An Urban Hunter Takes Aim
Growing up poor on a ranch in the Owens Valley meant that my grandfather was expected to hunt to put meat on the table. Deer hunting was a timeworn rite of passage for a young man. Grandfather invested in a Savage 30-30 rifle, ventured to the high country behind Bishop with his friends, and shot his first buck, a dandy “five-pointer.” According to Grandmother, the image of the buck's gray lifeless eyes set against the stark and sunlit gray granite outcroppings of the High Sierra did not sit well with him. He quietly cleaned the gun and put it away, never to fire another shot.
Hunting isn't for everyone, and it hardly runs in my family. Nonetheless, I developed a late-blooming love of the sport. I enjoy armed hikes through field and marsh as much as backpacking or casting a fly to rising trout. A love of the outdoors and its inhabitants steered me toward all these pastimes, hunting included, and toward the inevitable conclusion that our habitat is so widely altered, and increasingly threatened by ignorance and destruction, that only hunters and conservationists working together can save what little is left of wild nature.
When my inner Elmer Fudd prevents me from bringing home meat, I bring home the memory of a marsh coming to life at dawn, and that's equally satisfying. I hope that when my son gets a bit older I can pass these joys on to him. He inherited his father's adventurous palate, so I'll bet one day he'll join me for the supreme delight of a slightly under-roasted, thus seemingly bloody, wild duck paired with a fine bottle of Pinot Noir. Mom can join us for dessert when she reenters the dining room.
No, hunting isn't for everyone, and many would say it's for no one. Fellow conservationists or, more aptly, environmentalists, are confused when I say that I enjoy shooting and eating wildlife almost as much as I enjoy working to protect its habitats and species. Although many of my co-workers at the Coastal Conservancy collaborate with hunter-based organizations like Ducks Unlimited, it's a stretch to say that they fully accept that management and protection of nonhuman species demands harvest—that ducks, deer, or red foxes need to be shot, or in some other way killed in some wildlife reserves so as to protect their overall populations. From the other barrel, fellow hunters, whose introduction to the sport was typically familial, are even more surprised to learn that my father did not, in my tender youth, part the proverbial curtain, open the gun case, or otherwise expose me to the wonder and lore of hunting, the subject of much legend and purple prose. In fact, my father never mentioned hunting to me. If I'm rash enough to reveal this, my fellow hunters grow downright worried, as if a secret agent from the SPCA had infiltrated their ranks.
Although I began hunting when I was well into my twenties, and have lived in cities my whole adult life, I've stumbled along, caused no accidents and, thanks largely to more proficient and patient friends, managed to put a modest amount of wild game on the table. To me the sporting life is a joy and an excuse to appreciate the outdoors in solitude or with close friends. Besides, I like to think I'm doing my part for wildlife population management.
Perhaps people like me—outsiders in certain respects among both hunters and environmentalists—can provide a bridge between the two camps, which are becoming ever more polarized to the detriment of their particular and common interest in preserving shrinking habitat and protecting wildlife. After all, when working together, these groups achieve stunning results. From the many wetlands enhancement projects to the decisive defeat of the Bush Administration's ill-conceived efforts to sell “surplus” national forest to the highest bidder, this alliance is a natural for habitat protection that will benefit our nation and world for generations to come.
Unfortunately, these alliances may be the exception not the rule, as both communities appear to be dominated now by people with extreme and limited views. On one side, groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)—fervent advocates for dogs and cats—score victories at the expense of ecosystems. Dogs (with their walkers) and feral cats (with their feeders) have gained ground in parks and natural areas, killing off songbirds, lizards, small mammals, and native plants. Meanwhile, major environmental organizations eschew the “bait and bullet” crowd, perhaps in an effort not to antagonize an urban audience resistant to hunting. Many remain locked into gloom-and-doom messages that increase people's anxieties but fail to reveal possible pathways toward a positive future.
On the other side, hunters have seemingly hitched their wagons to the National Rifle Association's Second Amendment struggles. The rhetoric of the NRA and its opposition to all proposals to restrict firearms permeates much of the dialogue within the hunting community, diverting hunters from seeking common ground with urban people who don't hunt, or even oppose hunting, but care about the natural environment.
The survival of hunting, and the future of conservation benefits achieved by the hunting community, depends, in my opinion, on the ability of hunters to convey an appealing message in California, where youth homicide gun deaths, mostly in urban areas, totaled 794 in 2003. Conversely, groups like the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, the Wilderness Society, and others must recognize that they need help honing a message with some appeal to middle America; appealing to hunters would be a bridge to previously unreachable constituents.
