwhelm
them.
I am optimistic about the future of hunting, especially in the
United States. Because it is as much a part of our nation and our society as
motherhood and apple pie.
One of my heroes, G.K. Chesterton, put it
best. “Pessimism is not in being tired of evil but in being tired of good.
Despair does not lie in being weary of suffering, but in being weary of joy. It
is when for some reason or other the good things in a society no longer work
that society begins to decline; when its food does not feed, when its cures do
not cure, when its blessings refuse to bless.”
Jim Beers 15 March
2005
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