Responding to a Hunter's Letter
Dear Mr. Grant:
Thank you for contacting C.A.S.H. to tell us your thoughts on hunting.
Rather than sending you a form letter, I wanted to personally reply
because we do not always get well-reasoned criticism from the hunting
community. The majority of the hunters who choose to contact us do so with
mail that has in it so many four-letter-words and creative uses for our
mothers that it is sometimes difficult to ascertain what they are trying
to tell us, other than they disagree with our mission.
You may be surprised to read that we agree on several relevant issues.
I have a personal friend whose father is much like you, it seems. For
the past 30+ years he has killed two deer per year and stocks his freezer
with the meat. He and his family eat almost no other meat year-round. His
reasons for doing so are purely environmental. He believes, and I agree
with him, that the deer he kills have lived far better lives than the
animals who are raised and killed by giant agribusiness conglomerates that
reduce the animals to nothing but objects and raw materials to exploit for
profit. He objects to the ground and water pollution, the senseless
killing of animals, and the exploitation of slaughterhouse workers that
are an inseparable part of modern meat production.
From our interaction with hunters (including the less eloquent ones as
well as those who staff game agencies and everyday "Joe Hunters") it seems
that you are far more responsible than most. Like my friend's father, it
seems that your hunting is based on the importance you place on the
ecology and the respect you have for the environment, and your desire to
feed yourself and your family clean, high-quality food.
Unfortunately, state and provincial game agencies cater to those
hunters who hunt purely for sport, because that segment of the hunting
community is the majority. Out of the hundreds of hunters with whom we
interact over the course of a typical year, you'd be shocked to know just
how few we speak with who see things as you do.
State and provincial game agencies manage wildlife populations
primarily for two reasons: to raise revenue through the sale of licenses,
permits and equipment, and to ensure that animal populations are kept
perpetually at a state of overpopulation so as to provide their customers
- license buying and law-abiding hunters - a steady stream of animals to
shoot.
To do this, game agencies have clear-cut tracts of land to create
browse for deer and they manipulate bag limits and season lengths to
increase deer populations in many wildlife management areas. They talk a
good game to the public when they say that hunting is a necessary tool to
manage animal herds at healthy levels, but they rarely if ever issue press
releases when their actions include increasing populations or
clear-cutting. It is not difficult to understand why this is so.
Game agencies put a very public face on the deer who are eating native
plants and changing the health of woodlands, but they don't mention that
squirrels, rabbits, pheasants and other animals (including many other
species of birds) are killed in far greater numbers than are deer. Game
agencies breed animals (including fish) for release, for no other reason
than for hunters to kill them. This is not ethical, responsible, or in any
way beneficial to the environment - it is creating life for the purpose of
destroying it and it's something that we will never support. Releasing
pen-raised chuckars and woodcock has no environmental value.
We are very aware that there are groups such as Ducks Unlimited, the
Wild Turkey Federation, etc. that use their money to protect land and
natural animal habitat. While this is certainly a noble cause, we wonder
if they would be so interested in protecting the land if they were not
allowed to hunt on it.
The latest strategies being employed by the larger animal protection
groups are those to eliminate the most egregious forms of sport hunting.
Canned hunts where wildlife are confined to fenced in areas that could be
as small as four or five acres and where operators guarantee a kill (many
of these animals are "surplus" from zoos or wildlife research centers) are
in the crosshairs (pun intended) of the animal protection community. I've
heard from many hunters who would support efforts to eliminate canned
hunting if they trusted us to not come after them next. Honestly, I cannot
make them a promise like that because we do not believe that hunting
solely for sport and recreation - to mount a head on a wall - is something
that should be part of a civilized society.
Like you, I too believe that it is *possible* to incorporate hunting
and fishing into a greater theme of environmental protection. Certainly,
if there were more hunters like you and fewer hunters in general there
would be a greater balance of habitat, wildlife and humans. At C.A.S.H.,
our personal view and one that guides our mission is that even though it
*may* be possible to have a greater ecological balance if the scope of
hunting were to dramatically change, we would still pursue its elimination
because we believe that no animal, domestic or wild, should have to die
before his/her time. Today we live in a world where we do not have to
inflict suffering upon animals in order to provide ourselves with what we
need. You already know that the cornucopia of vegan foods provides us with
great variety. The organic agriculture movement, while far from perfect,
is a big step in a positive direction. Clothing can be made of natural
fibers and materials that are not of animal origin (there is very little
that is "natural" about a fur coat that was made from animals raised on
fur farms). At C.A.S.H., our love of nature and the animals we share our
planet with, as well as our knowledge of the practices and habits of game
agencies leads us to no conclusion other than that in order to return the
world to a far more natural state, the practice of hunting as we know it
must end.
