From: schwae@marcus.its.rpi.edu (Eric A. Schwartz)
Subject: Re: A veiw on hunting
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1992 06:35:26 GMT

In article <1992Apr9.095220.4912@ac.dal.ca> robinson@ac.dal.ca writes:
>In article <7_1tk+f@rpi.edu>, schwae@marcus.its.rpi.edu (Eric A. Schwartz) writes:
>[...much stuff removed...]
>
>> Point 1:  I was oversimplifying.  I do not believe hunters simply pick
>> a tree to sit in and take potshots at the numerous deer all around them.
>
>While I would not say most of us ever 'take potshots' I would say that we 
>do often pick a tree and sit in it.  The trick is in the picking of the 
>tree.  In order to pick a tree that will yield a shot at a deer, one must 
>know much about the animals habits.
>
Or what one believes about the animal's habits must yield suggestions
about how best to find a deer that are similar to what would work
given the actual habits.  I wouldn't say most take potshots, or have
numerous deer all around them, nor pick a tree simply.  But the fact
that a complex action works does not prove that the assumptions it
is based on are correct.
 
>> Point 2:  Someone in the "hunting community" had said that the only way
>> to groundhunt deer was to stalk and hope other hunters scare one your
>> way.  Still oversimplified, but I was paraphrasing a hunter when I said
>> that.
>
>Well, it isn't the *only* way.  I have heard stories of people to whom this 
>has happened to.  Because the deer's sense of hearing and sense of smell 
>are *so* good it is often quite difficult to sneak up on them by stalking.  
>So difficult that most people aren't up to it.  I was able to get within 
>about 15-20 feet of a pair of them once, but they were rather, uhm, 
>pre-occupied. :-)
>
I assume you didn't shoot them.  Do you think some yahoo who would
should be allowed to hunt?

>> Point 3:  I have read quite a few hunting/fishing magazines.  They 
>> contained quite a lot of useful information.  The problem was in the
>> quality of the information, not the lack of it.  Much of common hunting
>> lore is simply myth.  Like most myths, it has some grounding in reality,
>> but many "facts" are distorted or made up.  
>
>I think you over state the case here.  Much hunting lore is remains 
>unverified by scientific means.  Very little of it is actual myth.  Mind 
>you, it depends on whose lore you read.  
>
It's mainly myth.  Maybe it is true, too, but it is still myth.  

>> Much of current biological knowledge is based on former hunting lore.  I'm
>> not saying it is crap.  Much of it is totally correct, and has been 
>> objectively demonstrated.  Much of it is simply unproven either way, and
>> is correct in reality.  My problem with the knowledge of the "hunting
>> community" is twofold.  For one thing, there is that last part, the part
>> that is crap.  False assumptions that don't hurt hunting success, 
>> techniques that work, but by chance and not becase the underlying
>> theory is correct, baldface lies formulated to placate AR, or earlier
>
>Hmmm.  Can you point to any 'baldface lies....' here?  I haven't seen any 
>efforts to placate AR groups.
>
Not in deer hunting, at least nothing I've been able to catch.  But fox
hunters used to say that they never caught nursing females since they
lose their scent when nursing.  It was such a blatant lie that they gave 
up and admitted it wasn't true years ago.  They also said that they often
called the hounds off when they realized they were chasing one.  Which,
aside from contradicting the previous statement, wasn't generally possible,
since they tended to follow the hounds at quite a distance, and couldn't 
usually see the fox clearly enough to tell until it was dead.

>> Humane groups, old lies that are now accepted as fact; these all
>> are also present in the vast body of knowledge the "hunting community"
>> possesses.  The second part of my problem is that no organized effort
>> is put out by the "hunting community" to verify what is and is not true.
>> As long as something isn't blatantly false to the extent that going on
>> the truth of that information doesn't result in no hunting success, it
>> is assumed correct.  It "fits my experience."  A hundred and one other
>> reasons could exist for why some bit of hunting "truth" works in practice.
>
>While I've not actually attended one, I think that the NRA Whitetail 
>hunting conventions (can't remember their exact name) are a good step in 
>this direction.
>
A brief review of my NRA member's guide says nothing about supporting
research to determine what is and isn't based on fact.  I'm happy to
say they do believe hunting must be supported by scientific conservation
practices, and the right of state agencies to regulate hunting towards
that end.  They also state "We feel that every hunter must behave ethically
and responsibly."  A bit vague, but it could be interpreted as mandating
conscientious consideration of ethical arguments for and against hunting.

