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Why We Hunt- The Role & Value Of Hunting --------------- |
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Hunters are America's Leading Conservationists - The Special Conservation Role and Value of Hunting  Hunting has been the cornerstone and most important conservation development in the 20th Century and continues to be the leading contributor to conservation as man enters the 21st Century. Hunting is an exceptional form of sustainable use that has been proven to create conservation stakeholders, to stimulate conservation incentives and generate operating revenue for conservation budgets; hence, is one of the foremost forces for conservation.
Why Individuals Hunt
The Role Service
Regulated Hunting Plays in Conservation
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Today it is the morality of hunting that is most under attack. At Conservation Force we believe that attack on hunters is immoral! We believe that there is a moral right to hunt within sustainable limits and that it is so important to man in human terms that it is deserving of protection on moral grounds. It is anti-social, offensive and immoral for anti-hunters to attack what is so unique and fundamentally valuable in human terms to the significant minority who hunt.
Hunting furthers character virtues like self reliance, responsibility, competence, discipline and resolve. It employs and awakens our senses and our physical condition. As beings we are programmed or designed to be hunters. It is our essence. Hunting made us human. It has shaped our evolution and development. It is our "authenticity." (Paul Shepard) Hunting uniquely provides self actualization, completeness and expression which are complex, higher order needs deserving of protection. These are human needs higher on the needs scale than food, and security. It puts us in touch with our past and with ourselves. It is recreational only in that it is not commercial, but it is much more than just a recreational pursuit. If we were deprived of it, we would lose more than recreation. It is more than our heritage and culture, it is our essence.
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"Being a real hunter is being a man, in the most complete way, both spiritually and physically... as Rudyard Kipling stated... 'If you can be and do all these things, my boy, yours is the earth and everything that is in it and, which is more, you'll be a man my son.'
For someone who loves nature, who loves animals... it's one of the best ways of being inside nature and close to the animals. I haven't found a better way."
- Jose A. Martinez de Hoz in A Sporting Life
Why We Hunt: Two Important Perspectives
By Dr. Randall Eaton &
Shane Mahoney
(Editor Note: You need to know why
you hunt to protect your right to hunt. This is because the
general public misperceives the motivation of hunters and the
anti-hunters misrepresent it. At Conservation Force, we are
focusing on this important issue worldwide. I am the President
of the Pro-Chasse Task Force of the International Council of
Game Conservation (CIC). Conservation Force brought America's
two leading speakers to address "Why We Hunt" to the CIC
Conference in Slovenia. The philosophical perspective and
insight of either man would have been enough by itself.
Combined, it was a dynamic and inspiring presentation. I cannot
duplicate here that lengthy program, but I did ask both speakers
to put part of their message in article form. Their articles
follow. - John J. Jackson, III.)
Why We Hunt - Article 1
Randall L. Eaton, Ph.D.
We hunt because we love it, but why do we love it so?
As an inherited instinct, hunting is deeply rooted in human
nature. Around the world in all cultures the urge to hunt
awakens in boys. They use rocks, make weapons or sneak an
air gun out of the house to kill a bird or small mammal. In
many cases the predatory instinct appears spontaneously
without previous experience or coaching, and in the
civilized world boys often hunt despite attempts to suppress
their instinct.
The fundamental instinct to hunt may link up with the
spiritual. An analogy is falling in love, in which eros, the
sexual instinct, connects with agape or spiritual love, a
vertical convergence of lower with higher. Initiation on the
path of love changes our life irreversibly. Henceforth, we
shall know the meaning of authentic love experienced with
the totality of our being.
Hunting is how we fall in love with nature. The basic
instinct links up with the spiritual, and the result is that
we become married to nature. Among outdoor pursuits, hunting
and fishing connect us most profoundly with animals and
nature. As Robert Bly said in his best-selling book, Iron
John, only hunting expands us sideways, "into the glory of
oaks, mountains, glaciers, horses, lions, grasses,
waterfalls, deer."
