An Overview of Killing for Sport
Hunting, it is true, is an American tradition -- a tradition of killing, crippling,
extinction, and ecological destruction. With an arsenal of rifles, shotguns,
muzzleloaders, handguns, and bows and arrows, hunters kill more than 200 million animals
yearly -- crippling, orphaning, and harassing millions more.
The annual death toll in the U.S. includes 50 million mourning doves, 30 million
squirrels, 28 million quail, 25 million rabbits, 20 million pheasants, 6 million ducks, 4
million deer, and thousands of geese, bears, moose, elk, antelope, swans, cougars,
turkeys, wolves, foxes, coyotes, bobcats, boars, and other woodland creatures.
Q: DON'T HUNTERS MERCIFULLY SHOOT ANIMALS WHO WOULD OTHERWISE DIE A SLOW DEATH FROM
STARVATION?
-- Charlton Heston
A: When hunters talk about shooting overpopulated animals, they generally refer to
white-tailed deer, representing only 2 percent of all the animals killed by hunters. Sport
hunters shoot millions of mourning doves, squirrels, rabbits, and waterfowl, and thousands
of predators, none of whom any wildlife biologist would claim are overpopulated or need to
be hunted.
Even with deer, hunters do not search for starving animals. They either shoot animals
at random, or they seek out the strongest and healthiest animals in order to bring home
the biggest trophies or largest antlers. Hunters and wildlife agencies are not concerned
about reducing deer herds, but rather with increasing the number of targets for hunters
and the number of potential hunting license dollars. Thus, they use deer overpopulation as
a smokescreen to justify their sport. The New Jersey Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife
states that "the deer resource has been managed primarily for the purpose of sport
hunting," [2] and hunters readily admit, "deer hunters want more deer and more
bucks, period."
Hunters shoot nonnative species such as ring-necked pheasants who are hand-fed and
raised in pens and then released into the wild just before hunting season. Even if the
pheasants -- native to China -- survive the hunters' onslaught, they are certain to die of
exposure or starvation in the nonnative environment. [4] While hunters claim they save
overpopulated animals from starvation, they intentionally breed some species and let them
starve to death.
Q: ISN'T HUNTING NECESSARY FOR WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT?
-- David B. Crockett
A: Because they make their money primarily from the sale of hunting licenses, the major
function of wildlife agencies is not to protect individual animals or biological
diversity, but to propagate "game" species for hunters to shoot. State agencies
build roads through our wild lands to facilitate hunter access, they pour millions into
law enforcement of hunting regulations and hunter education, and they spend millions
manipulating habitat by burning and clear-cutting forests to increase the food supply for
"game" species such as deer. More food means a larger herd and more animals
available as targets. They are out to conserve sport hunting -- not wildlife.
For example, Michigan has a "Deer Range Improvement Program" (DRIP) that
earmarks $1.50 from each deer hunting license sold into a fund specifically designed to
increase deer reproductivity and to maximize sport hunting opportunities. According to a
1975 newspaper report, three years after the DRIP program began, "The DNR's Wildlife
Division wants to keep clear-cutting until 1.2 million acres of forest land -- more than a
third of all of the state-owned forest -- have been stripped . . . the wildlife division
says it is necessary because a forest managed by nature, instead of by a wildlife
division, can support only a fraction of the deer herd needed to provide for half a
million hunters."
Since that 1975 report, the number of hunters in Michigan has doubled and the state's
deer herd has tripled. It is not just deer populations that wildlife agencies are trying
to increase to provide more targets for sport hunters. Arizona's management plan for game
species specifically states the goal is to "increase" pronghorn antelope and
bighorn sheep "populations and provide recreational opportunity to as many
individuals as possible," and to "maintain or enhance" cottontail rabbit
and quail "hunting opportunity in the State by improving access to existing
habitat."
Q: BUT ANIMALS CAN'T FEEL PAIN, CAN THEY?
-- Duane Ingalls Glasscock
A: Scientists, biologists, veterinarians, and people who have lived with dogs, cats, or
other animals, know that mammals and birds suffer fear and pain. All of our animal cruelty
laws are based on this premise, as are all of the things we teach our children about
kindness to animals. The ability of animals to suffer and feel pain is an accepted fact.
