From: black@che.serum.kodak.com (Robert Black (x37236))
Subject: Re: Why Hunters Quit
Organization: Eastman Kodak
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 20:01:06 GMT

In article <1992Apr15.133043.14472@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> kbrown@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (J. Keith Brown) writes:
>
>
>
>Sorry Ted, but I strongly disagree with your conclusions on the dangers
>to the future existence of hunting being a result of it not being
>interesting.  I suspect that if you posed many of those questions,
>rewritten according to activity, that you would get the same trend in
>answers for any sport or activity.  How many people have tennis rackets,
>golf clubs, running shoes, ski equipment, etc., sitting in a closet gathering
>dust?  The difference in hunting is that you must pay each year for the
>privilege of hunting so it is easy to see when there is a decline.  By 
>the way, there is not decline in licensure sales in NC...maybe it has
>to do with the availability of hunting land in NC vs New Jersey.

But I think Ted's main point was that reduction in hunting (wherever it
occurs) is NOT due to AR activity and is NOT the result of an ETHICAL
"conversion" resulting from AR arguments.

>I am sure that a lot of people start hunting like you would start any
>activity...it sounds interesting and fun.  Once people start, however,
>they find that hunting, like any sport, takes a lot of time and dedication
>both during the hunting season and during off-season (scouting lands,
>learning about the habits of game animals, practicing your 
>marksmanship, etc.).  The sport is not as simple as some people make it
>out to be.
>
>Speaking from personal experience (and let me point out that I hunt, have
>hunted since I was 10, and am teaching my sons to hunt so they can make
>the choice for themselves as whether or not to continue)

But by teaching them at a young age, are you not instilling in them a
powerful pro-hunting bias which will preclude a truly objective analysis
on their part when they are old enough to make the choice.  Perhaps this is
really your goal?  Note, I'm not saying this is wrong, but merely suggesting
that perhaps you are in fact going a long way toward already making that 
choice for them at this early date.

>I would say that
>people quit because they don't have the time to commit to the sport,
>it is difficult to find hunting land due to development or other 
>restrictions, or because of people who take up the sport without taking
>up the responsibility for the sport.  An ethical hunter learns all about
>the sport, the rules, and the game he is pursuing....he is not the
>"slob hunter" that so many AR people try to picture him as.

Depending on exactly what you mean by "slob hunter" and by "so many AR
people", IMO the pro-AR readers of this newsgroup have demonstrated a more 
sophisticated view of hunters.

>As a last thought I will just state that if the hunter is ever stopped
>from his sport, wildlife, at least here in the US, will be more
>threatened than ever.  

Maybe that's true.  Maybe not.  I hope not.  If it's true, would it not seem
more than a little bizarre (or at least ironic) that we as a nation, in order 
to save our meager remaining wildlife, must turn for help to those who enjoy 
killing segments of that very wildlife population?  ...that we must, in our
desperate hour of need, turn to the modern day successors of those who in 
previous centuries brought to extinction, or the verge of extinction, such 
species as the passenger pigeon, the heath hen, the Carolina parrot, the 
eastern cougar?  (I know, I know.  That was "market hunting", this is "sport"
hunting - let's not kid ourselves, alot of those market hunters were 
most likely also driven by the same motivations as is today's sport hunter).

>Keith

RB (black@serum.kodak.com)
These views are not necessarily the views of my employers.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals