02/01© Ronald L. Moody (2001)
All rights reserved.
Reprinted here with permission.

Human Support System Vital
to Sustaining Wild Earth

A consistent theme of Nimrod's Trace since its beginning is that wildlife, particularly species of big animals with large populations free-roaming in natural habitat, cannot exist in a human dominated world without a human support system.

I've commented at length on the particular value that modern hunters bring to wildlife conservation as key participants in that human support system. Many human groups have an interest in wildlife: they run the gauntlet from rural agriculturists to skyscraper bird watchers. All can, and do, play a role in wildlife conservation. The hunter, however, remains the sole member of modern society who retains an original understanding of the meaning of wildness -- both the terror and the beauty. And it is the hunter, much more than any other person, who has anted up the money to save habitat and pay for scientific game management.

All of that has been said a lot -- both here and elsewhere.

While I'm unabashedly pro-hunting, however, I cannot be an apologist for some glaring faults in the character of the hunting fraternity -- faults that become more conspicuous as economic and social pressure increase on all sides of the conservation equation.

Indeed, one of the hunting fraternity's obvious weaknesses is the unwillingness to engage in critical self-examination. Much of the brutal, destructive and greedy behavior we still harbor within our hunting population remains because hunters are afraid to face up to the facts and make a value judgment and stand by that judgment when the wounded start howling.

The need for hunters to face their own music is much greater than simple salvation of hunting as socially acceptable behavior. The real stake is continued existence of free-roaming wildlife in a crowded world. I've lived around non-hunters long enough to know they eventually will wreck the natural Earth, regardless of their good intentions without some outspoken Nimrods to keep wildness in the public debate.

But hunting as an institution in American society is a culture crippled by self-inflicted wounds. The result is that hunters wield a tiny fraction of the persuasive power that lies within their potential.

At this point I will cut to a few specifics.

Ask any camo-clad American male to name three threats to his way of life and he likely will rap off (in no certain order): Gun Grabbers, Anti-Hunters, or Environmental Extremists. Ask the same guy when he last attended a meeting of hunters or fishers where such public policy issues were debated -- or where hunters voted to take common cause -- and you will almost universally get a blank stare.

I've noticed that hunters love to attend banquets where they can party, feast, spend money and go home without having had to take a personal stand of any kind. Let the room be filled with angry, intimidating advocates of competing interest groups, however, and the hunting crowd thins remarkably.

There are organizations of outdoors people in every state dedicated to bringing hunters and fishers together to take united action on the social-political issues related to outdoor activities. But the vast majority of hunters are too _______________ (you fill in the blank) to show up and participate. Instead, they sit at home whining about the Grabber-Extremist-Antis. Or they take pot shots at the hunters who do show up and participate in debates and decisions.

The Montana Wildlife Federation (MWF) is typical of such hunter-conservation organizations. Dedicated, ordinary people who could have been out fishing or watching a game on TV show up meeting after meeting to wrestle with long agendas loaded with issues such as access to public lands, protecting public ownership of wildlife, state laws governing the hunt, management of wildlife habitat, and endlessly on.

At every MWF meeting, decisions are defined as much by the empty chairs at the table as by the efforts of those who show up.

Just as in every state, and every era, these Montanans who show up and do the work of wildlife conservation are themselves dedicated hunters, fishers, target shooters, fly-tiers . . .

But go out among the communities of the state, take a perch on the bar stools where hunters gather, and you will hear that the Montana Wildlife Federation is a gun-grabbing, anti-hunting, environmental extremist organization. The reigning expert in any given saloon has never been close to participating in a public debate on conservation. He knows only what "somebody" told him, yet he claims to know enough to influence others. The idea of actually showing up and participating in decisions is as far beyond him as quantum physics.

So chalk up outright cowardice, incipient ignorance and chronic apathy as things hunters could work on to improve their hunting skills.

In similar vein, it is common to meet hunters at public hearings or other forums who claim to speak for hunters in general, but who really promote a narrow self-interest. These folks have one thing in common with our saloon-quarterbacks mentioned above: they never show up at sportsmen's meetings to have their viewpoint tested in debate with other hunters before going public.
These are the people who want more opportunity to do their favorite thing in the outdoors, even if it means that other people are denied opportunity in the process. The ugliest and commonest of these hunters are the ones who will gladly sacrifice the general welfare of wildlife and wild lands in favor of having more fun right now. And it is these very people who form the image of hunting before the general public when conservation-minded Nimrods stay home and don't show up.

Indeed, it was these people who first drew the ire of Teddy Roosevelt as he was figuring out a hundred years ago that something was wrong with the way hunters were affecting wildlife.

Before tackling timber barons and mining tycoons, Teddy the mighty Nimrod was raging that "recreational hunters" had to be done away with before wildlife could be saved. This set me back until I learned that he used the term referring specifically to hunters who shirked any personal responsibility to slaughter game without limit and without restraint of law or society.

In the year 2001, while the challenges to hunting have changed, I think Teddy would recognize all the people involved.