A letter published by the NY Times:
Re “To Revive Hunting, States Turn to the Classroom” (front page, March 8):
Shame on West Virginia if it approves a bill that allows hunting education classes in public schools to become law.
We should not use public schools to try to reverse the inexorable decline in the “sport” of hunting.
The killing and maiming of animals for sport is a cruel and violent activity that is the antithesis of what schools should be teaching. Furthermore, in the context of a dramatic increase in school violence in recent years, to teach hunting is ludicrous.
We should be teaching our children how to be better citizens of the community, and that certainly does not include taking up arms against other living beings.
Brad Goldberg
President, Animal Welfare Advocacy
Mamaroneck, N.Y., March 8, 2008
It would be great if, say on their website, they published all the letters they received on the article. Maybe they could even have – comments – on their articles. Meanwhile, we get predictable cant.
Maybe someone can send him a copy of Dirty Hands.
I think that tracking and killing an animal in the wild – an animal that has had a natural life – is far more ethically and practically supportable and sustainable and honorable than buying a shinkwrapped polystyrene tray of meat in the grocery store.
Mark
Either way, I don’t think I’m going to apologize for legally procuring a meal. I’m just not that guilt ridden.
One of the reasons I joined the NRA is articles like this. Heh. And they tend to be too liberal for my tastes on some issues.
I was taught to hunt, shoot and practice firearms safety when I was young. I have never been afraid of firearms or those who use them for the proper purposes.
Just more steps of the gun grabbers. More of their propaganda.
When I was a boy, I hunted raccoons – $30 a pelt in a good winter – so celebrities and rich New York liberals would have nice coats to wear.
Then they turned on me. They started bad-mouthing me at their stupid cocktail parties, right in front of their Sandinista friends. And their rotten kids are out throwing blood on people, even if the fur they’re wearing is nothing but fake acrylic.
I’d be glad to come to anybody’s school and tell the kids about this, because it’ll teach them what the world is like.
This is typical of people who have only known an urban life. (A friend of mine coined a term, “city hick” which I find apt.) To such a person, guns are things that only gangs, carjackers, and murderers would ever have a need for, and hunting is, well, “killing and maiming of animals for sport.”
It’s inconceivable to someone who has lived the narrow, sheltered life of an urbanite (or posh suburbanite… we’re talking Westchester County here) that good, law-abiding people would need, much less want to own guns, or that those same people hunt for reasons other than just killing something. Hunters mostly eat what they kill. In West Virginia and other places, it’s an economical way to augment a family’s food stores.
Something tells me that Brad Goldberg’s answer to the food argument would be along the lines of “then tax the rich more and give those people more government assistance so they don’t have to hunt.” Maybe I’m wrong, but my gut tells me I know the type.
But from a more practical standpoint, since hunting is such a prevalent activity in WV, it’s in the state’s interest to see that it is done as safely as possible, and education at an early age sounds like one of the best ways to accomplish that goal.
And I’ll close, before wandering too far afield, by wondering if Mr. Goldberg and his “animal welfare” advocates realize that hunting has a positive effect on animal welfare in the form of improved herd health. Probably not.
“But from a more practical standpoint, since hunting is such a prevalent activity in WV, it’s in the state’s interest to see that it is done as safely as possible, and education at an early age sounds like one of the best ways to accomplish that goal.”
Word.
“If it saves just one life” is, I guess, only relevant if the life is saved the right way.
There may be other i-sues going on here, though. I’m guessing from their sister organization’s logo (Mr. Goldberg is President and Director there too) that the real position from which he is arguing is that animals are good and humans are evil, or at least badly damaged.
So I really doubt that the relative ethics of shrink wrapped v. freshly bagged is the question. Rather, how do we get the rubes to use the guns on each other rather than on the bunny wabbits.
You really have to wonder if the NY Times bothers to do ANY checking on the backgrounds of the nuts to whom they give the microphone.
In point of fact, hunting education classes have over the last 3 or 4 decades resulted in an extraordinary decline in hunting fatalities and non-fatal accidents. The result is that hunting is now among the safest of outdoor sports.
The disconnect between so many people’s lives and ‘nature’ is the source of a great deal of stupidity. Most of us [read citifolk] live in a dream world with no knowledge of the harsher realities that pertain to the human condition. We neither grow our own food nor hunt for it. That something living has to die for us to live seems unnatural and ‘wrong’ (and I brook no protest from the vegetarians – they are the worst offenders – tearing entire colonies of bean sprouts from their incubators… to be eaten ALIVE!). I can only trust there is a sunny meadow in plant heaven (no doubt redolent with soybeans), to which they have all ascended.
Ian,
I agree 100%. Well, make that 95%. Here’s what I don’t get.
“Most of us [read citifolk] live in a dream world with no knowledge of the harsher realities that pertain to the human condition. ”
If most of us live in this “dream” world, how is not reality? And if I can live without knowledge of harsh realities that pertain to the human condition, maybe they don’t pertain so much to the human condition. If I can escape harsh realities, wouldn’t I want to?
On the food and hunting stuff, though, I’m with you.
Mark
You appear to assume that ‘reality’ and ‘dream world’ are somehow mutually exclusive, I make no such assertion. Living (even living well) without personal knowledge of many things is no large feat,… I give you Paris Hilton, there may be others. Lastly, only if we make the tremendous leap of assuming (as a reader of these posts), you are nonetheless NOT masochistic, would I have any expectation that you would try to escape things you found harsh.
Ian,
“You appear to assume that ‘reality’ and ‘dream world’ are somehow mutually exclusive, I make no such assertion.”
Hmmm, I would have thought that an opposition between the two was presumed in this statement: “Most of us [read citifolk] live in a dream world with no knowledge of the harsher realities that pertain to the human condition.”
“I give you Paris Hilton, there may be others.” Promises, promises. But, no thanks, I’ll take my wife.
“hunting has a positive effect on animal welfare in the form of improved herd health.”
Hmmm… run that one past me again? Sure, hunting by predatory animals does just that – culls the unfit whether by reason of age or genetic inferiority.
However, I find it difficult to believe that this applies to hunting by humans – unless perhaps those humans are using short-range weapons such as hunting bows, that give the animal a realistic chance of escaping. Just how exactly is a deer going to be less likely to be shot with a rifle if it’s healthier? Last time I looked it up, the typical running speed for most animals was somewhat slower than a bullet.
In fact, I suspect the effect on herd health might be negative. I very much doubt that human hunters would deliberately choose an obviously unfit target. If the target is a crippled old animal, then a sport hunter probably wouldn’t bother – no challenge – and someone hunting for the pot also wouldn’t – as either the animal is diseased or it is very old, therefore its meat will be tough and stringy.
Of course, I have no objection to hunting for food (hunting to put a set of antlers on your wall is a different matter) – but herd fitness is not a justification for it.
Also, deliberate culling by professionals is again a different matter. I am quite willing to believe that they would cull the unfit by preference.
Without hunting, herd populations tend to grow beyond the carrying capacity of their habitat, as there are not as many natural predators as there once was. When this happens, the health of the herd declines due to poor nutrition and even starvation.
I suppose with Fletcher’s logic, this would improve the health of the heard as the more poorly adapted individuals would die. But really, BD and Fletcher are talking about two different kinds of health.
In an isolated ecosystem it has been shown that a species can literally go extinct if its predators are remove, precisely because it overpopulates, strips the land of resources, and then starved. There was a famous case of the wolves been removed from an island and the deer dying out with a couple years.
The ‘human factor’ is artificial. We are part of the ecosystem, and the only one that intentionally maintains resources and ecology. Whether its a machine gun or a wolf is fairly indifferent aside from scope. We actually do bear a responsibility, if you want to look at it that way, because we have chased most of the predatory animals out of our habitats. Hence in order to maintain ‘balance’ we need to cull.
Mark:
I disagree with at least part of your post. If wolves are doing the hunting, then they will preferentially cull the unfit – not by design, but simply because they are easier targets. Hence, the average fitness of the animals in the herd will improve – and the prey species will not become overpopulated, as if its population increases so will that of the predators. Prey and predator numbers will both change, but within a sustainable range.
However, human hunters with modern weapons are so superior a predator that the effect on fitness just doesn’t apply (most of the herd are easy targets), and if the human hunters are stupid enough both the prey and they will die out in that area – if the humans are dependent on that prey. In this case, they only way that humans will have the same effect on the prey species as do animal predators is for them to deliberately cull the unfit – which is unlikely unless there is some sort of cultural imperative towards that.
lurker, there are indeed two types of fitness here – but they are linked. The two types are genetic fitness and the average actual health of the members of the herd. It is quite possible, for a while, to have genetically fit individuals that are nevertheless unhealthy because there are just too many of them, or because the environment has radically changed and their fitness isn’t fitness any more. Drastically defective individuals are always culled, of course – such as albinos or those with gross birth defects.
An example of the latter is that of a particular group of humans – those of Northern European extraction living in Australia. I believe that their incidence of skin cancer is extremely high, because their skin colour and behaviour (lying in the sun and getting sunburn) is maladapted to Australian conditions. Were it not for modern medicine, I am quite sure that some sort of cultural or biological change would occur, as skin cancer is a rather good way of making it less likely for any organism to breed. In fact, it already has to some extent – the wearing of suncream.
Fletcher,
Human hunters do not have to preferentially cull the unfit in order to have a positive effect on herd health. In all 50 states, wildlife biologists are responsible for the management of various game species. They determine seasons and limits based on scientific population data. The two goals of their management plan are to maintain a population that is sustainable within its habitat, and to promote genetic diversity. If males are culled (and to a lesser extent, females), then an individual is more likely to seek a mate outside of the immediate area it would otherwise breed in. The result is a more genetically heterogeneous population that is less susceptible to hereditary defects and epidemic disease.
BD:
Assuming that you are party to professional knowledge and data that I am not (which is probable):
I would have thought that natural predators are better at keeping up the quality of the herd, precisely because they do preferentially cull the unfit. Human hunters are probably much less discriminating; in fact, I suspect that the fitter individuals are more likely to be culled, because they are less likely to have unpalatable meat and/or disease transmissable to humans and also because most hunters keep trophies – which are more impressive if they come from fitter individuals. Example; dominant, fit male deer have bigger and better antlers.
It seems therefore that, from the point of view of maintaining or improving herd fitness in prey species, a better plan is to re-introduce predators. Example: re-introduction of wolves to forests.