According to world-renowned scientists Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, "From all
criteria available to us -- the recognizable agony in the cries of wounded animals, for
example, including those who usually utter hardly a sound -- this question [Do animals
suffer?] seems moot. The limbic system in the human brain, known to be responsible for
much of the richness of our emotional life, is prominent throughout the mammals. The same
drugs that alleviate suffering in humans mitigate the cries and other signs of pain in
many other animals. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other
animals, to contend that only humans can suffer."
Q: DO HUNTERS KILL THREATENED OR ENDANGERED ANIMALS?
-- Daniel Quayle
A: In the past, hunters have helped wipe out dozens of species, such as the passenger
pigeon, the Great auk, and the heath hen. They have brought a long list of others,
including the bison and the grizzly bear, to the brink of extinction. In fact, when
Congress passed the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1973, the Senate Committee on Commerce
stated, "The two major causes of extinction are hunting and destruction of natural
habitat."[8]
While the ESA has slowed killing of imperiled animals considerably, hunters continue to
kill threatened and endangered animals every year, either for fun or for failure to
identify them properly. In the last few years alone, hunters have killed gray wolves, bald
eagles, grizzly bears, and even such critically endangered animals as Florida panthers.
While some species of squirrels and prairie dogs are candidates for listing under the ESA,
state wildlife agencies keep them under the guns of sport hunters.
Q: BUT HUNTERS AREN'T ALLOWED TO KILL BABY ANIMALS, RIGHT?
-- Allison Wunderlund
A: Some state wildlife agencies set hunting seasons on bears, squirrels, mountain
lions, and other animals during the crucial months when they give birth and nurse their
young. When a mother forages for food or searches for prey and she is killed by a sport
hunter, her orphaned babies are certain to die of starvation or predation.
Q: DON'T HUNTERS TRY TO BE ETHICAL AND FOLLOW THE CONCEPT OF FAIR CHASE?
-- Will Weld
A: There is nothing fair about a chase in which the hunter uses a powerful weapon from
ambush and the victim has no defense except luck. Furthermore, despite the hunting
community's repeated rhetoric of "hunting ethics," they have refused to end
repugnant practices that go above and beyond the cruelty inherent in all sport hunting.
There is clearly no "fair chase" in many of the activities sanctioned by the
hunting community, such as: "canned hunts," where tame, exotic animals -- from African lions to European
boars -- are unfair game for fee-paying hunters at private fenced-in shooting preserves;
"contest kills," from Pennsylvania's pigeon shoots to Colorado's prairie dog
shoots, where shooters use live animals as targets while competing for money and prizes in
front of a cheering crowd; "wing shooting," where hunters lure gentle mourning doves to sunflower fields
and blast the birds of peace into pieces for nothing more than target practice, leaving
more than 20 percent of the birds they shoot crippled and unretrieved;[9] "baiting," where trophy hunters litter public lands with piles of rotten food
so they can attract unwitting bears or deer and shoot the feeding animals at point-blank
range;[10] "hounding," where trophy hunters unleash packs of radio-collared dogs to
chase and tree bears, cougars, raccoons, foxes, bobcats, lynx, and other animals in a
high-tech search and destroy mission, and then follow the radio signal on a handheld
receptor and shoot the trapped animal off the tree branch.
Q: ISN'T HUNTING OKAY IF THEY AVOID HIGH-TECH WEAPONS AND USE MORE NATURAL TECHNIQUES
SUCH AS BOWS AND ARROWS?
-- Ted Nugent
A: Bowhunting is one of the cruelest forms of hunting because primitive archery
equipment wound more animals than it kills. Dozens of scientific studies indicate that
bowhunting yields more than a 50 percent crippling rate.[11] For every animal dragged from
the woods, at least one animal is left wounded to suffer -- either to bleed to death or to
become infested with parasites and diseases.
Q: DON'T SOME PEOPLE NEED TO HUNT FOR FOOD?
-- Sara Edward
A: A few Native cultures may still hunt to survive, but in the continental U.S. hunting
is practiced primarily for sport. Several studies indicate that the average price of
venison from deer shot in the woods -- after calculating the costs of firearms,
ammunition, license fees, travel expenses, etc. -- is about $20.00 per pound. Clearly,
there are more economic ways to eat than by spending $20.00 per pound for food.