>> I use my favorite example for this.  Some hunters have said deer stare
>> at them.  This is patently false, but probably not a lie.  It is easy
>> for anyone who has ever seen a deer to mistake their gaze for a stare.
>> They have big, alert eyes, and humans are naturally (?) willing to 
>> assume someone is staring at them.  The fact is that deer cannot
>> stare at people.  Their eyes are on the side of the head, designed for
>> range of visual field, and not clarity of front field view.  They have
>> no cone cells, and therefore, neither color nor detail vision.  They   
>> see motion, and contrasts of light and dark.  So they wouldn't see what
>> they were staring "at", even if it were the hunter.  They are simply 
>> scanning a field for potential threats, and the hunter assumes that to be
>> a directed stare.  Hunting lore holds that if a deer stares at you, you
>> stand still so it doesn't consider you a threat.  This works, though the
>> basis in "fact" is false.  By not moving, the deer never sees you at all.
>> It never knows you aren't just a fallen branch or rusling leaf.  A
>> technique doesn't have to be correct to work.  Does anyone here have
>> any first hand experience that a casual technique does not work?   The
>> problem with hunting lore and "first hand experience" is that without
>> a broad base of knowledge and a sense of skepticism, it is nearly
>> impossible to pick the good stuff and the crap apart. 
>
>This may be true.  However, I've been reading hunting literature for over a 
>decade now and I have seen the debate ebb and flow as to what deer really 
>do and do not see.  I'm still not convinced we've heard the last of this 
>debate either way, but I don't wish to debate it here.  Suffice it to say 
>as a hunter that when deer look in my direction I move very slowly and 
>deliberately, if I move at all.
>
The hunting literature is not the place to be looking.  Check the 
anatomy and physiology literature.
 
>> How does hunting deer give you knowledge of "wildlife behavior in 
>> general?
>
>You'd be surprised.  All that time spent in the woods hunting deer is an 
>ideal opportunity to observe other forms of wildlife first hand.  One can 
>see everything from woodpeckers to bears, depending on where one is 
>hunting.  You can often learn a great deal just by sitting quietly and 
>whatching them.
>
But what is seen must be evaluated with an eye towards discrediting your
own observations in order to determine anything with a reasonable degree
of proof.
 
>> Off the top of my head, I know 7 hunters.  Now that I think about it,
>> make that 15.  Probably more I'm not thinking of at the moment.  My
>> view of the _hunter_ is not limited.  My view of what hunting knowledge
>> has to teach is not limited either.  A lot of it is useful, factual
>> info.  What is clearly limited is the sense of proof surrounding the
>> vast majority of hunting lore.  Too much is based on unproven assumptions.
>> Simply because something isn't proven wrong doesn't make it correct.
>
>Your are correct in saying that we have a more relaxed standard of proof 
>than the scientific community.  That is completely consonant with our 
>purpose.  We as hunters are interested in information that helps our hunt 
>be more successful.  Now, that might take the form of uproven anecdotal 
>evidence, but what often happens is that one person reports a particular 
>behavior and then others observe it and report their findings.  Information 
>tends to be more useful when it is in the form of first hand observations 
>of the deer themselves.  The interpretation of the behavior is less 
>important to us in some cases than noticing that the behavior seems to be 
>consistent under certain circumstances.
>
Useful, but not necessarily factual.  And not particularly useful at all
for drawing conclusions based on it.  If the underlying assumptions 
on which hunting practice is based are incorrect, then extrapolating
as to what is and is not good for deer isn't possible with any degree of
accuracy.

