Ill Nature

by Joy Williams

  Hunters like categories they can tailor to their needs. There are the “good” animals—deer, elk, bear, moose—which are allowed to exist for the hunter’s pleasure. Then there are the “bad” animals, the vermin, varmints, and “nuisance” animals, the rabbits and raccoons and coyotes and beavers and badgers, which are disencouraged to exist. The hunter can have fun killing them, but the pleasure is diminished because the animals aren’t “magnificent.”

  Many people in South Dakota want to exterminate the red fox because it preys upon some of the ducks and pheasant they want to hunt and kill each year. They found that after they killed the wolves and coyotes, they had more foxes than they wanted. The ring-necked pheasant is South Dakota’s state bird. No matter that it was imported from Asia specifically to be “harvested” for sport, it’s South Dakota’s state bird and they’re proud of it. A group called Pheasants Unlimited gave some tips on how to hunt foxes: Place a small amount of larvicide [a grain fumigant] on a rag and chuck it down the hole. . . . The first pup generally comes out in fifteen minutes. . . . Use a .22 to dispatch him. . . . Remove each pup shot from the hole. Following gassing, set traps for the old fox who will return later in the evening. . . . Poisoning, shooting, trapping—they make up a sort of sportsman’s triathalon.

  In the hunting magazines, hunters freely admit the pleasure of killing to one another. Undeniable pleasure radiated from her smile. The excitement of shooting the bear had Barb talking a mile a minute. But in public, most hunters are becoming a little wary about raving on as to how much fun it is to kill things. Hunters have a tendency to call large animals by cute names—“bruins” and “muleys,” “berry-fed blackies” and “handsome cusses” and “big guys,” thereby implying a balanced jolly game of mutual satisfaction between hunter and the hunted— Bam, bam, bam, I get to shoot you and you get to be dead. More often, though, when dealing with the nonhunting public, a drier, businesslike tone is employed. Animals become a “resource” that must be “utilized.” Hunting becomes “a legitimate use of the resource.” Animals become a product like wool or lumber or a crop like fruit or corn that must be “collected” or “taken” or “harvested.” Hunters love to use the word legitimate. (Oddly, Tolstoy referred to hunting as “evil legitimized.”) A legitimate use, a legitimate form of recreation, a legitimate escape, a legitimate pursuit. It’s a word they trust will slam the door on discourse. Hunters are increasingly relying upon their spokesmen and supporters, state and federal game managers and wildlife officials, to employ solemn bureaucratic language and toss around a lot of questionable statistics to assure the nonhunting public (93 percent!) that there’s nothing to worry about. The pogrom is under control. The mass murder and manipulation of wild animals is just another business. Hunters are a tiny minority, and it’s crucial to them that the millions of people who don’t hunt not be awakened from their long sleep and become antihunting. Nonhunters are okay. Dweeby, probably, but okay. A hunter can respect the rights of a nonhunter. It’s the “antis” he despises, those misguided, emotional, not-in-possession-of-the-facts, uninformed zealots who don’t understand nature. . . . Those dimestore ecologists cloaked in ignorance and spurred by emotion. . . . Those doggy-woggy types, who under the guise of being environmentalists and conservationists are working to deprive him of his precious right to kill. (Sometimes it’s just a right; sometimes it’s a God-given right.) Antis can be scorned, but nonhunters must be pacified, and this is where the number crunching of wildlife biologists and the scripts of professional resource managers come in. Leave it to the professionals. They know what numbers are the good numbers. Utah determined that there were six hundred sandhill cranes in the state, so permits were issued to shoot one hundred of them. Don’t want to have too many sandhill cranes. California wildlife officials report “sufficient numbers” of mountain lions to “justify” renewed hunting, because the animal is not “rare.” (It’s always a dark day for hunters when an animal is adjudged rare. How can its numbers be “controlled” through hunting if it scarcely exists?) A