Thank you again for your thoughtful and respectful letter. If hunters
and anti-hunters engaged each other with mature civility we could make
progress on many environmental issues. We'd remain at an impasse on many
others because our objectives are diametrically opposed, but there is no
doubt in my mind that together, cooler heads and open communication can
accomplish more than hostile antagonism.
I wish you and your family well.
Sincerely,
Joe Miele
Letter From Jeff Grant - 28 June 2005
Dear CASH:
I am writing your organization to explain how I believe hunting can be
an important part of someone’s life and part of their connection to our
environment. I do not expect this letter to change anyone’s mind at your
organization, but I do hope it will provide your organization with an
explanation of alternative points of view. I also hope that it will inject
some civility into the debate on hunting, which at times can get very
heated and disrespectful (on both sides).
I grew up hunting and fishing with my father, who impressed upon me
what I now consider the essentials of being a responsible and ethical
hunter. First, hunting for mere sport is wrong. Animals should only be
taken for food or clothing and should only be taken in required
quantities, never in excess. These experiences, which I cherished, also
provided my father with a forum to teach me about the environment and how
we are part of that environment – not separate from it. For me, this
feeling of interconnectedness with our environment is a fundamental part
of my life. It motivates me to bike to work, compost food scraps, reduce
waste, support community initiatives and environmental groups, purchase
organic food, etc. The opportunity to interact with the environment on the
most basic level (providing nourishment) is an occasion to reaffirm this
connection with our environment in an otherwise sterile world of cement
and glass offices, supermarkets, buses and the congestion of modern day
life.
Hunting now provides my family with an organic, free-range, low-fat
source of meat. I realize that many of your members are likely vegetarian,
and that’s great. We too, regularly enjoy vegetarian meals. But for those
of us who enjoy eating meat, there is no better source than wild game. I
certainly don’t want to support large scale industrial agricultural
operations where animals are kept in unhealthy conditions, shot full of
antibiotics and hormones and kept in a life of confinement. For me, the
issue here is that of ‘choice’. I don’t feel that a group of individuals
has the right to take away my ability to provide healthy food for my
family. Nor do they have the right to dictate what I must eat or the
lifestyle to which I must adhere. Food security is a fundamental right for
all people and should not be subject to interest groups’ opinions.
I should also point out that there is tremendous diversity within the
hunting community. There are certainly numerous examples of unethical
“rednecks” who view hunting as a sort of game, where little or no respect
is given to what they hunt. However, there are many within the hunting
community who are very progressive and are working with youth to encourage
proper hunting ethics and practices. Furthermore, many of these groups
have worked very hard to conserve lands and protect habitat for wildlife.
These individuals may often be in complete agreement with groups who
oppose unethical hunting practices such as hunting merely for sport,
hunting with dogs, etc. However, they are sometimes hesitant to support
useful initiatives brought forward by anti-hunting groups because they
know that the ultimate goal of these organizations is to ban ALL hunting.
I believe that it is possible to incorporate hunting and fishing into a
‘conservation lifestyle’ that is based on respect and admiration of
nature. This is certainly the case for indigenous peoples around the world
who hunt and find truly sustainable sustenance from the environment. Aldo
Leopold, a well-know and oft-quoted conservationist and naturalist (also
hunter) was very adept at summing this relationship up. In his collection
of his essays entitled “A Sand County Almanac” (1949) he lays out his
intense connection with and respect for the environment and how hunting
was a part of this relationship. I would recommend this book for anyone
interested in the hunting/conservation debate. Here are a couple short
excerpts from this book where he writes about hunting ethics:
Voluntary adherence to an ethical code elevates the self-respect of the
sportsman, but it should not be forgotten that voluntary disregard of the
code degenerates and depraves him. For example, a common denominator of
all sporting codes is not to waste good meat. Yet it is now a demonstrable
fact that Wisconsin deer hunters, in their pursuit of a legal buck, kill
and abandon in the woods at least one doe, fawn, or spike buck for every
two legal bucks taken out….Such deer hunting is not only without social
value, but constitutes actual training for ethical depravity elsewhere.
The disquieting thing in the modern picture is the trophy-hunter who
never grows up, in whom the capacity for isolation, perception and
husbandry is undeveloped, or perhaps lost. He is the motorized ant who
swarms the continents before learning to see his own back yard, who
consumes but never creates outdoor satisfactions. For him the recreational
engineer dilutes the wilderness and artificializes its trophies in the
fond belief that he is rendering a public service.
I hope that you took this letter as it was intended – a sincere
explanation that to some, hunting is a valued and important part of their
life and not some childish proof of manhood or cruel game. I respect that
you have a right to your opinion and am sure you feel that you are doing
the right thing. However, I would ask that you consider and respect
people’s differing viewpoints and understand that hunting may in fact, be
part of their personal conservation ethic.
Sincerely,
Jeff Grant
