Spring WILL Come & A Thought on Bloomberg

I am now starting to believe that this North Dakota winter will finally end!  The temperature has been creeping up by just a degree or two each day and in response the snow pack depth has been dropping by an inch or two each day.  Eventually green will replace white and I’ll be reaping the rewards of North Dakota’s long summer days.

Yesterday I heard the snow geese flying over but the fog was so dense I never got a look at them, but it was good to hear them after a long winter with howling winds carrying the yip of coyotes.  After hearing the geese I did take a short drive into the countryside to see if the snow melt will let me get to hunting fields. Nope. The mud is deep, thick and clinging which leaves me looking for some pass shooting opportunities as snow geese drop into or leave a field. The season is open until early May so I’ve got the whole month of April to get some snows. I am pretty confident I’ll get the opportunity to bring some down for Cookie to bring out of the muddy field so my feet stay dry!

When the idea of spring goose hunting was first being kicked around I wasn’t impressed because, like most other hunters, I had been brought up on the idea of waterfowl hunting in the fall and early winter.  Somehow, I thought that spring hunting was cheating and it gave hunters an unfair advantage. It took a few years to change my thinking but I did and now I look forward to the spring season as a reaffirmation of nature’s bounty and, of course, our position as hunters within nature.

Another Thought.  .  . .

I hope that this insane anti gun hysteria that has flamed across the country is not going to morph into more anti-hunting hype, all because of Bloomberg’s misrepresentation of hunters in his gun-control ads. What has truly vexed me is that he and his crew of malcontent mayors and coattail hanger-ons seem to feel they have the right to influence how North Dakota’s elected officials should vote.  We elected our officials, Bloomberg’s Bums didn’t. What we are seeing from Bloomberg and his followers is another step in the direction of greater class separation, a conflict that is being fueled by those who have the biggest bankroll! In today’s culture of wealth at any cost, as an individual’s bankroll grows, if they spend a proportional amount of time admiring their reflection in the mirror, they will begin painting gilt on the mirror’s frame, adding more gold to the mirror until the frame breaks the mirror, and they then believe thieves from the lower classes smashed the frame to steal the gold. In their minds they are justified in denying rights to others because of the broken frame mindset. Fortunately, not all members of the wealthy class are fooled by a gilded mirror frame and do not align themselves or their business with the paranoid Bloomberg culture. 

glg

I Have Returned--With a Question

I’ve been “checked out” of blog writing for a number of weeks.  Whenever I sat down to write anything I felt pangs of guilt for not having written for my blog.  I felt as though I was cheating those who have been reading my musings.  The problem is that I didn’t want to write anything and the few post that I have made during these weeks of absence were little more than apologies for not posting.

Not good.

But, I was thinking about something that was troubling me.  When I get into one of these “mood” projects I frequently lose myself in my thoughts and write these thoughts down in one of my notebooks.  The whole process is part of a mental movement that begins with a mental “tick.”  Something that I’ve seen, heard, or read, strikes me as odd and I find myself returning to it and thinking about it.  How long it takes me to resolve the issue to my satisfaction, or at least to a point where I want to present it to others, is not predictable.   I’ve got many notebooks, not all of them full, but into which I write my thoughts whether for something I want to write or a problem I am wrestling with.  A couple of notebooks have notes, jottings, drawings and whatever else seemed to be relevant to a problem that I first started writing about several years ago and I still think about and write on.

My blog issue hasn’t been completely resolved but it is something that I want to “bring out.”  My mental twitch is that writing a blog as “The Thinking Hunter” is somehow incomplete.  Besides hunting I am an avid angler and this spring I will be putting my boat back in the water and hopefully spending more time on nearby lakes.  Should I expand my blog from “The Thinking Hunter” to “The Thinking Angler & Hunter”?  Or, as some of my notes suggest, would writing about both angling and hunting in one blog confuse readers?  The pages of my notebook on this topic seem equally divided with thoughts that adding angling would be confusing pages of notes that explore reasons for making the change.

Now, to some readers this may seem like a trivial topic, but I believe it begs the question of whether there truly is a strong link between angling and hunting.  We know that Wayne Pacelle and his crowd, the sworn enemy of all anglers and hunters, has a life mission of ending hunting and fishing.  That alone should create a strong link between angling and hunting.

I am not sure it does.

At the SHOT Show I had the pleasure of having dinner with a small group of bloggers, mostly gun bloggers, and as I listened to them I realized the distance between the hunter and the gun enthusiast is real and often wide.  That gap is created by the number of issues between the two groups; therefore a similar gap, between hunters and anglers, exists and is equally wide. 

