Ethics and the Portrayal of Hunting
By Levi Brown
By Levi Brown
The Portrayal of Hunting
Growing up, I was always surrounded by outdoorsman and the stories they carried with them. While some of these people carried themselves as positive role models, I would be lying if I were to say all of them actually were. It is true that some people don't respect the game that they hunt and all they strive for is pride. With any misunderstood practice, you will always have those poor examples, and as they say, "One sour apple spoils the bunch!" While I myself don't hunt, I do respect the practice and would like to take the time to combat some of the negative portrayals that it gets, particularly in video games, the news, and on television.
Video Games
Although I like to think that my childhood was completely surrounded by the outdoors, I was also very fond of video games. I was fortunate enough to live in a time when the progression of technology could keep up with the appetites of young gamers. While most of the games are purely fantasy, some genres incorporate ideas, people, practices, and events that happen in real life (for example, games that involve sports such as major league baseball.) Some of the games that I had as a child were hunting game. I didn't much see the harm in them then, but as a young adult I can look back and see how harmful these games can be to hunting. One game in particular stands out as particularly harmful: Cabela's Dangerous Hunts (it has had many sequels, all of which are detrimental.)
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| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cabela%27s_Dangerous_Hunts_Coverart.png |
In the game, animals such as grizzly bears, lions, wolves, and leopards are portrayed as feral beasts that are more than obliged to attack you. If a child's first impression of these animals is through the game, then it is only logical that they should fear them. If there is one thing that history can teach us, it's that once humans fear something, they set out to destroy them. Not only is this detrimental to the species utilized in the game, it is also falsely showing that hunting is a tool used for eradication. If you need proof for this, take a look at this clip of gameplay for Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2013.
The News
In 2006, two men set out on a trip on a ranch to hunt quail. Upland game-bird hunting, like any hunting, is a safe practice if the correct precautions are taking. This includes making sure the muzzle of your gun is pointed in a safe direction, the safety (mechanical device on a firearm designed to make pulling the trigger impossible) is on when you aren't about to take a shot, and to be aware at all time. Unfortunately, this hunting trip ended up with one of the gentleman, 78 year old Harry Whittington, getting shot. He survived the incident and recovered fully, but the character of his incidental assailant along with the practice of hunting were put into question. The whole situation was made worse, seeing as how the shooter at the time was former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Throughout the history of the firearm, there have always been incidences where its legality/ethical usage has come into question. Columbine, Sandy Hook, and the incident with Cheney were all followed with a backlash against the usage of guns. Hunting, having direct ties to firearm usage, logically accrued some hate as well. The point of me stating this is not to justify the usage of firearms or condemn them (which I believe is a personal matter), but rather to show that with a few bad apples, the whole bunch can go to waste. Hunting, along with any other practice, has a wide array of people who practice it. Most are conscientious of their decisions, respect the game, and make sure that they are safe about it.
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| http://www.lebanondemocrat.com/article/sports/379316 |
To the right is an article I came upon warning of the hazards of losing awareness when hunting. Hunting is an exciting activity with adrenaline inducing moments, which many hunters have coined as "buck fever." With the advancement of technology, hunting is becoming more and more safe (no need to carry gunpowder around anymore!) Complacency, along with over-excitement, are the new risks of hunting, and if all hunters took a little more time to think about their actions, the activity would have fewer opponents.
Article: http://www.lebanondemocrat.com/article/sports/379316
Television
The final type of media I would like to address is television. For many years TV stations have satiated the appetites of outdoorsmen by providing them with "entertainment." Generally, these shows are thirty minutes long and are laden with in show sponsorship (such as the guns used, ammo, scopes, etc.) While many of these shows may be fair chase, they neglect to portray the hard work, discipline, and most importantly, the failure that comes with real hunting. Take a look at this ten minute clip from a hunt sponsored by RealTree Outdoors.
As you can see, the hunter was successful in taking down not one, but TWO monster moose. As I'm sure one of my fellow bloggers will talk about the ecological implications of harvesting two of these massive mammals, I will talk bout what the show didn't portray.
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| http://www.lesarcherslavalouest.org/tipscharts.html |
- This video makes hunting look relatively easy: you show up, pop a bunch of shots into an animal, and bada-bing bada-boom there's meat in the fridge. One thing I questioned after I saw this was: how much work did the scout do? What people don't realize is the intense amount of scouting and deliberation that is involved in selecting a proper hunting location. You have to have a keen eye to notice the signs of wildlife and also have an awareness of your surroundings so that you can pick up on the correct natural communities and ecosystems that your intended game likes to frequent.