Hunting is a basic aspect of a boy's initiation into
manhood. It teaches him the intelligence, beauty and power
of nature. The young man also learns at a deep emotional
level his inseparable relationship with nature as well as
his responsibility to fiercely defend it.
Essentially, hunting is a spiritual experience precisely
because it submerges us in nature, and that experience
teaches us that we are participants in something far greater
than ourselves. Ortega y Gasset, the Spanish philosopher,
described the hunter as the alert man. He could not have
said it better. When we hunt we experience extreme alertness
to the point of an altered state of consciousness. For the
hunter everything is alive, and he is one with the animal
and its environment.
Though the hunter may appear from the outside to be a
staunch egotist dominating nature, on the inside he is
exactly the opposite. He identifies with the animal as his
kin, and he feels, as Ortega said, tied through the earth to
it. The conscious and deliberate humbling of the hunter to
the level of the animal is virtually a religious rite.
While the hunt is exhilarating and unsurpassed in intrinsic
rewards and emotional satisfactions, no hunter revels in the
death of the animal. Hunters know from first-hand experience
that "life lives on lives," as mythologist Joseph Campbell
said. The hunter participates directly in the most
fundamental processes of life, which is why the food chain
is for him a love chain. And that is why hunters have been
and still are, by far, the foremost conservationists of
wildlife and wild places, to the benefit of everyone.
The power of the hunter’s mystical bond with the wild animal
is measured by his unparalleled achievements in
environmental conservation. For example, the 700,000 members
of Ducks Unlimited have conserved over 12,000,000 acres of
wetlands to the benefit of the entire living community of
North America. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has
conserved over four million acres and successfully
reestablished elk in the northeast and midwest U.S. There
are more wild turkeys and deer in the U.S. than at any time
in history. While other environmentalists are waging
rear-guard actions, the hunting community is on the
offensive.
Today, as for countless millennia, proper initiation to
hunting engenders respect for all life, responsibility to
society, even social authority, and spiritual empowerment.
It develops authentic self-esteem, self-control, patience
and personal knowledge of our place in the food chain.
According to Dr. Don T. Jacobs, author of Teaching Virtues,
"hunting is the ideal way to teach universal virtues,"
including humility, generosity, courage and fortitude. As I
said in The Sacred Hunt, "Hunting teaches a person to think
with his heart instead of his head. That is the secret of
hunting."
Consequently, the most successful programs ever conducted
for delinquent boys have focused on hunting. The taking of a
life that sustains us is a transformative experience. It's
not a video game. Hunting is good medicine for bad kids
because it is good medicine for all kids.
Hunting is a model for living. When we hunt, we discover
that we are more than the ego. That our life consists of our
ego in a mutually interdependent and transcendent
relationship with nature. We keep returning to the field
because for us hunting is a dynamic ritual that honors the
animals and the earth on which we depend both physically and
spiritually.
While interviewing Felix Ike, a Western Shoshone elder, I
asked him, "What kind of country would this be if the
majority of men in it had been properly initiated into
hunting?" He replied, "It would be a totally different
world."
In a world imperiled by egoism and disrespect for nature,
hunting is morally good for men and women, boys and girls.
Hunters understand the meaning in Lao Tzu's statement,
The Earth is perfect,
You cannot improve it.
If you try to change it,
You will ruin it.
If you try to hold it,
You will lose it.
Some aboriginal peoples believe that the Creator made us
perfect, too, and that He made us to be hunters, dependent
on nature and close to the earth. Like Narcissus, civilized
humanity has fallen in love with itself and turned its back
on its hunting companions and its animal kin. Beware the
teaching of the ages summarized in this admonition from
Loren Eiseley, "Do not forget your brethren, nor the green
wood from which you sprang. To do so is to invite disaster."
We are the tribe of wild men and women whose hearts hold the
promise for recovery of proper relationship to the animals
and earth. If we should lose hunting a far greater disaster
will befall nature, society and the human spirit.