What troubles me, and is driving my question is that by these gaps we are allowing ourselves to become segregated by our activities rather than united by them.  By focusing my Internet musings on hunting I tend to believe that I am contributing to the problem.   There is an old truism about who’s ox is being gored and suddenly all of us in the outdoors seem to be thinking more about our personal ox, that is the ox of shooting, the ox of hunting, the ox of bowhunting, ox of shooting, ad infinitum. 

I believe that those of us who have opted to focus our work on the issues that surround our preferred outdoor activities should consider stepping back from that gap we’ve created by the “single issue” approach to the preservation of our outdoor activities and lifestyle.  The divisions between shooting, hunting, and fishing, are providing openings through which our opponents are driving wedges to weaken us.

This is not a new problem but one I’ve been aware of thought about throughout my career, but it is being exacerbated by the explosion of social media and the gaps are becoming wider. 

When I think about what I value in my outdoor activities I cannot separate my hunting from my fishing as favoring one over the other.  Nor can I separate the values I put on shooting, whether casual plinking or shooting at known distance targets, from my hunting.  I believe the outdoors is a lifestyle that runs the entire spectrum of emotions.  Casting a fly to a feeding trout in a beaver pond produces as much excitement and accomplishment as a center bull’s-eye shot from several hundred yards or finally shooting a deer that I’ve hunted for days.  In the outdoors have too much in common, too many shared emotions, too much to lose, to allow those gaps to grow and perhaps become festering wounds between us. 

Do you agree?

glg

Differences & How One Method of Argument is Used Against Hunting

Responses to my recent posts have given me reason to think about some of the assertions that I made, primarily in the area of verbal and writing skills. NorCal pointed out some very interesting facts from the USFWS and her own experience that run counter my assertions. I’ll admit to being passionate about my belief in the need for learning verbal and writing skills, regardless of the intended profession. Also, because I did teach Technical and Business Writing, both as a lecturer (Northland Community & Technical College) and at UND, it is a field in which I have some experience.

While teaching, I amassed a sizable amount of research suggesting that companies (English speaking and English ESL) were struggling with a need for employees to have better communication skills (English). This was true across the business spectrum. As a result of our discussion here I became curious as to how much the environment has changed and I did a twenty minute online search, without using any academic search engines, and found an impressive number of studies, all concerned about the problem of a lack of verbal and writing skills among employees and prospective employees. One of the quickest scans for information is the PEW Project’s studies on the problem, but other studies, including the 2004 College Board’s National Commission on Writing, all present an increased need for these skills, noting that two-thirds of all salaried workers in large companies are in positions that require writing skills. While I was teaching at Northland and UND one of the exercises I gave my students was to go through the Sunday newspaper’s “Jobs” section and determine how many advertised positions required good verbal and writing skills (communication skills) for the position. The results were impressive, driving the point home for the students, because the percentage hovered around 80% of the listed skilled jobs and it soared to 90% when we factored in ads that did not list that requirement but were for the same type of job in which other companies did list it. I am sure the percentage will vary by region but it will remain impressive.

So, the need for better communication skills exists throughout both the blue and white collar communities. But, the objections NorCal raised is that the hunters she frequently interacts with, while being accomplished in their fields and possessing high levels of non communication-driven skills, did not necessarily have the higher communication skills. She rightly points out that the lack of these skills does not reflect on their intelligence or any other social measurement, only that their careers have not called for the communication skills. There is, I believe, a separation between her experience in the hunting community and my experience and it has to do with my having interacted more with men (and women) with higher levels of communication skills in hunting camps both here and in Africa. Even though many of these hunters were from traditional blue collar jobs, because of their more developed vocational and communication skills, they were more successful in their fields and tended to rise in position and salary. I am not sure how this translates into the broader spectrum of the outdoor community but I do think it is worth pursuing, if for no other reason than it will help us to better understand the role of our media. I will offer my opinion, however, and it is only my opinion, that as higher education reacts to the growth of social media, and its dependency on more finely developed communication skills, the shift to more required communication studies as the basis of more disciplines will spread exponentially at all education levels. I doubt that many of us will recognize exactly what is being taught as communication skills, but it will be there. Every aspect of communication technology is changing so quickly that unless a person is riding on the leading edge of the wave they are in danger of being left behind.

