When I wrote my book, Exposing the Big Game, its subtitle, Living Targets of a Dying Sport, was appropriate. But like so many things in this rapidly changing world, by the time the book came out, that subtitle was becoming obsolete. Now, in the second decade of the 21st century, the sport of blasting birds, murdering deer, culling coyotes and plunking at prairie dogs—in a word, hunting—is seeing a seemingly inexplicable resurgence.
Lately we’re seeing longer hunting seasons on everything from elk to geese to wolves, with more new or expanded “specialty” hunts like archery, crossbow, spear (and probably soon, poison blow gun) in states across the country, than at any time in recent memory. Meanwhile, more Americans are taking up arms against the animals and wearing so much camo—the full-time fashion statement of the cruel and unusual—that it’s starting to look ordinary and even, yuppified.
So, when did cruel become the new cool and evil the new everyday? Are the recruiting efforts of the Safari Club and the NRA finally striking a cord? Did the staged “reality” show “Survivor” lead to the absurdly popular thespian cable spin-offs like, “Call of the Wildman,” “Duck Dynasty” and a nasty host of others? Is “art” imitating life, or is life imitating “art?” Did the author of the Time Magazine article, “America’s Pest Problem: It’s Time to Cull the Herd,” ratchet up the call for even more animal extermination?
Whatever the reason, I don’t remember ever hearing so many shotguns and rifles blasting away during the last week of January. By the sound of the gunfire, coupled with the unseasonably dry and warm weather here in the Pacific Northwest, you’d swear it was early autumn.
Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2014. All Rights Reserved
Exposing the Big Game 
There is no hope anymore. This is why I plan on giving up.
Don’t give up, Justin! Run for local office, it is the only way we can change things faster when we grassroots groups get our people into office. There is still much work to do.
I think the camo is more like a ‘monkey see-monkey do’ thing for the Wal*Mart crowd? Maybe a bit of a rebellion against current WH leadership? Not every redneck in camo is out wasting animals in the woods. They figured out camo sweats cost the same as plain sweats and don’t show the dirt as much. Some probably think they look ‘cool’ in camo or ‘chicks dig it’? Anyway, it’s kinda like modern ‘drug store cowboy’ look in the 70s.
Most of those gunshots in the woods miss their target.
There are two groups I do worry about, those sportsmen with money to burn, and the trappers/guides that take the sportsmen hunting. One feeds the other and the politicians won’t do anything about it because it creates economic prosperity in places without much other work.
I think if we are going to make changes, we have to get at the hearts of children as early as possible. We have to have local grassroots groups and people willing to run for office. Education is the key but it needs to have help from local politicians or at least approval. Things can change for the better, we need to stop crying and wringing our hands, we need to organize!
You are right about some of the camo crap being “monkey-see monkey-do.” I saw a girl in a PINK camo jacket the other day. Since I don’t think she was going hunting with Barbie to blow away My Pretty Pony, I have to assume it was a fashion statement. The statement was: “Wow, I have really bad taste.”
Fashion will change, it always does. At least it’s fabric, not fur! Wal*Mart got caught selling jackets trimmed on the hoods with dog fur from China and labeled as synthetic. That was a couple of years ago. Eddie Bauer sells wolf fur jackets! Go on craigslist and type in ‘wolf’ under ‘for sale’. Aside from a lot of sports stuff, there will be an array of items made of wolves as well as wolf pelts, rugs, stuffed wolves, real ‘wolfdogs’, anything and everything ‘wolf’. People who sell wolves they shot get really slammed with nasty messages, as well they should! It’s an education! Some people suck. But it’s a good way to find out what company is selling real fur from endangered species!
Guess it’s time to get out and return some of that fire. : )
Sign me up!
Melinda, sign me up, too!
We can “thank” state agencies for proactively promoting the increases in hunting, fishing, and trapping. They have programs for youth, women, the handicapped, the idiotic. They introduce artificial runs of salmon to make sure there’s opportunity to fish in more days of the calendar. They introduce nonnative species, plant mature fish into lakes for “anglers”, and all of it goes to advancing the industry of wildlife slaughter and ecosystem disfigurement. Until we start showing up in large numbers at the state boards of commissioners responsible for agency policies, this industry will get worse not better.
Mainstream environmentalists won’t do it excepting when charismatic species are the focus. And Justin, if you give up, agencies will increase their lopsided version of “dominion”. So find an organization nearest you that knows what’s going on and volunteer. If you’re in a rural area, search deeper online for organizations that will give you the information you need to counter the madness of “fish and game” agencies. They operate under old legislation that was made when Earth was a different place than today. And there are professional biologists and especially conservation biologists who, though still a minority, get it. They see how unbalanced, cruel, and scientifically unjustifiable their actions are in the long term outcome of ecosystems. It’s helpful to address the impacts on ecosystems every time you tackle the tragedies inflicted on individuals from other species whether they be domestic in animal agriculture, or wild in ecosystems. If you don’t do it, who will? It’s a marathon. So steel yourself and stay in the movement.
Or if all else fails, you might want to do as Melinda suggested;) Thanks for the input and sensible advice Will.
Thank you, Will, that was perfect! I would only add that we need to stack the state wildlife boards with those biologists and activists that do ‘get it’ by electing governors who are sensitive to these issues and will appoint such people to their boards and veto laws that are passed by sportsmen/NRA dollars, not the people’s will. Change laws where only sportsmen have a say in how wildlife is ‘managed’. Make laws that half the governor’s appointees have to have a degree or equal knowledge such as years of wildlife sanctuary work to serve on the board. And thatthe board’s mission is welfare of wildlife and habitat, not making sportsmen happy.
Regarding the seeming resurgence of hunting and trapping and wildlife management (killing): I think it is mostly, really really, a right brain thing, like what is going on with the Tea Party and the right. They see their way of life threatened, their traditions, their God given right to hunt and trap threatened and manage wildlife for the benefit of the few (hunters, trappers, ranchers), and they are doubling down on asserting their rights by having crazy hunts in and out of usual seasons, urban/suburban kills of wildlife, action at the state legislative levels and even in congress to enshrine their God given rights and traditions of killing wildlife through hunting and trapping and management, extended seasons on wolves, killing contests, hired assassins of wolves. Probably even the wildlife agencies at the state and federal levels are reacting the same way: They feel threatened in their traditions and their badge of expertise by conservation groups questioning their expertise, of which they manifest little. But are the wildlife killing sports dying? It all may be a little like the far right on other political matters, and this hunting and trapping business has become very politicized, they are their own worse enemies because they look crazy and excessive to others (because they are), and they will slowly maybe lose support. One of the essential problems is that the resurgence is buttressed by an alliance of the few (hunters, trappers, ranchers) and the state (right states minded especially) and federal wildlife agencies.
Animals don’t need our permission to be on this planet. They simply need to be left alone. And the fact that people are making money off of killing innocent animals is nothing more than an abomination against nature herself .
Humans would rather dominate something than leave it alone.
This culture is pathological and insane. Yet, when we speak out against the atrocities, we are labeled as “radical tree huggers” or “eco-terrorists.” We can’t allow the dominant culture to define us this way. The real “eco-terrorists” are those who are destroying the diverse and beautiful life on this planet that sustains us all, and we need to call them out on it at every turn.