Randall L. Eaton may be contacted at 513-244-2826, E-mail:
reaton@eoni.com. Website:
www.randalleaton.com
_______________________________________
Why We Hunt - Article 2
"Hunting For Truth -
Why Rationalizing The Ritual Must Fail"
Shane Mahoney
(Special Note: The following article is reprinted with
permission from Outdoor Canada. Note that Shane
suggests that the "why" issue be more correctly characterized as
the "relevance" of hunting today.)
Across the wide belt of the North American continent a profound debate surges. It is a collision of worldviews; a refinement of man's view of himself; a reinterpretation of Eden; a great contemplation of the future of mankind. Yet, despite this profound nature, the debate in question is delivered to the public as a clash of soft sentimentality and rigorous rationalism, the central theme portrayed by both sides as something so far removed from its essential self that it is at worst belittled, at best trivialized. The evisceration of man's greatest achievement, naturalness, is the work of two opposing forces, each wrapped in the cloak of conservation, striving for supremacy in a tournament of frauds and follies. The problem for hunting today is that nobody will tell the truth.
On the one side, there are those who are opposed to hunting, who obviously do not hunt, and who portray the activity as barbaric, unnecessary, and inappropriate to today's society, and mankind's future. They concentrate on the suffering of the individual animal and upon the behavior of persons who might inflict it. They portray nature as more benign, more right, without man than with him; and hunters as fermented juveniles who enjoy killing as a diversionary sport and who see animals as targets for their violence. To persons who argue for animal rights, hunting is a cruel wastefulness and the hunt an anachronism, something we should have put behind us, as we have bear baiting and cock fighting. Hunting is empty of merit, devoid of value and without deep meaning. Its adherents are therefore the same. The activity is personified and therein lies the target. The concept, the rich idea, of hunting, becomes displaced. For the public, the gruel is watered down until it can be bottle-fed. The question is asked: "why (do you) hunt?"
On the other side, stand those who support hunting, primarily hunters themselves, but not exclusively so. They fall for the trap. Their arguments in support of hunting are that it helps manage wildlife populations, it provides healthful recreation, physically and socially, it provides meat, and it generates wealth, especially in rural economies. Supporters argue it is their right, and not the animal's rights, that are to prevail, and because their activity harms no one, but benefits many, they should not be interfered with. Hunters don't discuss animal suffering, but concentrate on the health of populations. They rightfully point out the contributions, financially and politically, hunters have made to conservation, often when other voices of support were not being raised. They trot out the balance of nature, without ever defining natural balance. They portray anti-hunters as misguided extremists whose views would have mankind being overrun with tick-infested deer, drowning in goose macaroni, or starving so other predators might thrive. Hunters argue simply, or simply don't argue. They too keep the debate easy ...to digest.... or dismiss. One thing they conscientiously avoid however: they never, ever answer the question "why (do I) hunt".
Why is this? What is it about this short little question that is so ponderous, so daunting? What is it that hunters fear; what is it they do not comprehend? And, if they do comprehend, why won't they offer an explanation? Why so quick to identify the benefits of hunting but so reticent to at least try and describe their true motivation for engaging it? This is a conceptual divide that must be breached. We have been treating the two as though they were the same. They are not. Explaining the benefits of hunting does not in any way explain why we hunt, and why we hunt is the question, really, that society is asking. We confuse and avoid the issue...but we will either answer it, or we will be dismissed. The one thing we must protect and define for hunting is its relevance; notoriety and debate will not kill it. Fabrication and irrelevance will. Once deemed irrelevant, hunting will no longer be debated; nor will it be engaged in. If we want continuity and recruitment, if we want respect and tolerance for what we do, then we best get busy earning it...by explaining to the reasonable majority what hunting really is.
