Tag Archives: interdependence

“Hunter-Conservationists:” the Most Ridiculous Spin of the Century

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The award for Most Ridiculous Spin of the Century goes collectively to Kit Fischer, sportsmen’s outreach coordinator with the National Wildlife Federation (what the hell kind of environmental/wildlife advocacy group hires an outreach coordinator to attract sport hunters?); Dave Chadwick, executive director of the Montana Wildlife Federation; Jim Posewitz, board member of Helena Hunters and Anglers; Casey Hackathorn, president of Hellgate Hunters and Anglers; Chris Marchion, board member of Anaconda Sportsmen and Glenn Hockett, president of Gallatin Wildlife Association. These revisionists recently had the insolent audacity to try to boast that “hunter-conservationists saved bison from extinction a century ago” in their article, Enlist Montana Hunters to Manage Bison Numbers.

Let’s not forget that the vast herds that once blackened the plains for hundreds of miles on end were almost completely killed off by hide-hunters, market meat-hunters or by sport-hunters shooting from trains just for a bit of fun.

The only reason hunters stopped the insanity was that the bison were all but completely wiped out. By the time they ended their killing spree, only 18 wild bison remained, holed up like wrongfully-accused outlaws in the upper reaches of the Yellowstone caldera.

Although Yellowstone National Park is now synonymous with the shaggy bovines, bison would prefer to spend their winters much further downriver, on lands now usurped and fenced-in by cowboys to fatten-up their cattle before shipping them off to slaughter.

If today’s ranchers and hunters had their way, bison, along with wolves and grizzly bears, would be forever restricted to the confines of the park. Rancher-hunters already have such a death-grip on Montana’s wildlife that bison are essentially marooned and forced to stay within park borders, battling snow drifts no matter how harsh the winter, despite an instinctual urge to migrate out of the high country during heavy snow winters.

Instead of making amends for the historic mistreatment of these sociable, benevolent souls, twenty-first-century sport hunters want their chance to lay waste to them again–this time in the name of “tradition.”

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Parts of this post were excerpted from my book, Exposing the Big Game: Living Targets of a Dying Sport

Text and Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

Text and Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

Play by Nature’s Rules

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One of the more amusing of hunters’ feeble rationalizations is that they are “part of nature,” as though that entitles them to assume the role of top predator over every other species. Funny how they bring that up when they think it will get them what they want, but when the preacher postulates that humans are above the animals and nature, they’re the first to stand up and shout “Amen!”

It seems they want their cake and eat it too.

Modern humans have long since stacked the deck in their favor. When Mother Nature decides to defend herself against their fully-armed onslaught by summoning up a super-bug or super-storm, hunters will quickly decide it’s no fun to be part of nature anymore and demand a dose of the antidote or call in the rescue helicopters.

Natural predators, like wolves, don’t have the kind of creature comforts that even the most impoverished hunter takes for granted. When wolves get hurt or sick it’s often fatal, whereas a human can find a clinic to fix them up whenever they get any kind of scratch. Hunters should play by nature’s rules or get out of the game.

Like it or not, humans really are a part of nature—but they’re certainly not above it. As Sea Shepherd’s Captain Paul Watson wrote in my book’s foreword:

“No species can live upon this earth without living in accordance to the three basic laws of ecology: (1) the law of diversity, that an eco-system is strengthened by the diversity of species within it, (2) the law of interdependence, that all species are dependent upon each other for survival and (3) the law of finite resources, that there is a limit to growth, a limit to carrying capacity. Human populations grow by literally stealing the carrying capacity of other species and by so doing, they diminish diversity and thus cut the bonds of interdependence.

“The cruelty and destruction that humans have inflicted upon each other is surpassed only by the cruelty and destruction humans have inflicted upon the nonhuman citizens of this world. Hunters are guilty of crimes against nature, against future generations and against humanity because diminishment leads to collapse and to extinction and we forget that we as animals, as primate hominids, will commit collective suicide if we continue with our barbaric traditions and behavior in the face of a global ecological collapse.”