October 31, 2008
I'm a dedicated hiker, nature person and I volunteer at a wildlife hospital which means that autumn -- bringing migratory birds along the Pacific Flyway -- is a truly bittersweet time. As a variety of ducks and other birds arrive in their winter home on San Francisco Bay, the wetlands and sloughs are filled with a magnificent spectrum of bird species. But there's a disconnect that some of us nature lovers must reconcile -- or struggle to reconcile. And that is the simultaneous arrival of waterfowl hunting season, the sounds of gunshots, and the views to a kill, depending on where you choose to traipse in the wilder areas.
Many people aren't aware that hunting (with permits) is allowed in the Don Edwards refuge, just south of the Dumbarton Bridge. Or just north of San Pablo Bay, and in designated areas dotted throughout the area. In the South Bay, the former salt ponds were reclaimed into beautiful wetlands areas, a thriving habitat for a variety of wildlife species. With the reclamation also came some concern and disagreement as to how those lands would continue to be used. The hunting allowed on former Cargill salt pond areas is not popular with everyone, but lauded by hunting proponents.
As a non-hunter and someone who has worked with and cared for animals over many years, the dramatic contrast between San Francisco Bay as a refuge and San Francisco Bay as a hunting haven is obviously an exercise in contrast. If you appreciate wildlife as an observer, you can, of course, avoid most hunting areas. If, however, you're accustomed to roaming the gorgeous back roads of the Bay Area, the areas of public wildlife refuges off limits during hunting season are difficult to ignore. Some public areas like Grizzly Island are completely closed to non-hunters from October to January. Fish and Game refuges are, for the most part, open to hunting. In those spots, it's often difficult to avoid hearing the gunshots bringing down nearby ducks and geese. And I've seen my share of slain or injured waterfowl on refuges, a difficult juxtaposition. On a recent excursion to a refuge, nearby duck hunters were verbally harassing kayakers who had every right to be paddling the same waterways.
I'm neither new nor naive to the realities of hunting, both practically and historically.The arguments for the nobility, history and tradition of the sport often fail to account for the more gruesome and environmentally devastating historical aspects -- including the fact that many of our protected species are now protected as a result of over-hunting which nearly decimated scores of species across the United States. Some were, in fact, wiped out by market hunters. In the Bay Area, egrets were nearly wiped out by hunters for their plumage, otters for their pelts -- the list goes on. Early conservationists were, in many cases, hunters who came to view their own hunting pursuits in a dramatically different way, after witnessing the devastation rampant hunting causes across the land.
Public Wildlife Refuges and Hunting
The number of refuges open to hunting has increased considerably, largely due to political pressure from hunters and hunting organizations. Prior to 1949, wildlife refuges were, in fact, refuges for the animals, they were protected. The current funding system for refuges literally mandates hunting on refuge lands, through taxation and duck stamp revenues.
Although it's true that these funds help procure lands for the wildlife refuges-- in addition to the public funds we all contribute -- it could be easily argued that alternative funding through non-lethal activities on refuges (which outnumber hunting activities) could achieve the same purpose. The system is essentially set up to favor hunting by virtue of the funding trajectory.
Hunting and Wildlife Population Control
Refuge hunting proponents cite wildlife control as a positive aspect of hunting. But what often isn't mentioned is how populations are managed to increase the viability of animals to hunt. These arguments also seem to leave out the fact that refuges were created in the first place to protect animals from the encroachment of human activity. And that widespread decimation of predator animals contributed to some of the population imbalances now used as justifications for hunting.
Hunting vs. Processed Food
It is true that among human omnivores, those who choose to eat meat, there are those who hunt their own food, while others pay to have their food killed. The fact is that in the end, an animal dies for the human appetite. And many hunters will cite factory farming as an unpalatable alternative to their humane vision of hunting. It's a point frequently used and a seemingly viable one when you consider often incomprehensible industrial practices that bring meat to the table. Slaughter in some form is the norm when a living entity is deemed a culinary commodity -- a quandary delineated and never fully resolved throughout philosophical history, and in modern tomes like The Omnivore's Dilemma by Bay Area writer Michael Pollan.
But it's "seemingly viable," because as it pertains to this particular discussion, there are plenty of hunting practices that could be construed as similarly problematic and inhumane. From prairie dog target shooting to high-fence hunts, there is a wide swath of methodology that renders hunting as open to scrutiny as any practice that involves killing for food. You need only peruse a variety of hunting websites, or venture into hunting areas to witness a significant amount of sport killing that doesn't fall within the realm of what many of us would consider humane or fair, despite rationalizations to that effect.
