Reprinted from a Nov 5, 2006 column in the Morgantown Dominion Post
A 1995 national survey shows that 73 percent of the American public favored hunting. Even with all the animal rights, PETA, and the Humane Society of the United States antihunting activities, in 2006 the support for hunting jumped to 78 percent. Most citizens support hunting. If that is true, than the future of hunting should be bright, but it isn’t and here’s why.
First, and maybe foremost, the number of hunters is decreasing. The majority of Americans now live in cities over 50,000. This means that most do not relate to the death of animals, indeed, most do not relate to the outdoors. Sure kids play soccer, football, and other outdoor sports. But most don’t know the woods, the wild animals that live there, and many are even afraid of the woods.
The number one factor that determines whether a child (or adult) will hunt is whether they know a hunter. As more and more people get further removed from the farm, get further entrenched in city life, fewer and fewer people will know a hunter. The trend is happening everywhere. Take Indiana for example. In 1996 there were 300,000 deer hunters but 6 years later (2002) that number had plummeted to 210,000. Whoa.
We haven’t seen a big drop in West Virginia, probably because we are a very rural state. But the decreases in many states has been large, and down the road, the drop in hunter numbers will happen here too.
There are other reasons for a gloomy appraisal of the future of hunting. Habitat is disappearing. Take the Mt. Nebo Wildlife Management area near Oakland, Maryland. That 2,000-acre state wildlife area was established for the management of ruffed grouse. I used to take my wildlife classes there to see the quality management they did for grouse. But it has changed. Grouse need younger age stands of timber. However, when the state attempts to make even small timber cuts at Mt. Nebo, the Baltimore anti-timber cutting folks go crazy. With less timber cutting on the Mt. Nebo Wildlife Management Area, there is less grouse, songbirds, wildlife.
What about bigger timber areas? Consider the management of timber on the U. S. Forest Service National Forests. We are talking about management on 250 million acres of public land, and the Forest Service has done a great job. Sure in the past there was some over cutting of timber in the West, but today the Forest Service handles the difficult job of managing these public forests for everyone with skill, expertise, and great planning. But animal rights and environmental groups making the cutting of timber on our National Forests very difficult. You might say, "hey, cutting timber on National Forests is a bad thing. Don’t we want old growth forests?"
Yes, we do want some old growth, but we need a diverse forest to have a healthy forest. It’s called diversity. When our forests move into mid-successional forests, they are the least productive relative to biodiversity. They are also the least productive for deer, bear, elk, grouse, turkey, songbirds, etc. We need a mix of younger stands of timber to get a mix of wildlife.
When the Forest Service submits a forest plan for a National Forest (which they must do periodically), antihunting groups respond with thousands of "public" comments against any proposed timber cutting. This is happening now all over the country and right in our back yard in the Northeast. In some forests the only ways we are getting diversity in age stands of timber is by insects and fires that kill trees. The present antitimber cutting effort is being led by antihunting forces. They provide lots of public comments on National Forest plans, and hunting groups do not. Since the Forest Service has to respond to a degree to public comment, timber cutting is dwindling on National Forests.
You read it here first. I predict that in the next 50 years most timber cutting will be stopped on some National Forests, and the timber, wildlife, habitat, and biodiversity will suffer a great deal. In fact, such a happening will be an ecological disaster. Sad future, but it is what it is.
There are some other gloomy things that make the future of hunting bleak. Some U. S. Fish and Wildlife employees with an antihunting bias restrict the import of hunter-killed animals from foreign countries even though hunting is the only incentive to keep such animals alive in those countries. Grist for another column.
Then we have the mergers of the Humane Society of the United States with the Fund For Animals and the Doris Day Animal League which will lead to hundreds of millions of dollars per year going into antihunting legal battles. Hunting groups don’t have such resources, and they will lose.
If you look way down the road, things do not look good for hunting and thus many wildlife species will suffer. But right now, the bucks are rutting, and it is an exciting time to get outdoors. So I’ll put these gloomy thoughts to rest for a bit and sneak into my tree stand. A great mental break from the negatives that face us every day.