NorCal does raise a wonderful point about personal experience (specifically hers) not being subject to debate. I differ. I maintain that all provable personal experience is axiomatic to any argument. I use, as an example, an apple on a table. In one test, if two hungry people walk into a room in which a single apple, of which they have differing opinions of its edibility, based on personal experience, has been placed on the center of the table, and they sit in chairs placed on opposite sides of the table in such a way that each individual can only see one side of the apple, personal experience will dictate how each person relates to the apple. If one person maintains that in his/her personal experience that type of apple is crisp and delicious and the other maintains that in his/her experience the apple is mushy and is distasteful then the two obviously disagree on the apple’s quality and should try to reach a resolution. If both maintain that their personal experience is not subject to debate and refuse to debate the apple’s merits then only one person will eat the apple and the other will remain hungry. But, if both agree to debate their personal experience, accepting each as axiomatic of the apple’s merit or lack of merit, and each presents the circumstances of personal experience and why each believes the other is wrong, and then defends each assertion with deductive reasoning so that each axiom is presented equally, discussed, and equally reduced to form one truth from the two; they will reach a finite sentence that will be a proof of the argument (discussion). At the end either the two will share the apple and both have something to eat, or they will both leave the room hungry but in agreement. This can only be true if both agree to reach the finite sentence. If they cannot reach that sentence then the discussion will continue until the apple spoils or one of them tires and leaves the room. (Think Iraq and Afghanistan.)

Now, what does this have to do with hunting? If we understand the principle of the apple then whenever we enter a debate with someone about hunting, wildlife management, or any related issue, if the principle of a deductive series of statements to reach a finite sentence by virtue of the provable statement (axiom) is not present, there will not be a successful conclusion with a finite sentence. How do we know the deductive series is being avoided? Simple, if the other person’s argument includes statements outside of axiomatic “personal experience” or science (soft or hard) but are emotive and cannot be proven or disproved, then the debate cannot reach a successful conclusion. A successful conclusion is when both parties of the discussion agree to the same action by reaching the finite sentence. This is why debaters from the hunting community rarely (if ever) best Wayne Pacelle or his compatriots. He is well trained in the art of argument (debate) and always includes elements in the debate that preclude the finite statement, which creates doubt about the validity of his opponent’s argument. In other words, for every one axiomatic element introduced by the pro hunting side, Pacelle (or others of his ilk and training) introduces an un-provable emotive combined with a provable element, claiming both are axiomatic of the same element. The pro hunting side is always left with the task of trying to disprove one part of the element while reducing the other, which is impossible and creates conflict because reduction requires truth which, as Pacelle and others know, will imply proof of the emotive even though it is only implied proof and is wrong.

Anyway, that’s my take on the role of personal experience but it helps me illustrate why I believe the hunting community loses so many arguments.

I can be very tiring, eh?

Any thoughts out there?

Best
glg

My Response to My Outdoor Media Question

I’ve had so many great comments on my questions about the responsibility in media I think it is time for me to comment.

I think it is a safe assumption that a significant percentage of the audience for outdoor programming is NOT the hunting intelligentsia, but on the same thought line I believe it is very dangerous to make the assumption that the viewing audience is somehow intellectually challenged or lacks the benefits of higher education. For nearly 40 years I have watched, studied and researched our body of literature, and watched this trend of our better writers (broadcasting included) struggle with the insistence that the majority of hunters, shooters, anglers, et al. lack the formal education, or are somehow hampered with the lack of intellectual capacity to understand complex issues affecting the outdoors, or are incapable of grasping the nuance of fine literature.

When we analyze the writings of many of the anti-hunting authors a recurring theme is that the hunting/fishing/shooting community is populated by men and women generally lacking a high school diploma. These writers encourage their readers to believe that hunters/anglers/shooters lack the ability to exhibit compassion for wildlife and cannot grasp the ethical analysis of hunting/angling and the environment. When these writers attack hunting and hunters, angling and anglers, for proof of their assertions, they frequently reference our own media! They focus on broadcast programming’s excessively poor language, outrageous high-five behavior and fishing shows that depict casual indifference to fish being returned to the water—none of which are factual representations of the outdoor community—but they persist in our media because we allow them to.

I think an excellent exercise is to actually conduct a comparison between the housing/education/income statistics (discounting the present economic distress) and the audience statistics of Sportsman Network. There is a very interesting corollary between the data and it suggests that if we examine the characteristics of home ownership and then plug those characteristics into the characteristics of the Sportsman Network’s audience we’ll arrive at a result that proves that the greater percentage of men and women participating in hunting/fishing/shooting are better educated, and by extension better read, and have a much better grasp of the issues (political and scientific) surrounding the environment than the general population.

My question is why, when we consider all of the available information, do publishers, programmers, producers, media buyers, personalities, and even our industry and media leadership, insist on playing to the lowest perceived audience denominator and not to an actual, common denominator that would put forward a better image of anglers and hunters? Is it money? Is it fear of a vocal minority within the audience? Or, is it insecurity within themselves and their own hierarchy? I believe it is a combination of these factors.

