The Joy of Killing

I grew up in rural Appalachia, and now live and teach college in a similar area in Pennsylvania, the state in which sport hunting is the most popular. Thus, I have known many hunters, including family members, and have taught more than a few. The first day of buck season on the Monday after Thanksgiving invariably finds me teaching fewer people than usual. When the hunters have returned, buzzing with excitement about record "racks" (their word for antlers) or full of tales about the ones that got away, I ask them about their reasons for hunting. I hear much about the glories of communing with nature, the camaraderie of the hunt, the exci tement of the chase, and the delicious, allegedly pesticide-free meat some have in their freezers. Some of them assure me that they are sparing the killed deer slow, agonizing death by starvation in the coming winter (388,601 deer were "mercy killed" in Pennsylvania in 1989. 1). The brightest ones tell me that they are contributing to the preservation of the ecosystem by keeping the hunted animals from overpopulating and degrading the environment. None of this holds up terribly well in the ensuing discussion. As Robert Loftin has pointed out, sport hunters use a numhcr of bad arguments in their attempts to justify what they do.2 Various scientific studies show that death at the hand of the hunter is seldom "clean" and frequently prolonged. Crippling cannot be avoided by even the most conscientious of hunters.3 Even if it could be known that the hunted animal would otherwise starve, it is far from clear that the latter fate would be more agonizing. Indeed, the claim that deer would starve if they were not hunted is itself questionable. Associate Professor of Silviculture Bruce Larson from the Yale Forestry School has admitted that "starvation" is the wrong term to use: "undernourishment" is far more accurate.4 In view of these facts, it is difficult to see sport hunters as mercy killers. It is also difficult to see them as saviors of the environment. As Loftin has documented, most hunted species would not overpopulate ifleft alone.s As others have pointed out, habitats are manipulated by such common practices as clearing brushland and damming streams in order to produce large numbers of hunted animals, much to the detriment of the environment.6 Non-"game" animals are of little concern, unless they are predators who "compete," although not for sporting reasons, with sport hunters. For example, Alaskan officials, bending to the will of sport hunters who crave maximum numbers of moose, have been shooting wolves from helicopters.? None of this is surprising. Sport hunters want to hunt certain "favored" species: the ecosystem as a whole is not their primary concern.