Both Reid and Anne Hocker noticed this article in the left- of - center Washington Monthly lamenting the decline of hunting opportunities fror the average man and suggesting ways thet "progressives" have a natural affinity with the issue. While nobody would call me a progressive I think that author Christina Larsen hits the nail on the head.
"Tony Dean, a sort of Walter Cronkite of Midwestern sportsmen, who mixes walleye recipes with political commentary on the popular "Tony Dean Outdoors" show, says he fears a day when hunting and outdoor recreation become pastimes of the elite, something only the well-to-do can afford to enjoy. "Our forefathers left a European system in which wildlife and land belonged only to landowners," Dean told me. "We don't want to go back to being like the Europeans.""
Which would be neither conservative of our traditions, which include public land and access, or conservationist. Ideologues make a mistake if they think that turning hunting into a rich man''s privilege will attract the votes of rural Americans.
Larsen also writes of some interesting contrasts between Kansas and Iowa in policy, favoring Kansas. Despite a dumb anti- evolution stance and (on the other side) a popular book by a leftish academic, in this case at least there's nothing "the matter with Kansas".
PS: Reid writes that at since the piece was posted at Alternet : "...You should see the comments - mostly "how dare they put something like this on a progressive site!!!"
I'd think that breaking the current polarization might be a good thing... sigh.
2 comments:
Thanks for posting this. The loss of hunting opportunities is a real concern. I have friends from other parts of the country who are driving 100 miles or more to access hunting areas, this despite an explosion of species like white-tail deer, Canada goose, etc nearly everywhere.
I lived in Kansas for a year, and my in-laws have a farm in Iowa. In both states, I would have a hard time affording a lease on my salary.
Hunting leases and particularly game ranches look more and more like the European system. The game is intensively "managed" with feeders, breeding stock, even breeding facilities.
When I was living in Pennsylvania, a new hunting ranch once contacted me. The owner had heard I had hunted in Africa so I guess he thought I was likely clientele for his operation. He invited me to tour the property, so I did. There were pens where they were breeding "super bucks", which were then released on the 600-acre preserve. We walked around, almost stumbling over huge deer after huge deer, with some 6x6 elk scattered about. The hunting guide said to me "The $5000 fee might seem like a lot for a deer, but it won't the second week of the season when your buddies are asking if you got your deer yet."
He was wrong; it still sounded like a huge waste of money. But they had no problem drawing "hunters". For the really big deer, the fees were up to $15,000. I have enjoyed reading several stories in outdoor magazines by the outdoor marketers (I can't in honesty call them "outdoor writers") who have hunted this preserve and raved about how challenging it was. Let's at least be honest about it and call it was it is--shopping for trophies, not hunting.
Some hunting ranches in Texas are funding cloning of big game at Texas A&M in the race to produce bigger and bigger trophies.
All this seems to be getting pretty far away from the American model of wildlife and hunting.
On another note, I had a very short and tame essay on meat eating picked up by Alternet recently. It advocated buying from meat from local farmers and ranchers, and eating wild game. It received over 300 responses, most of them from irate vegans who wondered how Alternet could promote such horrifying practices as hunting and ranching. So it goes.
I'll be damned - Stephen Bodio has a blog! I read your essay in "On Killing" last night and thought about how eerily similar my trip through the hunting world has been. I am an Easterner now living in NorCal, a duck hunter's paradise where, paradoxically, it's tough to find good hunting grounds. Quality public land's all lottery (which isn't all bad) and private land's spendy. Sometimes VERY spendy.
And M.L. - how can a 600-acre preserve be challenging? Any hunter with legs that work can over that in a day. Yikes.
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