- The guy took four shots. In reality, moose are big animals, so it makes sense that you would need more bullets to take them down. What people don't realize is how to ethically take down an animal if they just see people on TV filling their game with lead. An ethical hunter strives to only need one shot. As you can in the picture to the right, the vital areas on big game consists of their heart, liver, and lungs. Most big game have thick skulls, so shooting for the head can lead to suffering. It was unclear in the video if the hunter was successful in hitting these vitals, but I will admit the time between the first shot and the animal going down was pretty good. The fact that the animal was oblivious to what had hit it was a good sign that it suffered very little.
- The last thing I'd like to address applies to almost every hunting program. Regardless of the behind the scenes work or the unrealistic shots being taken (1000+ yards?!?!), the shows neglect to show the failure of hunting. Disappointment is a feeling well mown by most hunters, with the chances of them actually completing a successful hunt being very slim. If people knew that only a small portion of hunters actually harvest animals, they may not be so hasty about advocating against an activity that they see as "completely unfair."
I tried my best to dissect what I think is wrong with hunting television, but I found that Dr. David Samuel did a pretty good job of summing it all up. Here is a link to his article on TV Hunting Shows:http://www.knowhunting.com/article.html?id=32
Wrap It All Up
As you can see, hunting has got a lot going against it. Whether its groups like PETA who firmly believe that the killing of animals is wrong, or the NRA, who many claim over-zealously defend their right to bear arms, the true nature of hunting is always being called into question. My point behind analyzing the portrayal of hunting is just to show that while many people have qualms with it, not many people actually immerse themselves within the culture to truly grasp why people do it. As I have stated, I don't hunt, but I support it because I went through hunter's safety and have lived around hunters all my life. By hearing their stories and seeing through their perspective, I view hunting as an age-old tradition that helps to keep humans connected to nature. The medias portrayal of hunting cannot nearly come close to doing the same to other people, so all that I suggest to people is that before you make an opinion, sit down and have a conversation with a hunter. In fact, that is what I did.
A Long Conversation with my Uncle Dale
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| A picture of Dale cleaning up after Irene. Being the local celebrity he is, it was only a matter of time before the papers caught him. http://www.vnews.com/news/8042771-95/keeping-the-river-clean |
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| A Map of the NH-VT Quadrangle, home of many moose. http://docs.unh.edu/NH/mtcb31se.jpg |
One thing that really sticks out to me about him is that although he is capable of being a successful hunter, he now concerns himself with shooting animals with a camera. Along with his photography, he also collects moose antlers after they have fallen off the animal. Last spring, he brought me along with him on a snowshoeing expedition to the valley between Mt. Cube and Mt. Smarts in Lyme, New Hampshire. During the hike, this 65 year old man could've run circles around me. While I was complaining the whole time, he was trying to impart on me wisdom about the outdoors and about moose. I probably learned more that day than in some classes I have taken.
When I was thinking of people I could possibly interview, it was a no-brainer. One afternoon I sat down and had a phone conversation with my uncle. The interview took a little over an hour, but here are some of his thoughts on the questions I presented to him:
When did you start hunting?
Well, let’s see. My first year of deer hunting was in 1960; I was twelve
years old then. My father and mother would let me do a little bit with a .22
(rifle) a year before with squirrels.
I’ve read a good deal of your book, What’s It All About, and this may be redundant, but would you say hunting is a family tradition?
Yeah it is, of course, because my uncles hunted, my father hunted. I don’t know if his father hunted because he died before I was born, but he was a farmer so he may not have had time to hunt, but my dad did.
How many game animals have you harvested over the years?
Oh, good Lord. Whitetail (deer), I couldn’t begin to tell you. If I had to guess, I would say over sixty. I’ve never killed a moose, never had any interest in shooting a bear. I shot white tail because we liked to eat ‘em, but there’s more to it than that. It’s hard to define, but whatever we shot, we ate; it was part of the program and how we were raised.
You pretty much answered this already, but what did you do with the animals you harvested?
We ate ‘em, game animals that is. When we were little, you know, we shot other things like chipmunks and red squirrels, but we were kids; it’s a different mentality when you’re young. Of course, that was wasteful. When I got a little older, some place in my teens, I stopped doing that. I wasn’t made to, I just did. Eventually, your whole mindset changes and when I got out of the service in 1970 (I was 22 years old), I had changed as a human, how my mind worked. I couldn’t justify shooting woodchucks and things like that just to shoot ‘em.
What is your opinion on the use of a bow versus the use of a firearm?