citizens’ referendum of 1994 prohibits the hunting of the mountain lion in perpetuity in that state, though hunting lobbies continue to finance ballot initiatives that would weaken if not nullify such protection. (To hear the wannabe lion hunters talk, the big cat’s preferred habitat is directly outside the schoolyard gates.) With or without protection, lions are killed anyway, in California and all over the West annually by the government as a social courtesy to modern settlers carving suburbs in the wild and as a professional courtesy to ranchers. One dead calf usually results in four dead mountain lions. In Oregon, state biologists applied for a one million dollar grant to kill fifty mountain lions just to see if they could determine if fewer cougars would result in more deer and elk. Are cougars keeping huntable herd levels down or just eating animals that would have died anyway? Biologists want to know! In Montana, buffalo can be extirpated only by government shooters, though officials would like to reclassify them as big-game animals, which would qualify them to be shot by sportsmen. Montana has definite ideas concerning the number of buffalo that can be tolerated. Zero is the number. Montana is so annoyed that the creatures weren’t eradicated a century ago. (Why didn’t they thunder off into extinction? Then we could feel bad about them. . . .) In the winter of 1988, nearly six hundred buffalo wandered out of the north boundary of Yellowstone Park and into Montana, where they were immediately shot at point-blank range by lottery-winning hunters. It was easy. And it was obvious from a video taken on one of the blow-away-a-bison days that the hunters had a heck of a good time. Buffalo don’t spook easily. In general, they just stand around in their massive fashion, making exceptionally easy targets. The video disturbed a lot of nonhunters—it just didn’t seem fair—so Montana is laboring to formulate a “fair chase” hunt, which would entail getting those shaggy symbols of an unfettered West to move, maybe break into a trot. As well as wanting zero buffalo, Montana wants zero wolves. Large predators—including grizzlies, cougars, and wolves—are often the most “beautiful,” the smartest and wildest animals of all. The gray wolf is both a supreme predator and an endangered species, and since the Supreme Court has affirmed that ranchers have no constitutional right to kill endangered predators—apparently some God-given rights are not constitutional ones—this makes the wolf a more or less lucky dog, though pretty much on paper. A small population of gray wolves has established itself in northwestern Montana, primarily in Glacier National Park, and a pilot “recovery” program continues in Arizona’s White Mountains despite some disheartening initial results (of eleven wolves released, five were shot dead by persons unknown). It has long been a dream of conservationists to bring back the wolf to Yellowstone. A “reintroduction” plan is proceeding. But to please ranchers and hunters, part of the plan would involve immediately removing the wolf from the endangered-species list. Beyond the park’s boundaries, the wolf could be hunted as a “game animal” or exterminated as a “pest.” (Hunters kill to hunt, remember, except when they’re hunting to kill.) The area of Yellowstone where the wolf would be restored is the same mountain and high-plateau country that is abandoned in winter by most animals, including the aforementioned luckless bison. Part of the plan, too, is compensation to ranchers if any of their far-ranging livestock is killed by a wolf. It’s a real industry out there, apparently, killing and controlling and getting compensated for losing something under the Big Sky. Wolves gotta eat—a fact that disturbs hunters. Jack Atcheson, an outfitter in Butte, said, Some wolves are fine if there is control. But there never will be control. The wolf-control plan provided by the Fish and Wildlife Service speaks only of protecting domestic livestock. There is no plan to protect wildlife. . . . There are no surplus deer or elk in Montana. . . . Their numbers are carefully managed. With uncontrolled wolf populations, a lot of people will have to give up hunting just to feed wolves. Will you give up your elk permit for a wolf?

  It won’t be long before hunters start demanding compensation for animals they aren’t able to sh
oot.

