US Authority on Hunting Ethics.

[MeekandMild]

I'm going to open this thread to post some important information. If anyone replies to it please keep comments on the highest level so as to avoid the unfortunate turn the recently closed 'hunting ethics' thread took.

Since the late 1800's the commonly recognized US authority on hunting ethics has been the Boone and Crockett Club. The club was founded in 1887 by Theodore Roosevelt and its ethicists have guided the modern conservation movement for 120 years. Their website has links to important discussion on the doctrine of fair chase.

It is vital that thinking hunters be aware of and conversant with real hunting ethics and to be able to explain them to members of the common public. Otherwise the only voices the average person on the street will hear will be those of the lunatic Animal Rightism movement.

Those who are concerned about hunting ethics, please consider joining the Boone and Crockett Club and doing your part to protect our rights and live up to our responsibilities. Thank you.

 

[MCgunner]

Well, I still don't see how they can set ethics for the whole country as it varies, the stand and feeder thing. But, overall, at least B and C is trying, I suppose, to standardize things. I know they don't list animals killed behind a high fence in their records. Don't know if that's an ethics thing or the fact that anyone with a fat bank account can go to such a place where the genetics are controlled and the animals are fed the right stuff and BUY a record book buck. I always figured the later was the case.

 

[wheelgunslinger]

Well, I'd say that B&C, as well intentioned as they are, can't really establish ethics for the hunting community.
Ethics are, and will continue to be, decided by local groups of people who hunt a particular species in a particular geographic area. Each decide what the ethics of their hunt will be.
Whether these people choose to make hunting an activity rather like grocery shopping with a camouflage and technology fashion show, or more like a rite of passage or primal human activity will be up to them.

B&C is just along for the ride at this point.

 

[Art Eatman]

Somehow, and I'm not exactly sure, I think there's a "dictionary thing" sort of problem when we talk about ethics.

For instance: "Well, I still don't see how they can set ethics for the whole country as it varies, the stand and feeder thing."

Note that some folks here have brought this up, not just McGunner. It seems to me that this is an issue of personal preference, not of ethics. I don't like to sit in a stand near a feeder on the off chance a buck will show up--I find that to be boring--but I see it as no different from a lion hanging out near a waterhole.

And I gotta disagree with "Well, I'd say that B&C, as well intentioned as they are, can't really establish ethics for the hunting community. Ethics are, and will continue to be, decided by local groups of people who hunt a particular species in a particular geographic area. Each decide what the ethics of their hunt will be."

They surely decide what the style of their hunting will be, but IMO that mostly has to do with efficacy, not ethics.

Again, start with fair chase as the B&C describes it. Include "clean kill" as we've all talked about, here, at great length. And include what I call "for the health of the species" as to not just our opinions but about the why of our game laws. (And realize that in general, game laws have been designed by hunters.) Hunters protect game species in order that there is something to hunt.

Sure, folks have strong opinions. For instance, my father and other hunters of his generation whom I have known began hunting around the end of WW I. There weren't many deer at all. Throughout their hunting careers, you couldn't have gotten one of them to shoot a doe, and they were scornful of anybody who would. This attitude held even long after the whitetail population had expanded into nuisance numbers. To them, it was a gut thing that since we wanted more deer, killing a doe was worse than spending one's capital.

So check your emotions at the door, if you please, when we get into this sort of discussion.

Art

 

[Skoghund]

As long as you kill the animal in a quick and humane way i don't see it matters what form of hunting you use. I shoot most of my deer from a high seat. A common hunting method here in Europe. I hunt deer with a dog as well. Much frowned on by English "Stalkers" but legal here in Scandinavia.
There's to many hunters willing to sell out other hunters hopeing to save there own branch of hunting. Just look at the sorry state of hunting and gun ownership in the UK. With some of the friends we have we don't need to many enemies

 

[buck460XVR]

As long as you kill the animal in a quick and humane way i don't see it matters what form of hunting you use.

I hafta agree as long as the term "legal" is included in the above statement. I may not agree with your ethics, and may voice my opinion otherwise, but as long as you hunt within the confines of the law, as a fellow hunter, I will support your right to hunt. Enforcing the law is a lot easier than dictating ethics, cause one is black and white and the other is a dull shade of monotone grey. My only real concern when it comes to ethics is how we as hunters are perceived by non-hunters. The numbers of active hunters and the numbers of active anti-hunters is a similar small percentage of the overall population. Maybe not in some rural areas or areas where hunting has a long history, but as a whole. Most of the majority of the population is indifferent to hunting or perceives it as something that needs to be done, but they don't want to do it. How they conceive us and the methods we use to hunt is the whole key to the future of hunting. We don't need to convert the majority to hunting, we just have to refrain from driving them to the other side. We as hunters need to be smart in and out of the woods. Don't get me wrong, I try to hold myself and my hunting partners to a high standard of ethics, and pride myself on this.......and wish that all the rest of you do also. But if the law in that part of the world says a method is legal, than I will support your right to hunt that way, until the powers that be say otherwise.