If you’re a person who has the ethics, the ability to restrict your shot to one that you are relatively confident you can take, then I love the bow because it’s difficult, it’s really hard. Those people who just go out and fling arrows, I don’t think there should be a bow season for them. It’s hard to resist that temptation to a person who can, that may be a process. It’s hard to be a person who goes out their first time hunting and wants to get a deer with a bow, who restrains himself to not taking shots he shouldn’t take. Hopefully he can grow into someone who let’s that deer walk unless he gets that perfect shot. A lot of people don’t do that.
How important to you is hunter education?
When I was a kid, my folks made sure I met all those standards that this formal program is using. I think it’s important because you need to be exposed to what they’re trying to teach you. First of all they’re trying to teach you two things, both related to ethics: how you should treat the game, and how you should treat the other people that may or may not be involved in hunting. Then they are trying to teach you the proper approach to hunting, such as the skills along with first aid and anything that may be useful to the activity. It’s important because not everyone has a family that will teach them that, and not everybody has a mentor that cares. Sometimes the parents that come to hunter safety programs will be snickering at what you’re saying.
What would you personally describe as hunter ethics?
Ethics, for me as an individual, means that you want to stay within the law, you want to respect property owners’ rights, and so far as the animal goes, I told you I love them, which really I do. I want to respect the animal, too. I don’t look think I’m better than they are, I look at them as another living creature. If they get away from me, I mentally pat them on the back. I make sure I’ve got a good shot, which means I stay within my skill range. Having the self-discipline to know when you shouldn’t do something may take time, but you have to learn not to do it.
What are you some of your personal “codes?”
I grew up in a family that was very strict and strong on morals. They say that your morals are largely formed by the time that you are four years old, and I still draw from some of the lessons I learned from when I was young. As a person I have a set of codes that I try to operate within. Sure, I may stray from them occasionally, but the odds are heavily against it; I’m human. If there were a twelve-point buck sitting in front of me and it was a minute past legal shooting light, would I shoot it? Maybe, but being sixty-five maybe I wouldn’t because it’s too long of a drag! Things do change as you get older, an a couple of years ago I had a beautiful ten-point buck run right up to me chasing a doe, but I didn’t get a shot at it. Half an hour later, I had a monster bull moose stand up, a perfect picture, but I didn’t have my camera on me. You know what I was upset about? Not getting a picture of that moose. I wasn’t upset about not getting the buck, and that came with age.
Miscellaneous Wisdoms from Dale
I’ve read a good deal of your book, What’s It All About, and this may be redundant, but would you say hunting is a family tradition?
Yeah it is, of course, because my uncles hunted, my father hunted. I don’t know if his father hunted because he died before I was born, but he was a farmer so he may not have had time to hunt, but my dad did.
How many game animals have you harvested over the years?
Oh, good Lord. Whitetail (deer), I couldn’t begin to tell you. If I had to guess, I would say over sixty. I’ve never killed a moose, never had any interest in shooting a bear. I shot white tail because we liked to eat ‘em, but there’s more to it than that. It’s hard to define, but whatever we shot, we ate; it was part of the program and how we were raised.
You pretty much answered this already, but what did you do with the animals you harvested?
We ate ‘em, game animals that is. When we were little, you know, we shot other things like chipmunks and red squirrels, but we were kids; it’s a different mentality when you’re young. Of course, that was wasteful. When I got a little older, some place in my teens, I stopped doing that. I wasn’t made to, I just did. Eventually, your whole mindset changes and when I got out of the service in 1970 (I was 22 years old), I had changed as a human, how my mind worked. I couldn’t justify shooting woodchucks and things like that just to shoot ‘em.
What is your opinion on the use of a bow versus the use of a firearm?
If you’re a person who has the ethics, the ability to restrict your shot to one that you are relatively confident you can take, then I love the bow because it’s difficult, it’s really hard. Those people who just go out and fling arrows, I don’t think there should be a bow season for them. It’s hard to resist that temptation to a person who can, that may be a process. It’s hard to be a person who goes out their first time hunting and wants to get a deer with a bow, who restrains himself to not taking shots he shouldn’t take. Hopefully he can grow into someone who let’s that deer walk unless he gets that perfect shot. A lot of people don’t do that.
How important to you is hunter education?
When I was a kid, my folks made sure I met all those standards that this formal program is using. I think it’s important because you need to be exposed to what they’re trying to teach you. First of all they’re trying to teach you two things, both related to ethics: how you should treat the game, and how you should treat the other people that may or may not be involved in hunting. Then they are trying to teach you the proper approach to hunting, such as the skills along with first aid and anything that may be useful to the activity. It’s important because not everyone has a family that will teach them that, and not everybody has a mentor that cares. Sometimes the parents that come to hunter safety programs will be snickering at what you’re saying.