  Hunters believe that wild animals exist only to satisfy their wish to kill them. And it’s so easy to kill them! The weaponry available is staggering, and the equipment and gear limitless. The demand for big boomers has never been greater than right now, Outdoor Life crows, and the makers of rifles and cartridges are responding to the craze with a variety of light artillery that is virtually unprecedented in the history of sporting arms. . . . Hunters use grossly overpowered shotguns and rifles and compound bows. They rely on all manner of vehicles that swiftly place them in otherwise inaccessible landscapes. . . . He was interesting, the only moving living creature on that limitless white expanse. I slipped a cartridge into the barrel of my rifle and threw the safety off. . . . They use snowmobiles to run down elk, and dogs to run down and tree cougars. It’s easy to shoot an animal out of a tree. It’s virtually impossible to miss a moose, a conspicuous animal of steady habits. . . . I took a deep breath and pulled the trigger. The bull dropped. I looked at my watch: 8:22. The big guy was early. Mike started whooping and hollering and I joined him. I never realized how big a moose was until this one was on the ground. We took pictures. . . . Hunters shoot animals when they’re resting. . . . Mike selected a deer settled down to a steady rest, and fired. The buck was his when he squeezed the trigger. John decided to take the other buck, which had jumped up to its feet. The deer hadn’t seen us and was confused by the shot echoing about in the valley. John took careful aim, fired, and took the buck. The hunt was over. . . . And they shoot them when they’re eating. . . . The bruin ambled up the stream, checking gravel bars and backwaters for fish. Finally he plopped down on the bank to eat. Quickly, I tiptoed into range. . . . They use sex lures. . . . The big buck raised its nose to the air, curled back its lips, and tested the scent of the doe’s urine. I held my breath, fought back the shivers, and jerked off a shot. The 180-grain spire-point bullet caught the buck high on the back behind the shoulder and put it down. It didn’t get up. . . . They use walkie-talkies, binoculars, scopes. . . . With my 308 Browning BLR, I steadied the 9X cross hairs on the front of the bear’s massive shoulders and squeezed. The bear cartwheeled backward for fifty yards. . . . The second Federal Premium 165-grain bullet found its mark. Another shot anchored the bear for good. . . . They bait deer with corn. They spread popcorn on golf courses for Canada geese, and they douse meat baits with fry grease and honey for bears. . . . Make the baiting site redolent of inner-city doughnut shops. They use blinds and tree stands and mobile stands. They go out in groups, in gangs, and employ “pushes” and “drives.” So many methods are effective. So few rules apply. It’s fun! . . . We kept on repelling the swarms of birds as they came in looking for shelter from that big ocean wind, emptying our shell belts. . . . A species can, in the vernacular, be pressured by hunting (which means that killing them has decimated them), but that just increases the fun, the challenge. There is practically no criticism of conduct within the ranks. . . . It’s mostly a matter of opinion and how hunters have been brought up to hunt. . . . Although a recent editorial in Ducks Unlimited magazine did venture to primly suggest that one should not fall victim to greed-induced stress through piggish competition with others.

  But hunters are piggy. They just can’t seem to help it. They’re overequipped . . . insatiable, malevolent, and vain. They maim and mutilate and despoil. And for the most part, they’re inept. Grossly inept.

  Camouflaged toilet paper is a must for the modern hunter, along with his Bronco and his beer. Too many hunters taking a dump in the woods with their roll of Charmin beside them were mistaken for white-tailed deer and shot. Hunters get excited. They’ll shoot anything—the pallid ass of another sportsman or even themselves. A Long Island man died when his shotgun went off as he clubbed a wounded deer with the butt. Hunters get mad. They get restless and want to fire! They want to use those assault rifles and see foamy blood on the ferns. Wounded animals can travel for miles in fear and pain before they collapse. Countless gut-shot deer— if you hear a sudden squashy thump, the animal has probably been hit in the abdomen—are “lost” each year. “Poorly placed shots” are frequent, and injured animals are seldom tracked, because most hunters have never learned how to track. The majority of hunters will shoot at anything with four legs during deer season and anything with wings during duck season. Hunters try to nail running animals and distant birds. They become so overeager, so aroused, that they misidentify and misjudge, spraying their “game” with shots but failing to bring it down.

  The fact is, hunters’ lack of skill is a big, big problem. And nowhere is the problem worse than in the touted glamour recreation—bow hunting. These guys are elitists. They doll themselves up in camouflage, paint their faces black, and climb up into tree stands from which they attempt the penetration of deer, elk, and turkeys with modern, multiblade, broadhead arrows shot from sophisticated, easy-to-draw compound bows. This “primitive” way of hunting appeals to many, and even the nonhunter may feel that it’s a “fairer” method, requiring more strength and skill, but bow hunting is the cruelest, most wanton form of wildlife disposal of all. Studies conducted by state fish and wildlife departments repeatedly show that bow hunters wound and fail to retrieve as many animals as they kill. An animal that flees, wounded by an arrow, will most assuredly die of the wound, but it will be days before he does. Even with a “good” hit, the time between the strike and death is exceedingly long. The rule of thumb has long been that we should wait thirty to forty-five minutes on heart and lung hits, an hour or more on a suspected liver hit, eight to twelve hours on paunch hits, and that we should follow immediately on hindquarter and other muscle-only hits, to keep the wound open and bleeding, is the advice in the magazine Fins and Feathers. What the hunter does as he hangs around waiting for his animal to finish with its terrified running and dying hasn’t been studied—maybe he puts on more makeup, maybe he has a highball.