The entire conservation community—hunters and nonhunters alike—is losing the public relations battle, indeed the whole war, against the real threat to wildlife: habitat destruction. Neither contingent appears able to develop a message extending much beyond its own base.
Urban and suburban residents, particularly those with environmental leanings, have much to learn about the historic and current contribution of the hunting community to conservation. Hunters, for their part, have much to learn about interacting with their fellow citizens in constructive ways that emphasize conservation, rather than the Second Amendment. Both must demand that government guarantee and deliver adequate protection of natural resources, before it is too late.
“Hunting is inhumane,” anti-hunters argue, over factory-farmed chicken.
“It's my right to own any gun I want,” hunters blast back.
Yet there are broad areas of common interest where pitched battle against a common enemy could be waged.
Aldo Leopold, known as the father ofwildlife ecology and quoted frequently in environmental publications, was an avid hunter who once said that his first love was hunting with his dog. Many early members of the Audubon Society, too, forged their commitment to birding because of what they experienced while hunting; in fact, the society's founder was George Bird Grinell, editor of Forest and Stream, a hunting magazine.
The move to protect Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks in perpetuity was led by hunters disgusted with the market hunting they witnessed in those areas. Many of the current wildlife refuges—such as Gray Lodge in the Sacramento Valley, Joyce Island in the Delta, and the Imperial Refuge in the Sonoran desert, where hunters and birders alike may still enjoy their sport on public land—were once private duck hunting clubs. They were purchased by the State with hunting license revenue, beginning with Los Banos in 1929, and Gray Lodge in 1931.
Today, perhaps no entity is more active or generous in its commitment to wetland restoration than Ducks Unlimited (DU), an organization that raises millions of dollars from its membership each year to protect, conserve, and restore habitat for migratory waterfowl and countless other species. Despite my deep involvement in the conservation community, it was only through DU's magazine that I learned why the pintail population has plummeted: conversion of the northern Great Plains to agribusiness enterprises. DU spends millions every year to preserve duck habitat so that its members may continue to enjoy shooting some of these ducks. But the benefits of the organization's work go far beyond ducks.
Before Hurricane Katrina, coastal Louisiana was losing 25 square miles of wetland per year—that's equivalent to more than a football field every 38 minutes. After disaster struck, DU leapt into the receding floodwaters, committing $18 million to wetlands restoration there. It remains one of the leading forces bringing money to the table and looking for ways to stem the tide of devastation there by restoring wetlands, the natural buffers against hurricanes. After all, as in Thailand, where wetland destruction exacerbated tsunami flooding, in Louisiana the loss of coastal wetlands removed a buffer against the ravages of storm-driven waters.
Here on the West Coast, DU, the California Waterfowl Association, and others are helping to orchestrate funds and support for some of the most important wetland preservation and restoration projects. Among these is the restoration of thousands of acres on San Francisco Bay. Yet among the projects described in Audubon's 2005 Annual Report, in 27 states only one partnership with conservationist hunters is mentioned—a 1,700-acre wetland restoration project in Arkansas with Ducks Unlimited.
I might never have taken up hunting if there hadn't been an opportunity to try it close to home. About 15 years ago, when a friend asked me to join him on a trip to Grizzly Island, a refuge on San Pablo Bay, the fact that it was no more than about an hour's drive from Berkeley prompted me to accept. Steve was a model sportsman and a great teacher. Rather than frightening me away with the typical foray at dawn, we took a leisurely drive at noon. We arrived well in time for a casual walk out past some ponds to a larger pond, waded out to a cattail-choked island, and sat down in solitude to watch the egrets, harriers, and countless other species frolic in the open space. Close to sunset, when the prospect of getting skunked seemed highly probable, Steve cautioned me to lower my profile, remain still, and await the passing of a small flock of pintails flying low enough to shoot. At his signal, we rose, aimed, and fired. Four shots rang out in quick sequence, and two beautiful drakes dropped in the water nearby. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure I missed, but Steve over-generously congratulated me on my first duck, and sent me home with a meal-in-the-making that still lives on in my memory.
I can't say that the act of killing was repugnant to me, which remains a bit of a mystery. Pulling wings off flies has never appealed to me. On the other hand, as a child I was always unfazed by the act of feeding a mouse to my pet boa constrictor. I don't view hunting as inconsistent with population management and habitat protection, and in fact believe it is downright necessary sometimes. My curiosity was aroused by my outing with Steve, and although I lived in a major metropolitan area, I was blessed to have 30 hunting clubs two to three hours away, and wildlife refuges like Grizzly Island close to home.
No Common Ground at the Commonwealth
About four years ago, I attended a meeting at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco titled “Hunting in the 21st Century: Its Economics, Politics, and Culture.”