Our industry, most certainly our media, must come to grips with the fact that this is not the middle of the last century when the chasm between the pro and con was so wide the actions of the antis were largely perceived as the mumblings of a disgruntled minority. The Silver Springs monkeys, Peter Singer, Edward Abby, Cleveland Amory and a handful of other activists were instrumental in refocusing national attention on our relationship to animals, and ultimately on hunting. By 1990, and into this decade, as tools of the media began to radically change at an increasingly faster pace, it is interesting to note that the outdoor media’s adoption of these tools has been slower than the anti-movement and at the same time, as a defensive measure akin to circling the wagons, the leadership of the varied arms of the outdoor industry (manufacturing, sales, management and media) with support from many of the individuals within those arms, began to insist on a Golden Age, or perhaps more commonly expressed as “the Good ‘ole Days” of the outdoors as having been the ideal before the interference of environmentalist and animal rights activists, often blurring the line between the actual role of the hunting community in establishing awareness of the need for environmentalism and the emergence of the extremists. If we want a date for this claimed interference perhaps the earliest would be 1949 and the publication of Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac (A Sand County Almanac; with essays on conservation from Round River), but a later date that is often popularly cited as the opening of the environmentalist movement is Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (Silent Spring), published in 1962. But, if we take the long look at our nation’s history of hunting and fishing we are forced to admit that the claimed “Golden Age” never existed except for a short time in post-colonial America. Neither the populations of the species nor the availability to the hunt by the general population existed in a combined condition that provided the conditions asserted in the Golden Age mythology. This is not to say that hunting, and excellent hunting, did not exist because it did, but it was not universally available throughout the population.

Another interesting, and often ignored truth, is in the alleged numbers of species that were exterminated or nearly so, in westward migration. Outside of a few well publicized species (buffalo, pronghorn, passenger pigeon, etc.), if you have read the journals of the Lewis & Clark expedition and not the “cleaned up” versions found in most libraries, the stunning truth is the expedition very nearly starved to death for lack of game! At one point Clark (I believe, perhaps Lewis) shot a doe deer and before he could reach the animal his starving men fell on it, and in their frenzied desperation for food ripped the carcass to pieces and devoured it raw! Yet, as recently as an outdoor writers’ conference in Columbus, Missouri an exhibit of the L&C expedition completely glossed over the expedition’s trials.

Except for a few familiar species most wildlife was scarce. Some anti-hunting literature argues that the colonial and post-colonial writers’ gushing about the presence of wildlife is proof that hunting has destroyed wildlife populations. These writers ignore the fact that these colonial writers were promoting interest in colonizing by poor Europeans, or in the post-colonial period to entice the stalled westward migration to begin moving. Another important argument, and one that is seldom heard, is that the presence of even a small population of game would be beyond the experience of most of the colonists, and in their enthusiasm would exaggerate the amount of game—a condition that still exists among those of us who are outdoor writers! Another rarely citied argument is that as civilization pushed into the wilderness the wildlife pushed deeper into the forest. The most common argument by the anti-hunting community maintains that America’s wildlife was completely plundered by market hunting and prior to that the landscape was teeming with wildlife. This is an assertion that is not unique to North America. Africa, Europe, Asia, they were presented as having vast number of ALL species. It is simply not true. There were vast herds of specific species (American bison, African wildebeest, etc.) and it is true that these herds suffered from the ravages of market hunting, but it was largely a pre-refrigeration phenomenon that corresponded to the transformation of social structure to urban areas to support industrialization. As refrigerated rail cars opened the possibilities of moving domestic meats to distant markets, whether in Africa or North America, the need for market hunting largely collapsed, although vestiges of it remained as species specific, although even this ended, first in North America and later in Africa.

The mythos of the Golden Age or good ‘ole Days is that there was a period in early to mid 20th century America in which game was universally abundant, a hand-shake sealed all bargains, neighbor trusted neighbor, land was generally open to hunting, the public eagerly supported hunting and nearly everyone hunted, and was a gun owner. All of these are false. Today, in fact, we live in a period of the greatest amount of hunting opportunity this nation has enjoyed since the brief post-colonial period. There are trouble spots and most of us know where they are, but if you are at least older than 55, and hunted in the 1950s and sixties, chances are you remember a time when finding a place to hunt was problematic, but today there are PLOTS, CRP and other lands open that were previously closed. The amount of game is staggering. Old timers here tell me that in the alleged “good ole’ days” they never saw a deer, grouse or partridge and now all are abundant. The Golden Age was a state of mind. Between 1835, which is the birth of what is today’s outdoor writing, and July 2, 1961, American outdoor writing reached its zenith and was a major part of the literary canon, but by the end of the Vietnam War that position had collapsed under the weight of changes in the social landscape, and rather than face these changes and deal with them our entire industry circled the wagons, giving the writers of the anti-hunting, anti-gun and animal rights movements the room they needed to assault public opinion.

