NPR reported recently that the interest in the sport of
hunting has been steadily declining. The
share of hunters in the adult population in the US dropped from 7.3% to 4.4%
over the last 25 years and has been cut in half over the last fifty.
It’s just not as popular as it used to be. Reasons likely include the amount of
investment for a week or two of activity a year, the physical hardship of
walking through the woods or sitting in a tree stand in all kinds of weather
and the general reduction in interest in all outdoor activities. NPR also points to a change in the
culture. Attitudes towards wildlife are changing, making other
outdoor activities like bird watching, and hiking more popular. Some people prefer to do their shooting with
a camera instead of a gun. (And more
people can see and admire a photographic trophy on social media than a physical trophy mounted on the wall.)
“The shift is being welcomed by some who morally oppose the
sport, but it's also leading to a crisis.” It leads us to question whether those morally-opposed people are more interested in the
positive feedback they get internally and from others for their compassionate,
caring stance and perceived moral superiority than in the actual welfare of our
“furry friends.”
The wildlife conservation systems in the US depend on
“license fees and excise taxes on guns, ammunition and angling equipment [to] provide
about 60 percent of the funding.” State
wildlife agencies are responsible for “restoring the populations of North
American game animals, some of which were once hunted nearly to extinction.” The American system that allowed this
incredible conservation and restoration has been so effective that it is widely
imitated in other parts of the world.
Today the reduction of funding from hunting is causing states like
Colorado, Wisconsin and Vermont to cut back on staffing and programs that protect
the animals as they search for other sources of revenue. People hiking through the woods with their
cameras generally expect to be able to do so for free or for a modest park
entry fee. They also don’t expect to pay excise taxes on cameras, compasses, binoculars or sleeping bags to supplement
those losses from hunting. But as funding
levels decline one fear is that the number of species on the threatened or
endangered list could nearly double.
Although the NPR article focuses on funding aspects of the
hunting decline, the loss of many other benefits of hunting are concerning. The annual harvest of millions
of deer is a good example. Hunting
actually benefits the deer population.
A joint study by Alabama
A&M and the University of Auburn Extension points out that “hunting helps
maintain a healthy deer population. If the population were to go unmonitored,
deer would be facing severe overpopulation, resulting in significant damage to
the ecosystem, over-browsing of plants, malnutrition and an overall decline in
the health and well-being of the animals.”
Do
we care about the deer when we would rather have them starve to death or die of
disease than be shot? Are we willing to
absorb the financial burden of added crop damage – remembering that the
farmers’ increased cost or the price effects of a decrease in supply are passed on to the consumer at the grocery store.
Deer are also not a friend to gardeners.
And deer collisions kill over 200 motorists a year and cost a total of around
10 billion dollars.
These are all things to consider before we brand hunters
as heartless and pretend to care so much about deer (or other critters) based
on incomplete or inaccurate information.
Note: I’m not a
hunter and have none in my family, but I did once hit deer with my car and have
met many others who have had the same misfortune.