  Wildlife agencies promote and encourage bow hunting by permitting earlier and longer seasons, even though they are well aware that, in their words, crippling is a by-product of the sport, making archers pretty sloppy for elitists. The broadhead arrow is a very inefficient killing tool. Bow hunters are trying to deal with this problem with the suggestion that they use poison pods. These poisoned arrows are illegal in all states except Mississippi (Ah’m gonna get ma deer even if ah just nick the little bastard), but they’re widely used anyway. You wouldn’t want that deer to suffer, would you?

  The mystique of the efficacy and decency of the bow hunter is as much an illusion as the perception that a waterfowler is a refined and thoughtful fellow, a romantic aesthete, as the writer Vance Bourjaily put it, equipped with his faithful lab and a love for solitude and wild places. More sentimental drivel has been written about bird shooting than about any other type of hunting. It’s a soul-wrenching pursuit, apparently, the execution of birds in flight. Ducks Unlimited—an organization that has managed to put a spin on the word conservation for years—works hard to project the idea that duck hunters are blue bloods and that duck stamps with their pretty pictures are responsible for saving all the saved puddles in North America. Sportsman’s conservation is a contradiction in terms (We protect things now so that we can kill them later) and is broadly interpreted (Don’t kill them all; just kill most of them). A hunter is a conservationist in the same way a farmer or a rancher is: He’s not. Like the rancher who kills everything that’s not stock on his (and the public’s) land, and the farmer who scorns wildlife because “they don’t pay their freight,” the hunter uses nature by destroying its parts, mastering it by simplifying it through death.

  The previously mentioned sports mag intellectual (“We kill to hunt and not the other way around”) said that the “dedicated” waterfowler will shoot other game “of course,” but they do so much in the same spirit of the lyrics, that when we’re not near the girl we love, we love the girl we’re near. (Duck hunters practice tough love.) The fact is, far from being a romantic aesthete, the waterfowler is the most avaricious of
all hunters. . . . That’s when Scott suggested the friendly wager on who would take the most birds . . . and the most resistant to minimum ecological decency. Millions of birds that managed to elude shotgun blasts were dying each year from ingesting the lead shot that rained down in the wetlands. Decade after decade, birds perished from feeding on spent lead, but hunters were “reluctant” to switch to steel. They worried that it would impair their shooting, and ammunition manufacturers said a changeover would be “expensive.” State and federal officials had to weigh the poisoning against those considerations. It took forever, this weighing, but now steel-shot loads are required almost everywhere, having been judged “more than adequate” to bring down the birds. This is not to say, of course, that most duck hunters use steel shot everywhere. They’re traditionalists and don’t care for all the new, pesky rules. Oh, for the golden age of waterfowling, when a man could measure a good day’s shooting by the pickup load. But those days are gone. Fall is a melancholy time, all right.

  Spectacular abuses occur wherever geese congregate, quietly notes Shooting Sportsman, something that the more cultivated Ducks Unlimited would hesitate to admit. Waterfowl populations are plummeting, and waterfowl hunters are out of control. “Supervised” hunts are hardly distinguished from unsupervised ones. A biologist with the Department of the Interior who observed a hunt at Sand Lake in South Dakota said, Hunters repeatedly shot over the line at incoming flights where there was no possible chance of retrieving. Time and time again I was shocked at the behavior of hunters. I heard them laugh at the plight of dazed cripples that stumbled about. I saw them striking the heads of retrieved cripples against fence posts. In the South, wood ducks return to their roosts after sunset when shooting hours are closed. Hunters find this an excellent time to shoot them. Dennis Anderson, an outdoors writer, said, Roost shooters just fire at the birds as fast as they can, trying to drop as many as they can. Then they grab what birds they can find. The birds they can’t find in the dark, they leave behind.