Hunting Discussion on NPR
Wow.
I just spent the last half-hour listening to KQED Forum, an hour-long NPR program here locally in which the host, Michael Krasny interviews a handful of “experts” and invites listeners to call or email their comments. I wasn’t able to tune in for the first half of the show, but I heard enough in 30 minutes to get a pretty good feel for what I missed.
The topic today was, “The Future of Hunting.” On the panel were Doug Updike, a senior biologist from CA DFG, Jim Posowitz, Executive Director at Orion, The Hunters’ Institute, and Nicole Paquette, senior vice president and general counsel for Born Free USA (an animal rights/welfare organization).
In a nutshell, there wasn’t a lot of new stuff here. Updike and Posowitz kept coming back to the conservation ethic and the fact that there’s more to hunting than wholesale slaughter of wildlife. They addressed the facts that hunters are a necessary part of the ecological whole. While most of the pro-hunting callers offered little earthshattering insight, there were several self-identified “liberals” who called in to announce that they, too, are hunters. I suppose that’s a challenge to some stereotypes, and for that I’m grateful. I was also grateful that while some pro-hunting callers fell back on standard rhetoric, all of them came across as even and logical. Unless I missed something in the early part of the program, there was no mudslinging or name-calling.
Meanwhile Paquette was somewhere off in a Utopian vision in which humans are somehow supposed to be spectators to nature, but not direct participants. Her ideal is that wildlife should live in its “natural setting”, and hunters shouldn’t intrude on that. Of course, it’s OK for predators to kill animals, or for them to die of old age and disease, but apparently in her world view, hunters are not predators… or even part of “nature”. She even thinks it fine, or even preferable, that humans get our meat from supermarkets rather than going into the wild to kill our own.
I mean, really, I wanted to keep an open mind and hear the arguments out, but she spoke from so far outside of reality that I simply couldn’t take anything she said seriously. I mean, if this is what she truly believes, then her entire position totally ignores every other impact of human existance… not only hunting, but our very status as cohabitants in the ecosystem.
Most of the anti-hunting callers were, like the pro-hunters, quite respectful on a personal level, but awfully reliant on generalizations and over-used rhetorical themes such as, “Why can’t hunters enjoy nature without ‘assassinating it?” or, “How can you call hunting a ’sport’? It’s totally unfair!”
Only one caller, a hunter named, “Josh”, was willing to get down to the true sticking point that gives anti-hunters so much grief, and trips up the hunters as well… the fact of death. Death is a part of hunting, but it is a part of life. As he explained, the hunter does not generally enjoy causing death, but understands very clearly that it’s required… just as the hunter will be required to die at some point as well.
Everyone else, particulary Posowitz, avoided the question that entangles hunters every time… “How can you enjoy killing things?”
Posowitz glossed it over by rote, noting that “hunting isn’t just about killing…etc.,” and then quickly going back to the conservation ethic.
Of course Paquette immediately pounced on the opening, saying something along the lines of, “you see how uncomfortable he is about it? He changed the subject!”
I’ve mentioned this before, but why avoid answering that question? Is it just too hard to put into words that enjoying hunting isn’t quite the same as enjoying killing, even though killing is a necessary part of hunting? Is it a subconscious anthropomorphosis that we can’t get past equating killing an animal with killing a person? Or is it the fear of our own deaths that makes it so difficult to explain giving death to something else?
First of all, of course hunters are uncomfortable with the idea of killing. It’s a complex mixture of emotions, and anyone who feels only joy, or worse, who feels nothing when he kills is certainly an anomaly. But there’s nothing wrong with expressing the conflicting feelings of the kill.. the joy, the excitement, the dread and the sorrow.
Do I enjoy killing things? Yes, when I am hunting and I am successful, I enjoy it a great deal. Do I enjoy it because I’ve caused death to a living thing? No. Of course not. I enjoy it because, as a predator, this time I have prevailed. I will eat fresh, healthy meat. I enjoy it not because I don’t respect the sanctity of life, but because the life I have taken will now give me life. Symbolically, I have ensured my own survival, and that of my family… and the fact that I could go to the store and buy meat that someone else has raised and killed for me is irrelevant.
Anyway, I may have digressed a little… back to the show.
I tried calling in once, but after a busy-signal, I realized that I have never been very good at that kind of extemporaneous speaking, and usually end up sounding quite foolish. I decided instead to send an email to the program, expressing some of my thoughts. Unfortunately, it probably arrived too late to be read on the air.
At the end of the show, while I wasn’t especially impressed by the quality of the discussion (nothing particularly enlightening or opinion altering on either side), I was impressed that Krasny appeared actually benign… or even positive… toward the pro-hunting side of the discussion. Of course, that couldn’t have been hard faced with Paquette’s fantasy-land vision of the human-nature relationship.
As always, the show ended without anyone challenging the anti-hunters on what I think is the key question. How is legal, sport-hunting harmful to the resource, the environment, or the participants? Quantify your answer.