 

[alsaqr]

"Note that some folks here have brought this up, not just McGunner. It seems to me that this is an issue of personal preference, not of ethics. I don't like to sit in a stand near a feeder on the off chance a buck will show up--I find that to be boring--but I see it as no different from a lion hanging out near a waterhole."

Good post. As for myself, i will not shoot a deer near a feeder or in a food plot in rifle or muzzle loader season. i will shoot a deer in a food plot in bow season but not near a feeder. Hogs are another matter, i will shoot a hog every chance that i get. They are a nuisance here.


This is my personal thing. i do not criticize folks for their personal thing as long as it is legal.

 

[MeekandMild]

Art, the business of doe hunting is a really good example of how people sometimes make major mistakes in the name of doing what is right, confusing style with ethics. I know a really good example of an old man who owns about 400 acres down on the gulf coast. He developed a herd of about 60-80 does and hunted out every runty buck which ever stuck its head up for air. Came two bad years in a row of drought and poor acorn harvest. All the does he'd been protecting either moved out, starved or died of disease. He's got maybe 2 or three does that come out into his green field now.

This emotional thing is where PETAphiles and other animal rightists completely lose credibility. For them it is better that animals die a slow lingering death of starvation and disease, get poached out or die out from uncontrolled canine predation than to be sanely managed.

The Boone and Crockett club really needs our support. This is a group of rational, concerned individuals who have developed an ethical system which works. It may not work all the time but makes sense more than most of the alternatives.

 

[wheelgunslinger]

And I gotta disagree with "Well, I'd say that B&C, as well intentioned as they are, can't really establish ethics for the hunting community. Ethics are, and will continue to be, decided by local groups of people who hunt a particular species in a particular geographic area. Each decide what the ethics of their hunt will be."

Disagree all you like Art. Anthropologically speaking, local mores, folkways, and traditions will trump membership cards any day of the year. Especially opening day.

 

[Art Eatman]

wheelgunslinger, I disagree that it's "ethics". I don't dispute what you say people will do as to how they hunt, but as I see the word, it's a universal view as to moral right or wrong, for all hunters everywhere. Well, "everywhere" having to do with those who aren't forced to hunt for their food supply. North America, Europe. "Sport hunting", if you will, although the use of that phrase can open up another can of dictionary worms.

Art

 

[Art Eatman]

Mcgunner, folks have lots of ideas about wild life that come about from not understanding the "ecological balance" thing. I had a cousin who owned some 400 acres near the Guadalupe, at Luling. In those pre-fire ant days, he had quail all over the place. But, no quail hunting allowed. I could never get him to believe that you can't stockpile quail. Whether they're hunted or not hunted, the numbers won't increase beyond the carrying capacity of the land. And hunting takes a percentage which doesn't affect the reproduction rate; it takes a few which otherwise would succumb to disease, and a few which otherwise would go to Wily Coyote or Robert Kitty.

 

[MCgunner]

Agreed that proper game management is totally independent of what people think of "ethics". The old timers would not TOUCH a doe, doe shooting was verboten. Well, now days biologists KNOW that taking does for the purpose of properly managing doe/buck ratios is NECESSARY for a healthy population. For my grandpa, it was a huge violation of hunter ethics to kill a doe for ANY reason.

Personally, I prefer to spot and stalk like I did out in west Texas, but down here and especially on limited acreage, it's is impossible. However, proper game management means that even if I kill a buck or two over a feeder every year (I don't kill one EVERY year, feeders ain't the deer magnets everyone thinks they are) I'm not hurting the population. If everyone around here went to still hunting and spot and stalk, the success ratio would be down around 2 percent and deer would drastically overpopulate and eventually they'd die off in what biologist would call a typical J growth curve. So, one man's "ethics" can be a biologist's poison. Just think of feeders in this area as a necessary tool of game management. We have no open spaces or public lands. We ain't Montana. We do have some huge ranches, if you can afford to hunt on 'em without much success. But, when I'm paying 6K for a 3 day hunt, I wanna KILL something! LOL! Actually, I don't hunt on those places. The kind of money you have to shell out for the privilege will get you a guided elk hunt out of state. So, for everyday hunting, I sit in my stand and thank the lord I have the opportunity to do that. If you don't own a chunk of decent hunting land around here, unless you own a successful oil company, a JR Ewing type, you probably just sit at home and read "Outdoor Life" all winter, 'cause the cost of leases is getting ridiculous now days. It's danged hard to find anything affordable for the working stiff.