My point is that every time a writer decides NOT to write a think piece on environmental issues, or puts an outdoor short story in a file drawer believing no outdoor magazine will publish it, or decides to simplify a text because the editors maintain the readers can’t understand it, or they don’t want to read something “that” complex, or a TV personality mixes metaphors, confuses verb tenses, talks like he/she flunked seventh grade English—three times, and does a sophomoric high five dance around a newly killed animal, the future of fishing and hunting are each cast that much further in doubt. There is no substitute for good writing and there is no justification for poor programming. Ironically, when we go back in the history of outdoor literature we discover that only a handful of decades ago excellence was the standard, mediocrity was not abided, and outdoor literature appeared in literature text books.

Interesting, isn’t it?

glg

Thinking Again--Our Legacy's Future

I’ve been working on the current issue of my literary journal for the outdoor sports media/industry, The Pines Review.” http://pinesreview.magcloud.com The assembly, production and final editing all went according to plan, although a bit late, but the distribution was somewhat stymied by a variety of data problems. The most troublesome was the loss of a significant portion of my reader data base. I’m getting it back together and entered into my computer and I hope that by the time the next issue goes out (May) most of the little problems will be solved and everything will run much smoother.

I’ve also had other issues to deal with, one has been getting a year older. That’s fine with me; I truly don’t mind the passing of time. I also really appreciate all the “Happy Birthday” notes I received, here, by email and snail mail. I look forward to the day when I “pass the outdoor torch” to my grandchildren and I can step aside to let them inherit the outdoors. But then I wondered to myself, “What will be there for them?” “Will we have lost the struggle to preserve our fishing and hunting heritage?”

When I grapple with any question I try to pin down what I am trying to dig out; an answer to a historical or scientific question, or I am looking into some philosophical point. My mind begins to focus and I begin my search and soon enough I find myself buried at my desk with books, notes, clips of essays and articles and a small mound of printouts from various online sources. I emerge from this plunge into the research of questions only for meals, chores and bed (usually late). When I am satisfied with my work I’ve usually got a new collection of thoughts written in my journals. Sometimes I write in my battered Moleskien™ journal that is now held together with duct tape. (It is nearly full.) (My daughter sent me a leather bound, hand-sewn journal that is targeted for specific notes.) On other occasions I type directly into my computer journal. (Years of this sort of research have given me a collection of notebooks of all sizes that are filled with that—notes and thoughts.) The notes I made from books, phone calls, and newspaper and magazine clippings are semi-arranged in a folder along with copies of email conversations on the subject, and then the folder is filed in one of my filing cabinets. The print-outs and full-length copies of articles and essays from magazines, journals and online sources are put in appropriately labeled three-ring binders. As for the books I used, either ones I already had in my library or that I purchased, now have notes in the margins, passages underlined and a flowering of brightly colored Post-It™ notes. Somehow, out of this mishmash of my research, something emerges that I want to write. Maybe it will be polished and finished or maybe it will form the basis of another essay or find its way into some other writing project. The point is that when I ask myself a question I then look for an answer—if one exists.

If you are interested in what emerged from several weeks of this sort of brain activity (When I wasn’t writing a book review, working on The Pines Review, or on my next book.)—read on. You might find it thought provoking—or monumentally boring!

Thoughts on The Hunter’s Relationship to Nature’s “Why?” Question

We are all locked, I believe, in ideological warfare between two prime philosophical camps; one is rooted in the philosophy of “Man The Hunter” The other is rooted in the philosophy of “Man The Scavenger.”

I think in the most basic sense all of us are truly aware of this ideological struggle. It is commonly found in the rhetoric of Wayne Pacelle, the CEO of the HSUS, whose philosophy is a child of Peter Singer’s utilitarian philosophy of equalizing all species. The HSUS, Animal Liberation Front, PETA and others that have sworn to have hunting (and fishing) banned, when they are candled, are found to be flawed. They are flawed in their premise (the white), their argument (the yoke) and their conclusions (the shell). People believe them because it is comfortable to believe that a harmonious, perfect world can be created by willing its existence. To do so they believe banning activities that are the fundamental prescription for human health and survival, and have been for millions of years, will re-define what is human and thus re-define what is nature.

Consider Ardipithecus ramidus, a recently discovered humanoid fossil that has been forcing a radical change in the belief that Lucy was the oldest human fossil. Neither Lucy nor Adri existed outside of their nature. If either of these pieces of evolutionary evidence was not providing researchers a closer, more defining understanding of the truth of humans within nature then Pacelle and his followers might find a more solid claim to our having evolved beyond hunting.
Our relationship to nature is more evolutionary complex than a statement of a collective “need” to define being human. Our relationship is deeply intertwined with a spiritual relationship that is identified by Dr. Eaton in his books--our relationship is defined by God, thus nature. There is nothing in the Pacelle/Singer/Regan writings that can define or give comprehension to that time when early humans emerged from the wilderness of simple survival to the dawn of questions and stood, clothed in fur, with a simple spear in hand and formed in their minds the two questions that drive humanity forward. “Why?” and “How?” Why is answered by God and nature while the “How?” is that which humans have been driven to answer.

