Learn the Facts about Hunting

Fall is the time when forest greens begin to blaze orange, as hunting seasons open around the country. Each year, hunters kill more than 100 million animals, and while individual reasons for hunting vary, the industry that promotes and sustains hunting has just one motive: profit. According to the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, America's 14 million hunters spend $22.1 billion each year for guns, ammunition, clothing, travel, and other related expenses.

To justify hunting to a society ever more concerned about wildlife—including its conservation and humane treatment—the industry intensively promotes a set of tired myths. Learn the facts behind these myths.

There are many ways to learn about nature and the "great outdoors." At its best, hunting teaches people that it is acceptable to kill wildlife while learning about some aspects of nature. However, the very essence of sport hunting is the implicit message that it's acceptable recreation to kill and to tolerate the maiming of wildlife. Even those who claim that wounding and maiming is not the intent of hunting cannot deny that it happens.

It is folly to suggest that we can teach love, respect, and appreciation for nature and the environment through such needless destruction of wildlife. One can learn about nature by venturing into the woods with binoculars, a camera, a walking stick, or simply with our eyes and ears open to the world around us.

Does hunting help create a bond between father and son? We do not know, but there are countless recreational and other activities that can strengthen the parent/child bond. Generally speaking, bonding has less to do with the activity and more to do with whether the parent and child spend significant, concentrated, and loving time together. Yet the particular recreational activity is also important, because it can send a moral message to the child about what constitutes acceptable recreation.

Hunting as a form of family entertainment is destructive not only to the animals involved, but also to the morals and ethics of children who are shown or taught that needless killing is acceptable recreation. The HSUS rejects the notion that a relationship of love and companionship should be based on the needless killing of innocent creatures. Killing for fun teaches callousness, disrespect for life, and the notion that "might makes right."

No. The number of hunters has been steadily declining for decades. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, there were 15 million licensed hunters in the U.S. in 2000, compared with 15.6 million in 1993, 15.8 million in 1990, and 16.3 million in 1980. This drop has occurred even while the general population has been growing. Currently only 5.4% of Americans hold hunting licenses. Hunters claim their numbers are growing to give the impression that recreational killing is acceptable. The facts are that more and more hunters are giving up hunting because it is no longer a socially acceptable activity.

Isn't it more humane to kill wildlife by hunting than to allow animals to starve?

This question is based on a false premise. Hunters kill opossums, squirrels, ravens, and numerous other plentiful species without any notion of shooting them so that they do not starve or freeze to death. Many species are killed year round in unlimited numbers. In addition, many animals that are not hunted die of natural starvation, but hunters do not suggest killing them. While it is true that any animal killed by a hunter cannot die of starvation, hunters do not kill animals based on which ones are weak and likely to succumb to starvation. Hunters who claim they prevent animals from suffering starvation are simply trying to divert attention from an analysis of the propriety of killing wildlife for fun.

No. Most hunted species are not considered to be overpopulated even by the wildlife agencies that set seasons and bag limits. Black ducks, for instance, face continued legal hunting—even on National Wildlife Refuges—despite the fact that their populations are at or near all-time lows. If hunters claim that they hunt to prevent overpopulation, then they should be prepared to forgo hunting except when it really is necessary to manage overpopulated species. This would mean no hunting of doves, ducks, geese, raccoons, bears, cougars, turkeys, quail, chuckar, pheasants, rabbits, squirrels, and many other species.

What's more, hunters are usually the first to protest when wolves, coyotes, and other predators move into an area and begin to take over the job of controlling game populations. The State of Alaska, for example, has instituted wolf-control (trapping and shooting) on the grounds that wolf predation may bring caribou populations down to a level that would limit the sport-hunting of caribou. Finally, hunters kill opossums, foxes, ravens, and numerous other plentiful species without the pretension of shooting them so that they do not starve or freeze to death.

No. Wildlife, to a large degree, will naturally regulate its own populations if permitted, eliminating any need for hunting as a means of population control. Discussions about supposed wildlife overpopulation problems apply primarily to deer. Hunters often claim that hunting is necessary to control deer populations. As practiced, however, hunting often contributes to the growth of deer herds. Heavily hunted states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, for instance, are among those experiencing higher deer densities than perhaps ever before. When an area's deer population is reduced by hunting, the remaining animals respond by having more young, which survive because the competition for food and habitat is reduced. Since one buck can impregnate many does, policies which permit the killing of bucks contribute to high deer populations. If population control were the primary purpose for conducting deer hunts, hunters would only be permitted to kill does. This is not the case, however, because hunters demand that they be allowed to kill bucks for their antlers.