>As an example of the above, 10-15 years ago very few hunters would have 
>ever considered rattling antlers to get a deer's attention.  After all, 
>conventional wisdom of the time said that if you wanted to see deer you had 
>to be QUIET.  Rattling antlers is anything but.  When this was initially 
>written up in various magazines, many people were skeptical but tried it 
>anyway and discovered that very often it *did* attract deer.  We speculate 
>that this is because it imitates the sounds of two bucks fighting it out 
>for dominance during the mating season, but to the best of my knowledge 
>that speculation has not been *proven* to be true.  It doesn't need to be 
>proven to be useful to us.  Now, rattling is a widely accepted hunting 
>technique, and now that it is more widely accepted, many are discovering 
>that it doesn't *always* work.  Still it is useful information.
>
But if someone experimented early on to try and find out why it works,
it could have been known already when it will and will not work, what
might work better, ...

Knowing the underlying cause of events is more useful than knowing that
they happen.

>Mike Linan (I think) writes:
>
>>>	I am still willing to bet that the vast majority of hunters are 
>>>	better informed and have more FIRST HAND experience with wildlife
>>>	than most of the city dwelling AR types who probably get most of   
>>>	their information to form their views from AR propaganda.
>>>
>> Better informed by what measure?  Number of facts?  Number of correct
>> facts?  Proportion of correct facts?  Anyway, the issue is not what
>> AR city slickers know, it is what hunters know.  Who's the one obscuring
>> the debate with smokescreens?  
>
>Better informed by a proportion of correct facts I suspect.  Not 
>scientifically proven facts but correct facts.  This is a direct 
>consequence IMHO of one's own first hand experiences and a reading of the 
>first hand experiences of others.  I don't think anyone is trying to argue 
>that all hunters have a better understanding of deer than anyone else 
>(thoguh perhaps one could make a case for that) but rather that we as a 
>whole have a better understanding of our quarry, because that understanding 
>is important to successfully bagging it, than our AR opponents do.
>
I'd disagree.  Maybe by number or number correct, but I'd doubt by
proportion.  I don't know all that much about deer, but what I know
is well verified as correct.  Scientists aren't perfect, but I'd
bet my knowledge of deer is at least 95% correct.  Not very broad,
but very thoroughly verified.  What I know about most small
carnivores and many rodents is far more extensive.  

An understanding of deer is not necessary for bagging them.  Just
a knowledge of techniques that work for bagging deer.    

>> First hand experience without critical, SKEPTICAL evaluation is useless
>> except as a descriptive account.
>
>Very true.  Many of us are very critical and very skeptical.
>
Unless we have different definitions of critical and skeptical, I 
haven't seen it.  To establish fact, one must attempt to discredit
one's own observations, and find any and all other influences that
may cause the observations to be the way they are.

>> No, but how do you verify when they have and have not detected you?  
>> How do you judge what parts of their behavior are due to your presence,
>> and how much is due to normal behavior?  How much does their behavior
>> change when hunted, and how can you judge that if you don't observe
>> without hunting?  How do you know what you observe as changes during
>> "hunting season" aren't due to the season of the year as opposed to the
>> hunting?  
>
>Well, when they wander around your tree stand without a care in the world 
>and then suddenly stop, stiffen, stamp the ground it is easy to see that 
>they are disturbed.  Does that mean they've necessarily detected *you*?  
>No, but it is often the most reasonable explanation under the 
>circumstances.
>
Yes, but how would you test that observation?

>Some changes are due to the season of the year.  We certainly haven't 
>figured out all of them but some among us have observed deer in habitats 
>and refuges during hunting season and so we have a pretty good idea of 
>which changes are due to the season of the year and which are due to 
>hunting.  Another good yardstick to use is pre and post season scouting.  
>Many more hunters do the former, but some do the latter as well.  It is 
>interesting to note that shortly after the end of the season deer often go 
>back to using trails that they used prior to the season, but abandonded during
>the season.  Now it could still be a season of the year thing in this case, 
>but observations of deer in other areas which are free of hunting would tend 
>to belie that.
>
That is more rigorous, but did it take into account the different mean
yearllly temperatures in the hunting/no hunting areas?  Or the different
lattitudes they were observed at?  That could give different lengths of
sunlight to darkness.  And were the observations repeated in the same
places for several years?

E.S.