“How?” is the question that has driven humans forward since the very dawn of cognitive thought emerged from instinct. How to be warm? How to find food to maintain life? How to protect the family from predators? The list is infinite.

Surrounding each individual since that dawn has been both the question and the answer to “Why?” which has always been “Because the universe is so.” And, if God made the universe then it is because God made it so. In this debate, whether one believes God is the maker of all, or the universe is all evolution’s product after the bang, the indisputable fact remains that humans are within nature and nature within humans. Hunting is within nature, hence within humans. Defining and understanding all of the variables of that truth is the study of “Why?”

Every value of “Why?” within that truth of nature serves to define each object that exists but no value can exist when an object being defined is removed from nature. When any object, animate or inanimate, is removed from nature it cannot be spiritual, it cannot possess good or bad, it can only exist without any relationship to define it--including a relationship to (with) God. I believe that removal is the failure of the anti-hunter philosophers, whether Singer, Pacelle, Steve Best or Tom Regan, and the others. For their arguments to be valid humans must be removed from nature but humans that are outside of nature cannot be spiritual, cannot be close to God, cannot have true relationships with others—which includes all things and actions, because it is only within nature that things exist and know each other. A proof of this is in the opening of a virtual universe. Before any virtual object can exist the virtual universe must be created and then from outside that virtual universe an object is created within that universe and it must grow and change—it evolves within its nature and all objects that it interacts with must also exist within that virtual nature or they cannot exist at all. If that object is given the virtual gene to hunt, as is common in RPGs, that object cannot deny it is a hunter.

Whenever I have read an argument against hunting, regardless of the basis for that argument, when I candle the argument against known truths the argument is always flawed. I do not maintain that every pro hunting argument is flawless—usually when the argument is dramatic for the sake of drama it will collapse of its own lack of supporting truths.

When I consider the inheritance I will leave behind I realize it must be a legacy of our standing firm against the philosophies that want us outside nature, because if we acquiesce to those philosophies we have placed limits on our survival. Humanity cannot maintain itself if it is outside of nature because it is, itself, of nature.

What do you think? Really!

Best,
Galen

A Response To Questions

Okay, I'm back, although I had to use the snow thrower again today. The city plow drivers thought it would be fun to bury my walkway that goes from the sidewalk to the street. Anyway, now I'll try and answer some questions. J

Tovar asked me to clarify my statement regarding my problems with "the integration of Native American spiritualism into the psychic of the American hunter as a cure-all for what ails hunting to provide "the" answer to why we hunt."

The problem is this: Hunting, as we all know, is under constant attack and hunters are being asked to explain the "why" of their desire (or need) to hunt. The majority of hunters, when asked this question stumble about for an explanation. Why should they produce an answer other than one I heard from Peter Capstick when asked about why he did something: "because it pleases me." But, that answer is then redefined as being selfish, blah, blah. In other words most answers can be turned against the hunter. A strong moral explanation for many hunters is provided through spiritual connections. A foundation for this explanation can be found in the commonly shared experience (among hunters) that they do experience a spiritual connection with nature when hunting. Some hunters take this explanation a step further and acknowledge a spiritual connection with the animals they hunt. It is easy to take this perfectly legitimate relationship between the hunter and nature and combine it with Native American spiritualism. This combination, some believe, provides an iron clad explanation for hunters. It doesn't. To the best of my knowledge there is absolutely no connection between North American Native Spiritualism as it relates to hunting and hunters, and the evolution of Western Civilization and hunting. In fact, as early as the time of Herodotus there were rumblings against sport hunting by non-hunting, urbanized Greeks. But hunting remained a significant part of the social landscape and has persisted for all these millennium—so why? I believe hunting exists within our genetic makeup, whether we live in the city or on a farm. It exists because we came from predators (the "scavenger/gather" theory has long been put to rest). Even our closest living relatives in the genetic forest hunt and kill when it suits them (and they will also periodically practice cannibalism, just a side note). Simply put, I maintain we hunt because of who we are. If humans had been denied that predator's gene what odds for survival would you have given the human race? As for suppression of the need to answer that predator's gene, I'm sure therapists have field days trying to unscramble that mess!

