BCJ_SUMMER17 Digital Edition

BEYOND FAIR CHASE
THE
CONSERVATION
ETHIC
BY JIM POSEWITZ
AS HUNTERS, OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ANIMALS
we pursue in fair chase is experimental. In looking across human
history, it is hard to find anything like the association between
hunters and the hunted that has developed in North America. In
most places, and through most of recent human history, wildlife
belonged to those of privilege or property. Hunting was, and in
most places on earth today remains, the sport of kings.
Before we address the ethics of hunting we need to look at why
most of us can even aspire to be a hunter. When America was
colonized, it was common practice for the royalty of Europe to
grant land to relatives. Some of those land grants here in America
included, in the language of the times, “The fishings, hawkings,
huntings, and fowlings.”
The American Revolution separated us from the king and produced
a system of free people governing themselves. Fish and
wildlife were not mentioned in any of our founding documents.
The void was filled by court decisions that established water, fish
and wildlife as public resources held in trust by the states for the
benefit of all the people. Their words at the time were “When
the revolution took place, the people … became themselves sovereign.”
In short, since you and I are sovereign, the king’s deer
became the people’s deer. America would have a democracy of
the wild.
When that initial court decision was issued in 1842, Montana
had a wildlife resource that “For variety and abundance exceeded
anything the eye of man had ever looked upon,” to quote Meriwether
Lewis. Forty-one years later, a young Theodore Roosevelt
came West to hunt buffalo. He borrowed a gun, hired a guide and
hunted for nine days through the rotting carcasses of the last commercial
slaughter before finding and shooting a lone, wandering
bull. He found that buffalo on Little Cannon Ball Creek, Montana
Territory. Two years later, TR would write of a ranchman
who made a journey of 1,000 miles across northern Montana and
was, “Never out of sight of a dead buffalo and never in sight of a
live one.” Montana was the wildlife boneyard of a continent.
Such experiences contributed to a conservation epiphany
among a handful of visionary hunters. In 1887, they formed a
citizen-based hunting club to introduce the fair chase sporting
code and restore big game to America. Four years later, they lobbied
a provision through Congress allowing presidents to set aside
unclaimed lands for conservation purposes. When TR became
president, he used that authority to set aside almost 10 percent
of America for wildlife restoration along with public forest conservation.
A generation later, when an economic depression and
the Dust Bowl had our country on its knees, hunters championed
an excise tax on firearms and ammunition to fund the struggling
wildlife’s restoration.
Today we take to the field in pursuit of a wonderfully restored
wild abundance in relationship with nature, perhaps unique in
human history. When we take rifle in hand and head for the
outdoors, it is essential that we also carry the conservation ethic
that put both you and the game in the field. We as hunters need
to embrace the truth that we and the antelope, deer, elk, geese
and ducks we pursue sprouted from the same diamond buried
in our American heritage. Once we accept and remember that
exceptional reality, the decisions made afield will be easy. We will
respect the animals, honor the relationship we share with them,
afford them fair chase and measure up to the conservation ethic
generations of hunters passed to our custody.
As a minority, hunters are often asked, “Why do you hunt?”
Once you learn of the power and beauty in the North American
hunting heritage, you can simply answer, “Because it matters.”
Jim founded Orion-The Hunter’s Institute in 1993 after a 32-year
career with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, where he started as
a fisheries biologist then lead the ecological program for 15 years. He
is the author of four books including the classic, Beyond Fair Chase:
The Ethic and Tradition of Hunting, with more than 800,000 copies
in print. BHA’s annual award for leadership in fair chase ethics is
named in Jim’s honor.
This new Backcountry Journal department is brought to you by
Orion: The Hunter’s Institute, a nonprofit and BHA partner dedicated
to advancing hunting ethics and wildlife conservation. To learn more,
visit orionhunters.org. To comment on and discuss this article and
others, go to backcountryhunters.org/fair_chase.
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