Sentience vs. Pragmatism
I was reading a recent thread at a hunters' website where deer hunters deliberated over the prudence of taking a doe when in the presence of a fawn or a yearling. Anyone who's witnessed a young cervid in the throes of stress due to human interaction or intervention of any kind would have a visceral experience that refutes, on every level, the rationalizations being leveled for how and why it's appropriate to kill the mother deer in the presence of her young.
That's obviously one example taken out of context, but it's precisely in those types of discussions that the fundamental schism between the "them" and the "us" grows. It points again to the intangible division between what some of us would deem an appropriate response to our shared existence, and what others would assert as the right to human dominion (however misconstrued the concept of "dominion" may be).
After bearing witness to gunshots and hunts in the wetlands where I hike and photograph,I was stunned to learn how many ducks escape with injury. Read any hunter's account of a duck hunt and you'll find mentioned the wounded duck that got away, into the tules, into the reeds. The rationalization is, of course, that nature will have its way with the bird. But when hunters express surprise over how some non-hunters view their pursuits, they need to look no further than these types of dramatic philosophical divides.
Common Ground?
In the end, I don't suppose there's any more convincing a non-hunter that killing an animal is enjoyable, than there is the possibility of talking a hunter out of this desire to slay his share of 'greenheads' for the day. I happen to believe that in this imperfect existence, there lies an ethical paradigm where both sides could find some movement toward a more humane resolution -- in an environment that's rapidly approaching a saturation point -- from the strains of expansion and over consumption. These conflicts are bound to grow here in the Bay Area and around the world, not just between hunters and non-hunters, but between us humans and the animals with whom we will be sharing a smaller percentage of earthly spoils.
Ultimately, If I have found agreement in both hunting and non-hunting camps, it's on issues of habitat conservation. Of course, we're often at cross purposes over the ultimate use of that habitat.
For an excellent documentary on this issue, watch the PBS show The Wolf That Changed America. It's about Ernest Thompson Seton, a wolf bounty hunter, who traveled to New Mexico to kill the last of the wolves -- the wolf outlaw "Lobo." Through his experience with Lobo and Lobo's mate, Seton changed his world view forever, and became instrumental in wilderness preservation. And he never hunted wolves again.
All of the aforementioned concludes in my personal resignation that autumn arrives, when areas of our shared public lands are closed for use to all but those carrying guns or bows -- this undeniable chasm in thought and perspective will persist. When I hear remote gunshots in marshes where I'm photographing animals, I realize that these months will always be for me a time of significant conflict about the stewardship of our Bay Area land and its inhabitants.Wildlife Viewing on San Francisco Bay
The logical counterpoint to all of the stated misgivings is, of course, that San Francisco Bay is a genuine sanctuary for millions of tired, migrating birds who make their winter home here. In some cases birds travel 7000 miles without stopping. There is ample sanctuary for these birds in many places around the Bay.