No. The hunting community's idea of a "healthy" wildlife population is a population managed like domestic livestock, for maximum productivity. In heavily hunted and "managed" populations, young animals feed on artificially enhanced food sources, grow and reproduce rapidly, then fall quickly to the guns and arrows of hunters. Few animals achieve full adulthood. After 20 years of heavy deer hunting at the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey, for example, only one percent of the deer population lived longer than four years, and fewer than ten percent lived longer than three years. In a naturally regulated population, deer often live twelve years or longer.

Most states actively recruit children into hunting, through special youth hunts. Sometimes these youth hunts are held on National Wildlife Refuges. Some states have carried this concept even further, and hold special hunter education classes to recruit parents and their children. In addition to encouraging children to buy licenses and kill animals, the states are reaching out to women as well. If enough women and children can be converted into hunters, the state agencies can continue business as usual.

No. While there are many rules which regulate hunting activities, enforcing the regulations is difficult, and many hunters do not abide by the rules. It has been estimated that twice as many deer are killed illegally as are killed legally. Hunters will sometimes kill a second deer because it has bigger antlers or "rack" than the first. In addition, duck hunters often exceed their bag limits or kill protected species because most hunters cannot identify the species of ducks that they shoot—especially not at a half hour before sunrise, when shooting begins. Secret observations revealed by ex-duck hunters demonstrate that illegal practices and killing permeate this activity at all levels.

Those species favored by hunters are given certain protection from over-killing—killing so many as to severely limit the population—through what are known as "bag limits." However, hunting of some species is completely unregulated, and in fact, wanton killing is encouraged. Animals such as skunks, coyotes, porcupines, crows and prairie dogs are considered "varmints," and unlimited hunting of these species is permitted year-round in many states. At the base of this is the notion that these animals are simply "vermin" and do not deserve to live. Hunters frequently write and speak of the pleasure in "misting" prairie dogs—by which they mean shooting the animals with hollow-point bullets that cause them to literally explode in a mist of blood.

Moreover, hunters' influence on state and federal wildlife agencies is so strong that even bag limits on "game" species are influenced as much by politics as by biology. Many states, with the sanction of the federal government, allow hunters to kill large numbers (20–40 per day) of coots and waterfowl such as sea ducks and mergansers, for example, despite the fact that little is known about their populations and their ability to withstand hunting pressure, and the fact that these ducks are certainly not killed for food. This killing is encouraged to maintain hunter interest, thereby sustaining license sales, because the decline in other duck species has resulted in some limitations on numbers that can be killed.

Though hunting clearly kills individual animals, can hunting actually hurt wildlife populations?

Yes. Hunters continue to kill many species of birds and mammals (e.g., cougars, wolves, black ducks, swans) that are at dangerously low population levels. While hunting may not be the prime cause of the decline of these species, it must contribute to their decline and, at a minimum, frustrate efforts to restore them.

Even deer populations may be damaged by hunting pressure. Unlike natural predators and the forces of natural selection, hunters do not target the weaker individuals in populations of deer or other animals.

Rather, deer hunters seek out the bucks that have the largest rack. This desire for "trophy sized" bucks can and has had detrimental effects on the health of deer herds. First, hunting can impact the social structure of a herd because hunters kill the mature males of a herd and create a disproportionate ratio of females to males. It is not uncommon to find a herd that has no bucks over the age of three. Second, genetically inferior bucks may be left to propagate the species, thereby weakening the overall health of the herd.

Because hunters largely want to shoot only bucks, hunting may cause artificial inflation of deer populations. When these populations reach levels that available habitat cannot support, increased disease and starvation may be the result.

We don't understand the full effect of hunting on wildlife behavior or health because wildlife agencies will not conduct the studies necessary to find the answers (e.g., "spy-blind" observations of duck hunting, in which undercover authorities secretly observe hunters).

Almost never. When all costs are considered (i.e., license fees, equipment, food, lodging and transportation), hunting is not an economical way to provide food. Statistics gathered by the University of Maryland's Extension Service revealed that hunters spent more than $51 million to kill 46,317 deer in Maryland in 1990, approximately $1,100 for each deer killed. Assuming that the meat of each deer killed was preserved and eaten, and that each deer provided 45 lbs. of meat, the cost of venison in 1990 in Maryland was $24.44 per pound. For most hunted animals, such as ducks, doves, rabbits, squirrels, and crows, among others, use for food is now minimal, and the expense of equipment far outweighs the value of any food that is obtained. For the vast majority of hunters, hunting is recreation, not a means of gathering food.

Some of the best bird watching I have ever done, is sitting in a boat with a 12 guage across my lap, a black lab retriever in the boat and thousands of snow geese just out of gun range. Some of the nicest times in the woods I have had are taking a nap at mid-day during a deer hunt with no one around for miles and being wakened by the sounds of birds moving my way in advance of an animal walking toward me. It has given me pleasure to go hiking in the mountains with non-hunters who stop to take a picture and say that is beautiful, have me agree and point out the deer 50 yeards away standing still that they had not seen.