My principle of being responsible for animals is quite simple. It began with a long term project for Soldier of Fortune magazine. In the mid-80s I wrote a series of articles on the animal rights movement. As a result of my research (which spanned several years) I found myself trying to position myself on the question of animal rights. What I finally settled on was the principle that "animals do not have rights—people have responsibilities." A deep analysis of my statement produces a wide range of supporting statements, all of which end with the premise that we are responsible for the survival and welfare of animals, domestic and wild. As an example consider the black rhino. In 1993 I had the opportunity to spend several days with Peter Hitchins (founder of the SA Save the Rhino and Elephant Trust) and he pointed out why losing the rhino would be catastrophic—more than 600 symbiotic species of bugs, beetles, etc. would also become extinct. Hitchins pointed out that we alone are responsible for the near extinction of the rhino, in part from over hunting and in large part because we insist on altering the habitat. No other species on this planet now, nor at any time in history, has had the capability to change, and has changed, the entire eco system of earth. We, as a species, have chosen to use this ability to make these changes. That makes us responsible for every other living thing on this planet. Thus, we do not maintain a species to hunt them; we maintain the species because it is our responsibility. We hunt because it is who we are, not because it is who we want to be. That is why we feel that spiritual connection between ourselves and nature when we hunt—we are of nature.

Holly, I hope that I've addressed your question about my position on responsibility for animals. I don't see it as patronizing but as accepting our responsibilities (stewards of the earth simplifies it, I suppose). I suppose we could fine tune the statement from "for" and use "to" except when we say "for" aren't we using the prepositional to indicate that our actions are intended to provide for their welfare (survival)? J At least I hope I've managed to explain myself.

My feminist statement does deserve expansion. As I said earlier, we find ourselves faced with two distinct feminist movements—outside and inside hunting. The movement outside hunting, that attacks hunting, insists that hunting is a physical manifestation of male dominance over females. Perhaps nowhere else is this more fully defined than in Brian Luke's essay "Violent Love: Hunting, Heterosexuality, And The Erotics of Men's Predation," published in the 1998 (24.3) Feminists Studies. There have also been a number of excellent essays published in Environmental Ethics over the past few years and hunting is frequently vilified as being a form of male gender domination. These claims are found throughout contemporary culture. My primary field of study has been in literature but I want to emphasize that the attacks against hunting are not new and we should not do history a disservice by implying that the hunting debate is new (last 200 years). These attacks, as I've pointed out previously, extend as far back in history as the concept of sport hunting.

As I read Dr. Smalley's essay "The Modern Diana" I was pleased to see how thoroughly she explores the literature, especially the male voice in it. I am really pleased that we have followed many of the same text trails in our research. I would like to have seen, however, a bit more history on the evolution of outdoor literature's male voice. The later 19^th century incorporation of the feminine voice to soften the male writing was a strong retreat from the direction men's writing had been taking. The early 19^th century direction was in large part a response to the claims of the softening of the American male after the revolution and it was attempts to boost American masculinity. (Remember, we had performed rather badly in the War of 1812 except for a few Marines, sailors and Andrew Jackson's rabble, a lesson not lost on the press who were criticizing America's manhood.) Americans needed heroes and strong, independent, virile, men who were successful hunters (and could deal with the blood side) were also thought to be good defenders of the nation. That underlying premise has not been abandoned and one of the most obvious studies of this was in 1978's The Deer Hunter. The way I read Dr. Smalley's work is that women's role in hunting has evolved from one of justification of the sport (the feminizing) to a search for equalizing of roles in hunting. This is also the conclusion I have reached in my own work and I'm curious if you agree. Today, as the role of women has changed, women inside hunting have increasingly clashed with the outside feminist movement which is pushed from behind by anti-hunting elements.

How's that long-winded reply? Answer any questions and, I hope, create more that we can discuss?

glg

A Reply to John, whoever "John" Is

There was an interesting comment by someone named “John” to my Christmas post about the memories of my dogs and cats, all stemming from the card Michelle had bought about our pets meeting us in heaven. It seems John, whoever John is, didn’t like my post and probably does not like any of my posts because John offered the opinion that (1) he (or she) hoped all the animals I shot would be waiting for me in heaven and (2) I wasn’t going there anyway. The inferred text being that I was condemned to hell. It is an interesting comment because it bears witness to something that I have observed about people who fall into that group of naysayers who only see the brutality of hunting and quickly lump hunting into the same category as dog fighting, cock fighting and other staged animal fights--they are rarely truly happy people. Hunters understand there is a brutality to the hunt and that brutality is shared equally throughout nature, just as Tennyson observed:

Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law—
Though Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shrieked against his creed—
(Tennyson, In Memoriam 56:13-16)

There is nothing beautiful in the death of any living thing, whether that thing is a tree, deer, duck or fish. There is simple brutality in the death but it is nature’s brutality and from that death life emerges. It is that simple. The deer that I have killed did not die a movieland idealized majestic death of the hart. They bled, they died. I have always said a prayer of “thanks” for the gift of the deer or other game and on numerous occasions followed the European tradition of the last bite, adding the last breath because I have always felt that kinship with nature. (A few years ago a long time friend reminded me that I’ve always talked to trees.) The same is true of ducks, geese, and any other animal I’ve killed. I killed them for food and I’ve relished every bite and taste of their wildness because in that wildness I can sense mountains, plains, rivers and lakes, everything that is nature. Still, we must accept that in our hunting there is a brutality of the hunt, but the hunters I’ve spoken with have all acknowledged there is also an indefinable fullness of spirit that comes to them after a successful hunt and it returns when they sit down to a dinner prepared with the meat from the animal. It is a fullness that shows itself in closeness with friends and a deeper love for family. At the end of the hunting day, when the hunter drinks in the last of the alpenglow, there is no doubt that they are part of a grand world.

I am not so vain to believe every hunter is as mindful as those I tend to hunt with but the numbers of those for whom hunting does not tug at the heart are so small they are insignificant. Tragically, as with everything in our world today, it is the rage and stupidity of a few that paints all the good works of the many. We have to live with that.

I feel sorry for “John” because I suspect that when we peel back the thin veneer of his or her life that person is not very happy with the world they live in and don’t see it as a grand and wonderful place where nature defines us through everything around us. John also doesn’t “get” something about me—I hope the spirit of every animal I killed on my hunts is there to meet me in heaven so that I can again thank each one of them for what they did for me in this world.

As for John’s opinion that I am not going to heaven, well, John, that may be so but that’s between God and me. As for how I feel about it, I’m pretty sure I’m going to heaven because between 1967 and 1969 I served my time in hell. Have you, or is your world a personal hell?

glg

Hunters Are Not Anachronisms

I had to shovel more snow today.
Barf.
I actually do enjoy living up here and I even enjoy winter but every other day of snow throwing or shoveling can get tedious. There is one thing I do when I shovel snow—I think. Actually what I do is write in my mind. I let my mind start going over what I am working on and then try to solve the writing problems that I am having. Of course, I do that with any sort of repetitive labor project. Right now I am finishing up a three-part series for Whitetails Unlimited magazine and the subject is us, which is “us” as in hunters. Who are we in the new century? Are we an anachronism and about to disappear from the human landscape? Nothing in my research points to that, yet the critics of hunting (and sport fishing) wag their fingers at us and claim we are going away and cite census figures and hunting license sales as proof. In truth, when all the factors are considered we are more than holding our own. There is slippage, true, but we can account for it. What troubles me is the huge number of our own ranks who fall into the critics’ trap and insist that hunting is destined for that dustbin where the relics of history are dumped. Why are some people who are not among the faction that is working so hard to do away with hunting and sport fishing actually succumbing to the illogical rhetoric of that group? What is the attraction to the claim that hunting (and perhaps sport fishing) will no longer exist in less than 50 years?
I believe I have an answer—fear.
I believe that many hunters, at least those who want to think about themselves as hunters (or anglers) buy into the propaganda against hunting and sport fishing because they are afraid the critics are right and that they are the last of the line or at least only one or two generations away from the end. They are afraid of the future. They have become afraid to speak out in their own defense. So often they have faced the rhetoric of condemnation from the family dinner table to national political debates that when they try to explain themselves or their emotions their own arguments seem to lack depth or feeling and they wonder if their love of hunting and fishing has become wrong.
I believe I have an antidote—a mirror self definition.
In all of my research I find that when we (hunters/anglers) begin to draw comparison between ourselves and those who condemn our hunting/fishing/shooting we rationalize our arguments by trying to define ourselves, not by defining those who condemn us. When we begin defining ourselves we immediately set up the boundaries of definition. There are such arguments as “I (we) am a conservationist” but rarely does the argument go beyond that definition to establish the differences between the conservationist and the critic because the critic’s self definition is set up to defeat the hunter’s argument and that includes the conservationist argument, usually by citing failures by individuals (game hogs, slobs) as proof against the argument. These points cannot be ignored and when they are taken into consideration with other points such as the census figures and our own industry’s claims of decreasing numbers who can blame the average hunter from beginning to believe that hunting and sport fishing are doomed. But, when the mirror self definition argument is employed it turns the critics’ arguments back on them because the hunter or angler defines themselves not by their own argument but by the argument offered by the critics. For example: The slob hunter exists but not in the numbers they might have existed in the past because the percentage of the population who hunts is smaller and there is less tolerance for unethical behavior than might have existed in the past. Also, the number of hunters who exhibit a true empathy toward their game is increasing while the per capita percentage of people who are critical of hunting is decreasing as more people who are not hunters or anglers become aware of the positive attributes of both activities.
I believe that when we as hunters verbalize these positive truths about ourselves the force of the velocity of words among the population will force the number of hog and slob hunters down because tolerance for them will decrease throughout the hunting and angling community.
Now, I must shovel the snow from my door. Glg