Hunting is not simple. It is the generator of our human condition, the crucible of intellect, and the fire of creativity. It is our mirror of the world, the image-maker of wild creation; it has defined how we see, literally and figuratively. It is the only absolute rediscovery mechanism available to human beings; the mind-body fusion of all meditative, spiritual experience is derived from its pasturage. Those who return there know full well the sense of universal intimacy it gives over. Explaining this odyssey is our greatest challenge; but succeeding will be our greatest achievement. The world remains perpetually absorbed by this search, yet hunters know the way. Why not celebrate the truth for a change? Hunting is a deliberate journey to the union of birth and death; it cannot but create a deeper perspective and appreciation for the glorious importance of both. What society does not dream for such citizens?
Like it or not, we have to search deep within ourselves, journey to the place where the mind is floating free. We have to voice what is silent; capture what is shadow. The hunt is a universe of emotion that overwhelms, scatters all notions of other preoccupations and delivers the persona complete. Hunting is a love affair; turbulent, gnawing, and all possessing. It is composed of lives, but has a life of its own; a life held precious by the participant who, in part, creates it. But then there is the "other", unpredictable, honored. Yes! An affair of the heart; and like all such affairs it drags the mind along, a great force subjugated by the senses engaged to their fullest; but alive just the same, and capturing memories and creating fantasies that are nearly one and the same. Hunting is an immersion; a drowning in connectedness that squanders pride and privilege; the true hunter is the humble man, the enthralled child and the knowing prince. All is ready, nothing is restive; all is rhythm, nothing is in friction. Hunting knows why the senses were made! It displaces both the practical and the excess. It represents evenness, oneness and the knowledge of self. Hunting is a cataclysm of inward progress. We hunt for spiritual reasons; we hunt to find inner peace; we hunt to understand the world. Hunting is our first great myth! The true hunter is both the alert and the meditative man. Thought and action combined in purpose; a hymn for the unity of world and self. Hunting is a search for all.
Truth makes a great message; not an easy one! But saving the preciousness of life is never simple. We need remember, however, that if hunters are viewed as dopes, hunting is viewed as a pastime for the dim-witted; if hunters are viewed as slobs, hunting is a wasteful debauchery; if hunters are viewed as juvenile, hunting is deemed delinquent. Only hunters can change such stereotypes. The task at hand is to articulate the relevance of hunting; not its correctness, nor its practical service to human kind. Rationalizing the mythology is both a tactical error and a diminishment of pride. Lies and excuses usually are. - Shane Mahoney.
Who Is Dr. Randall Eaton
Dr. Randall Eaton is the foremost psychologist of hunting. He has taught Jose Ortega y Gassette's Meditations on Hunting in universities, written books and made documentaries on "Why We Hunt" and its extraordinary importance to mankind for itself. He has devoted his professional life to this important subject. He is also a member of Conservation Force's professional team trying to save hunting around the world. He is the author of The Sacred Hunt, I and II, and he produced The Sacred Hunt, an award-winning documentary.
Who Is Shane Mahoney
Shane Mahoney is the Head
of Research for the Canadian provinces of Newfoundland and
Labrador. He is considered the foremost philosopher of hunting
today. He has been the keynote speaker at virtually every
important conference in North America over the past several
years, including the Outdoor Writers Association of America, The
North American Wildlife Conference and the International
Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies Conference. He was the
moderator of the Premier's "Hunting Heritage Symposium" held in
Ontario. Most recently, he led a two-day program on "Why We
Hunt" at the North American Wildlife Conference in Washington,
D.C., which was the first such program in decades. Shane serves
on the CIC's Pro-Chasse Task Force as a professional member. He
is also a member of Conservation Force's Think Tank and Board of
Directors.
back to top
That there no longer is a need to hunt is a common theme in writings by those who oppose hunting. As a rational act, hunting, indeed, is not a necessary human activity in most parts of the world today. However, hunting is more an urge - like sex and gluttony - than a rational act. Hypothetically, with rapid population growth and the trend toward small families, there is no longer a rational need to have sex more than a few times in a lifetime. Likewise, with the trend toward inactive lifestyles and -obesity in developed countries, neither is there a rational need for three meals a day. The primary differences between the desire for sex or to satisfy hunger beyond necessity and the urge to hunt lies in the fact most people enjoy the former two, while only a minority have the urge to hunt. Imagine, if 80 percent of humans did not enjoy sex, the scorn that we in the minority would endure? Hunters can well imagine.