Most people expect nature to provide them with an MTV experience and are disappointed. Another problem with most American's today is that they have no concept of what it takes to provide themselves with food. They don't really understand that milk doesn't come from plastic jugs. They have no concept that cows need to get pregnant, that they need to be taken care of, that someone needs to milk the cows on a regular basis. People think that "meat" comes in nice little plastic trays. They don't understand that the hamburger or chicken was once a living breathing animal, that was cared for, killed, and butchered, before it was placed in a plactic tray. If you asked most people what a potatoe plant looked like they might say a McDonald's Golden Arch.

People in the US are very, very fortunate to have the food that they do. People in this society need an exerpience at least once in their life to grow some of their own food in gardens and to kill some of their own meat, otherwise the will have no appreciation or understanding of what it means to be blessed by such a bountiful harvest.

Contrary to the information published in your post, hunting is a great opporutnity to get out into nature. To be successful in hunting, one also needs to shed many of the trapings of civilization and get in tune with the ways of nature. Whether one is setting up a string of duck decoys based on winds and current or whether one is blending in with nature and learning to be quite while hunting deer, hunting, if done properly, is an opportunity to be at one with nature in a very special way and the bring the cycle of life and death and the food supply into a new focus.

What seems to be the focus of the article is an image of hunter as someone who never goes in the woods, except for one weekend a year and then does so 500 to 1000 miles from home having huge travel expense. Such hunting is not usually productive as the hunter has little understanding of the area and the habits of the native animals. Hunting is a dying practice in this country, just as are backyard gardens, fishing, and outdoor skills acquired in real wilderness camping. These changes in shared experiences are changing our culture in ways that most of us do not understand. I for one think that this society would be better off with more people who know firearms, firearm safety, hunting skills and wilderness skills.

I am sure alot of you know what I mean by laser

Actually, we don't. You keep insisting something is a "laser" when it plainly isn't. "Red dot scopes" do not use lasers. "Laser sights" are not "red dot scopes". "Laser scopes" don't exist.

pretend your killing something all the time...it's in your blood to kill.

How insulting. You, who preaches compassion, so easily stoop to the opposite thereof.

I also want to add that as exciting as it is to receive PRIVATE freepmail from me ( and I can understand how you would be shaking uncontrollably..frantically fumbling to let it be known by all your peers).....the fact that you posted it shows lack of character and respect for rules.

I have no idea what you're referring to.

this just adds to my list and proves that a percentage of hunters lack compassion, ability to follow rules and cannot control their need to kill things that of no threat to them.

Using words without following their definition...insulting normal people as psychotic killers...accusing people of posting messages they never received...you, m'am, are one disturbed individual. Get counseling.

I have no idea what you're referring to.

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SOrry...it wasn't you...it was your other buddies.(below)

Would you ever post private freepmail? =====================================================

To: SJackson
Case in point. Here is her FReepmail that she sent me: "YOu should learn to read and comprehend. I am far from being left...your whole post makes you look like idiot you protray me as. I wish you so called conservative hunters would take the time and read something. If you want to kill soemthing for the hell of it and teach kids to kill animals at will.....you have a screw loose too. You guys are so unbelievebly defensive and ignorant. LOL!! "

262 posted on 4/9/02 2:12 PM Eastern by PatrioticAmerican
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I will post any FReepmail I receive to a thread as I see fit.

436 posted on 3/27/02 10:49 PM Eastern by Gun142
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(AND HE DID...POSTED MY PRIVATE FREEPMAIL AND WAS PROUD)

Yawn ... I've been around with SG on this topic before stomper ... and it is a perennial project of hers. All I can say is that she will never the know the pleasures of hunting and fishing. She will never understand that animals were put on this Earth for man's use and stewardship. Instead of knowing that you can provide for oneself and family, she will stand by wringing her hands, box of Kleenex nearby, making the animal on a par with a human. This will go no where ... she is entrenched ... she does not listen. You are right stomper ... we will go on, teach our children the wonders and ethics of hunting and fishing. We are survivors. She would die in a heartbeat out here in your neck of the wildwoods ... wringing her hands.

"When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen." Ernest Hemingway

You still have not ansewered the question. Are you scared?

Here it is again: And remember - Hunting is closer to the natural process than anything you buy at the store!

How much more in-humane is chicken farming over hunting! Or the terrible lives Fish must endure in the fish farm....

Have you any clue what you speak of? I mean really? Hunting is closer to the natural process than anything you buy at the store! JEEZ

If you eat any meat at all you are a hypocrite and I would like to know that.

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