You can download an MP3 of the show now, at the KQED website. It’s worth a listen, if you’ve got an hour to kill.
Great discussion - I’ll have to check it out tonight.
August 5th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
I was the last “prohunting liberal” who commented on that show. I ofcourse didn’t have time to get all my points out. But I think I defended the pro-environmental side of the argument by pointing out that getting wild meat is better than using problematic feedlots for meat.
August 5th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
This show in particular Phillip, I was supposed to be one of the pro- hunting guests but they cancelled me from being a speaker about 2 weeks ago. (David, from Gray Suit tried to arrange it)
I guess Doug Updike is a better authority at explaining our Sport Hunting Heritage and conservation record than some one whom has paid money into and, been in the trenches for close to 30 years. Doug Updike is one of the D.F.G. officials whom has made the (obviously uninformed) statement about Eurasian Wild Boar.
Roger M. told me that he said: “There has been NO LEGAL importation of Eurasian Swine here in California for well over two decades!”
Now, you and I and the Department of agriculture know this is a false and, very uninformed statement don’t we!
August 6th, 2008 at 2:55 am
Hmmm…sounds like an interesting discussion. At some point I’m going to have to sit and take a listen.
I can understand why they are uncomfortable talking about the killing (death) portion of the hunt, but I also think that by ignoring it, it makes them look guilty to all of those listening who don’t support hunting.
It’s too bad Phillip, that you couldn’t get through on the phone, because I’m sure you would have done an excellent job on the program. I also think that the way you would have handled the whole subject of death would have opened a lot of people’s eyes and ears who were listening.
August 6th, 2008 at 4:07 am
Ron, thanks for speaking up, both on the show and here on the HogBlog! I think there are more politically liberal hunters out there than the general public would think… and bringing a little light to that fact can’t be a bad thing. Challenge the stereotypes at every opportunity, and bring them down.
Michael, it would’ve been interesting to hear your part in this show. Updike strikes me as the typically well-intentioned but underinformed bureaucrat in a system (DFG) that is more heavily driven by politics than biology. But as the voice of that department, he did offer value. I just don’t think he accomplished much on the show.
The problem with a show like Forum addressing a topic like this is that the narrow time limits and the desire to get plenty of voices into the fray means that the complexity of this discussion can’t really be explored. That’s a shame, because I think some real positive, pro-hunting messages could have been brought out and the anti-hunting position (as espoused by Nicole Paquette) could have been pretty thoroughly discredited.
By the way, Arthur, the caller I mentioned in my post, Josh, did hit on some of those key points in a nutshell in his comments… that death is part of life, and hunting provides a connection to that reality that many non-hunters are lacking. I was actually pretty impressed and happy to hear this come through… especially in light of the ridiculous line of questioning from Krasny about “The Most Dangerous Game”.
August 6th, 2008 at 6:31 am
Glad you had a chance to listen and write up this report, Philip. I had intended to tune in but my schedule got out of hand and I never made it. Good job!
August 6th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Guess who Josh was?
August 8th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Josh, I had a feeling, based on some of your comments here, that it might be the same Josh. Nice job…I think you actually gave Mr. Krasny pause there for a moment. Hopefully, you made some other folks consider too.
August 8th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Most people take their food and its path from earth to plate for granted. They have not been involved in the production, and processing before it is on their plate, or in their refrigerator. So it is not improbable that they wouldn’t appreciate the processes involved in the life and death cycle.
I really enjoy the way you expressed those points Phillip. I simplely tell people that I “take an active role in my food chain”. That is whether it is a wild game animal that I modify habitat for, or a beef steer that I raised and cared for for 18 months, to a vegetable garden I grow . I don’t think anyone who has not experienced the whole production chain (wild or domestic) can fully appreciate how humans are the only species who make life better for our “prey animals”.
August 8th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Phillip, I was glad to speak up on this. I have seen environmental and hunting groups work together in the coalitions I have been in. Animal rights groups try to hijack the “enviro” label. But they sabotage habitat protection every step of the way.
BTW, Born Free didn’t seem to have much in the way of anti-hunting propaganda on their website, yet. They mostly deal with zoo and circus issues. They may be making a foray into this arena. I would be interested to know if they start showing up at F&G Commission mtgs.
August 8th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
It was hard to call in, that’s for sure. I don’t think I cracked Dr. Krasny, though I still respect him in general, and he tries to be a fair moderator. I had hoped they would focus in the show on what they had titled it, on the ethics of hunting. Too bad they focused so much on the ‘management v. bambi’ realm, as I would have loved to hear some down and dirty ethics debates.
This show came at a really opportune time, too. A few months back I started a blog on ethics and the outdoors, and just last week I finished a book by a very liberal environmentalist who actually takes gun in hand and gets a hog. “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” is a good read, I’ll be recommending it to all my non-hunting friends. He gives animal rights philosophy a very fair and close look, and then closes the book on ‘em.
August 8th, 2008 at 6:45 pm