Much has been written asserting that youths learn to enjoy hunting in rural settings and from family and friends. This is logical, and such youths certainly hunt more than do those from cities or those not exposed to hunting by family or friends. However, many such hunters enjoy the sport until they move to the city, become too busy or lose contact with family and childhood friends. In other words, many of those hunters - for whom hunting was convenient and socially satisfying - were not avid (genetic?) hunters.
Avid hunters seem to be born with the urge in their genes. I wondered about this as a child, why my brother - raised on a farm by the same non-hunting parents, educated by the same teachers in the same one-room schoolhouse and playing with the same peers -could take hunting or leave it. Hunting was my avocation; no game, pastime or social function provided the same satisfaction or feeling of elation.
As I write this, sitting in front of a tent at 12,000 feet (3,657 meters) in the Tien Shan of the Kyrghyz Republic, I again ponder why I must hunt. At 74 (I would have taken better care of myself had I known I would live this long), I can hardly struggle over the treacherous talus slopes at 14 to 15 thousand feet (4,267 to 4,572 meter) where the great rams thrive. The 12 to 13 hour days in a crude wooden saddle, negotiating slopes and slides that no one should ask even tough mountain ponies to attempt, have become torture. Yet, I love this endeavor more than anything in life, except my feisty little wife.
During three years I spent in Africa, I was surprised to find that only about 20 percent of the men in many villages were hunters. The others farmed, gathered or herded. A few women also hunted - mostly snaring small mammals and taking gallinaceous birds with throwing sticks - or fished. The hunters were honored members of tribal society, providing most of the meat for their villages. They had the most wives and, consequently, the most fields and beer. With the obvious advantages, why did only the minority hunt? Genetics?
For 25 years, I was associated with a university wildlife biology program. Most students had experience with wildlife or hunting because of family, friends or rural backgrounds. Increasingly, television nature programs has kindled interest in wildlife (not hunting). A few students came from large cities, had never handled a gun and did not know anyone who hunted. Some had parents or a parent who were (was) violently anti-hunting. Yet, those students came to a wildlife program in Montana primarily because they wanted to hunt - something they had read about in a magazine. Genetics?
Anti-hunters generally cannot understand how hunters can admire and love wildlife and still kill the most beautiful. I have seen no entirely satisfactory explanation and cannot offer one. I have cried every time I had a dog euthanized, quit farming largely because I detested inflicting the pain of castration and dehorning and have stayed awake all night with remorse - and nearly quit hunting - when I lost a cripple. Yet, I always went back to hunting. The only rational defense I can offer, if one is needed, follows. During more than 55 years of wildlife watching and hunting around the world, invariably the countries with sport hunting programs – programs that promoted sustained-yield harvests and benefited local people - had the healthiest wildlife populations and best habitat. Can this be wrong? The welfare of populations seems more important than the fate of surplus individuals.
One argument sometimes heard against hunting contends that non-consumptive use is increasing while hunting is decreasing, and the latter interferes with the former. Mention is seldom made that much wildlife watching takes place on wildlife refuges and winter ranges bought and managed with sportspersons’ dollars. A recent survey revealed that during 1991-1996 there was no change in the number of hunters but wildlife watchers decreased by 17 percent. This fact should not be viewed as positive by hunters. The welfare of wildlife is benefited by the broadest support possible by all segments of the public.
- Bart O’Gara, 1997. Written while on a hunt for Marco Polo Sheep. Successful hunt given him by Bob Lee of Hunting World. Late October - early November.
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