What would you personally describe as hunter ethics?
Ethics, for me as an individual, means that you want to stay within the law, you want to respect property owners’ rights, and so far as the animal goes, I told you I love them, which really I do. I want to respect the animal, too. I don’t look think I’m better than they are, I look at them as another living creature. If they get away from me, I mentally pat them on the back. I make sure I’ve got a good shot, which means I stay within my skill range. Having the self-discipline to know when you shouldn’t do something may take time, but you have to learn not to do it.
What are you some of your personal “codes?”
I grew up in a family that was very strict and strong on morals. They say that your morals are largely formed by the time that you are four years old, and I still draw from some of the lessons I learned from when I was young. As a person I have a set of codes that I try to operate within. Sure, I may stray from them occasionally, but the odds are heavily against it; I’m human. If there were a twelve-point buck sitting in front of me and it was a minute past legal shooting light, would I shoot it? Maybe, but being sixty-five maybe I wouldn’t because it’s too long of a drag! Things do change as you get older, an a couple of years ago I had a beautiful ten-point buck run right up to me chasing a doe, but I didn’t get a shot at it. Half an hour later, I had a monster bull moose stand up, a perfect picture, but I didn’t have my camera on me. You know what I was upset about? Not getting a picture of that moose. I wasn’t upset about not getting the buck, and that came with age.
Miscellaneous Wisdoms from Dale
- It’s because we’re people. Any issue you talk about, not just hunting, there’s a wide range of how the individuals involved will perform and how they’re going to handle it. Hunting is like this.
- If you start studying people, you’re going to find that a lot of us will give opinions without having any actual insight into the subject. We get an opinion based upon something we’ve heard or read. We may not know, and we may not have any facts. Hunting is an issue that is heavy on that because there are an awful lot of people in this world that have never hunted, and unfortunately they may not form a very logical, conscientious opinion. Unfortunately, when you have a group spending a lot of money to try and get their viewpoint across, they might point out all the negative, or all the positive. You can find plenty of bad apples in the hunting world if you want to use them as your poster boy.
- The guys who come home from the military who have been in combat that have seen some real nasty stuff generally don’t talk about it. The ones who come home and didn’t see any nasty stuff are more apt to have war stories and bravado. You’ve got the same mentalities in deer hunting. The guy with the best story is likely to be the blow-hard, and that’s human. It’s these characters that are representative of hunting in the media, and it doesn’t really portray the good end of hunting, the god end of politics, or the good end of anything. Those are the newsworthy, the ones that fi you want to show a negative point of an activity, you highlight. For anyone o get a good view, a true view on basically anything, they need to immerse themselves in it.
- I’m looked at as being accomplished at hunting, and that means something to a lot of people, to be respected at something.
- If you go to a scientific base, you’ll see they’ve done studies on humans. When people see wildlife, they get a spike in adrenaline. Explain that. Why do people get a spike in adrenaline when they see wildlife? Is it a predatory response, are we built this way, or is it something else? When they shoot something, apparently they get a greater spike. You’ll see this on TV, and depending on who it is factors into your opinion on the sport: either they’re an barbaric or there’s something else to it. Whether it’s a politician with a genius IQ or the old gopher guy who lives under the bridge will sway your opinion.
- When I hunt, I try very hard not to hurt the animal, I try to kill it; that’s a big distinction. You have to ask yourself, “When you kill an animal, do you hurt it?” I don’t think so, you end it’s life. It’s not like torture.
- We as humans are individuals. What you’re trying to decide is whether it’s good for a group to do this rather than an individual, and I think that’s a little different. An individual may be perfectly ethical and not doing anything wrong while also approaching it as conscientiously as possible. Is this something society should do, is another question. If you get into that, then you get into population control, destruction of habitat because an animal overpopulates, do you want large predators in the neighborhood, and whole other new ideas. Do you want mountain lions in area where your kids are out playing? If not, do you want so many deer in your neighborhood that they’re going to die off from disease very ten years and they’re going to trash all the vegetation while they’re there.
In Conclusion
Throughout my investigation into the portrayal and ethics of hunting, I haven't tried to make any conclusions. The pint of my blog post was to expose you to some of the negative portrayals of hunting, and then begin to dive into the ethics of hunting through the use of an interview. I think a good conclusion to this investigation is seen in this poem written by my uncle in a book he has written called What's It All About:
"What's it all about
Just to kill a deer
No thought of personal growth
it would seem to appear
What's it all about
Each opportunity being new
Making your own decisions
Is that good for you?
What's it all about
Why do we continue to hunt
Without knowing:
Could it be tradition,
Or about Growing?"
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