Rhetoric clashed with reality as the hunters in the room struggled to come to grips with dismaying facts: their ranks were shrinking, opposition from the animal rights movement was gaining strength, and urban residents had become increasingly disdainful of the messages of the NRA. My hope that the meeting would lead toward reconciliation with the urbanized population was soon dispelled.
The keynote speaker was James Swan, a psychologist, sometime actor, documentary producer, and author of The Sacred Art of Hunting. He was flanked by Robert Treanor, director of the California Department of Fish and Game under Governor Gray Davis; Huey Johnson, Secretary of Resources under Governor Jerry Brown; Bill Gaines of the California Waterfowl Association; and a representative of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.
Swan began with a curious defense of hunting, “the taproot of civilization,” and with blunderbuss broadside attacks on environmentalists. “Hunters are an endangered species,” he declared, segueing disjointedly into an argument that eating meat had enlarged the brains of our species, which had promoted tool invention, which improved hunting, which spurred the development of civilization. If the logic sounds strained, it's because it was. Harkening back to the 1950s glory days when Davy Crockett was every kid's hero, he lamented a lack of hunting heroes in today's popular culture, mentioning that only three contemporary films he knew of portrayed hunters in a positive light. But he added a bright note: Madonna had taken up the sport.
Swan did, however, identify two important issues. First, hunting has historically been a part of the American way of life, and second, wildlife management is important, isn't for the fainthearted, and is distasteful to some.
In contrast with Swan, Johnson spoke in temperate tones as he provided a thoughtful analysis of the future of hunting. An ardent hunter and fisherman since age eight, he saw that the sport had declined principally because hunters' gaze had shifted from the target and because of a failure to recognize the impact of demographic shifts. ”Hunters aren't adapting to urbanization,” he said. “If we wish to save this legacy, we must react to the changes around us.”
Johnson made the case that the critical focus of the NRA—protecting the rights of those who wish to bear weapons of near mass destruction—was losing the battle for hunters in the cities, where the votes are. In Johnson's view, the animal rights movement has polarized the discussion about hunting by going to urban audiences and depicting hunters as brutal trophy collectors rather than the simple sportsmen, habitat stewards, and conservationists they tend to be. Then he argued for conciliation: “Animal rights groups don't want animals to suffer, nor do we, so there is a commonality.”
Lastly, Johnson spoke of a need for education about resource management. Children should be taught about the need for people to maintain sustainable wildlife population levels, rather than being left to assume that population dynamics just work themselves out. He did not mention examples, but his point is illustrated by the current debate over controlling wild pig populations that are tearing up native plants and frightening people, and sea lions whose growing populations' territorial needs conflict with the growing human population's desire for access to beaches and docks.
Bolstering Johnson's case that hunting is in decline, Treanor noted that license sales are dropping and consequently cutting off revenue for resource management. He suggested that the rise of extremism in both the hunting and nonhunting conservationist communities may be a symptom of a loss of connection to the land. “We'll change for the worse if we lose that connection,” he argued. “Now that society is more urban, and children are growing up where the only wildlife they see is in zoos or on Disney, the outlook for a broadly held and realistic understanding of wildlife management is becoming more elusive.”
The discussion in that room did not resolve the problem, but it summed up the current predicament pretty well—as did the audience: all hunters, with nary an environmentalist ally in sight.
I live four miles from Oakland Airport, built on wetlands where hunters used to shoot canvasbacks and sprig. The larger populations of those birds have since been diminished by agribusiness farms in the Great Plains states and by things like jet runways here and elsewhere.
I also live half a mile from Oakland's Highland General Hospital. Before the Iraq War, the Army sent its surgeons to Highland for practical training, for there was a ready supply of gunshot victims, young and old, some of them cut down with the sort of semi-automatic weapons the NRA defends so fervently.
My two-year-old recognizes, and frequently goes to sleep to, the distant sound of ambulances arriving at the hospital. He will grow up in a household that keeps firearms and that maintains a spirited dislike of the NRA, its cynical rhetoric, and much of what it stands for. On the other hand, one day I will offer him the chance, if he wishes, to join me at dawn in the marsh and await the flight of mallards overhead. And though Black Point may be gone, I believe there will be similar opportunities a bit more distant. If the extra driving gets me down, I'll try to stay focused on the extra ducks, geese, and countless other species benefiting from substantially increased wetlands, and try to instill in my son the notion that he deserves a world of improving, not declining, natural resources—a goal that will require his full and unsentimental attention.
This article is greatly abridged. For the full text, see the print edition of Coast & Ocean.
Michael Bowen, project manager with the Coastal Conservancy, has worked extensively to remove barriers to fish passage in streams.