Conference vmsnet::hunting$note:hunting

940.0. "A Book To Read" by WFOV12::DRUMM (it's still all up hill!!) Thu Apr 04 1991 14:38

            I suggest this be  extracted  to  your  account  then
         printed for reading, in the interest of system tie-up.
       
            Following  are  three  excerpts  from  a  book  I  am
         reading. They so stirred me that  I  felt  compelled  to
         share them with all of you. The book is titled:
       
            A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC by Aldo Leopold.
       
            I  think  that  each  and every one of us should read
         this wonderful book. And let you S.O. read this paper, they
         may start to understand what it is that drives us to hunt
         and fish as we do. The book does not deal with  hunting  as
         you  might  think  from  the  following excerpts but has
         become a established environmental classic.
       
            Aldo  Leopold  died  in  1948  before  the  book  was
         published.  His  son Luna edited the material and saw it
         through to publication.
       
            I  have  not  acquired  permission  to  reprint  these
         excerpts  but  in  the light of the Books value I do not
         feel Aldo or his family  descendants  would  mind  a  few
         pages  being  extracted.  After all, I think most of you
         would purchase the book to read it in it's entirety  now
         that I have exposed you to parts there of. 
       
            Please  remember  that  Leopold  wrote  this  in  the
         1930-40s and some of the hunting  facts  may  no  longer
         hold  true  as in the section on Wisconsin deer hunters.
         And now the short excerpts.
       
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                     WildLife in American Culture
         
            The culture of primitive peoples is  often  based  on
         wildlife.  Thus the plains Indians not only ate buffalo,
         but buffalo largely determined his architecture,  dress,
         language, arts, and religion.
       
            In  civilized  peoples  the   culture   base   shifts
         elsewhere,  but the culture nevertheless retains part of
         its wild roots. I here discuss the value  of  this  wild
         rootage.
       
            No  one  can  weigh on measure culture, hence I shall
         waste no time trying to do so. Suffice it to say that by
         common consent of thinking people,  there  are  cultural
         values  in  the  sports,  customs,  and experiences that
         renew contacts with wild things. I venture  the  opinion
         that these values are of three kinds.
       
            First  there  is value in any experience that reminds
         us of our distinctive national  origins  and  evolution,
         i.e. that stimulates awareness of history. Such awareness
         is `nationalism' in its best sense. For lack of any other
         short  name,  I  shall  call  this,  in  our  case, the
         `split-rail value.' For example: A boy scout has  tanned
         a  coonskin  cap,  and  goes Daniel-Booning in the willow
         thicket below the  tracks.  He  is  reenacting  American
         history.  He  is,  to that extent, culturally prepared to
         face the dark  and  bloody  realities  of  the  present.
         Again: a farmer boy arrives in the schoolroom reeking of
         muskrat; he has tended his traps before breakfast. He is
         reenacting  the  romance  of  the  fur  trade.  Ontogeny
         repeats   phylogeny   in  society  as  well  as  in  the
         individual.
       
            Second, there is value in any experience that  reminds
         us  of  our dependency on the soil-plant-animal-man food
         chain, and of the fundamental organization of the biota.
         Civilization has so  cluttered  this  element  man-earth
         relation with gadgets and middlemen that awareness of it
         is  growing  dim.  We  fancy  that industry supports us,
         forgetting   what   supports  industry.  Time  was  when
         education moved toward  soil,  not  away  from  it.  The
         nursery jingle about bringing home a rabbit skin to wrap
         the  baby  bunting  in  is  one  of  many  reminders  in
         folk-lore that man once hunted to feed  and  clothe  his
         family.
       
            A  particular  virtue  in wildlife ethics is that the
         hunter   ordinarily   has   no  gallery  to  applaud  or
         disapprove of his conduct. Whatever his acts,  they  are
         dictated  by his own conscience, rather than by a mob of
         onlookers. It is difficult to exaggerate the  importance
         of this fact.
       
            Voluntary  adherence  to an ethical code elevates the
         self-respect of the sportsman,  but  it  should  not  be
         forgotten  that  voluntary   disregard   of   the   code
         degenerates  and  deprives  him.  For  example, a common
         denominator of all sporting codes is not to  waste  good
         meat.  Yet  it is now a demonstrated fact that Wisconsin
         deer-hunters, in their pursuit of a legal buck, kill and
         abandon in the woods at least one  doe,  fawn,  or  spike
         buck  for  every  two  legal  bucks  taken out. In other
         words, approximately half the  hunters  shoot  any  deer
         until  a legal deer is killed. The illegal carcasses are
         left   without  social  value,  but  constitutes  actual
         training for ethical depravity elsewhere.
       
            It seems, then, that  the  split-rail  and  man-earth
         experiences  have  zero or plus values, but that ethical
         experiences may have minus values as well.
       
            This, then, defines roughly three kinds  of  cultural
         nutriment  available  to  our  outdoor roots. It does not
         follow that culture is fed. The extraction of value  is
         never  automatic;  only  a  healthy culture can feed and
         grow. Is culture fed by our  present  forms  of  outdoor
         recreation?
       
            The  pioneer  period gave birth to two ideas that are
         the essence of split-rail value in outdoor  sports.  One
         is    the    `go-light'    idea,    the    other     the
         `one-bullet-one-buck'  idea.  The  pioneer went light of
         necessity. He shot with economy and precision because he
         lacked   the   transport,  the  cash,  and  the  weapons
         requisite for machine-gun tactics. Let it be clear, then,
         that in their exception, both of these ideas were forced
         on us; we made virtue of necessity.
       
            In their later evolution, however, they became a code
         of sportsmanship, a self-imposed limitation on sport. On
         them is based  a  distinctively  American  tradition  of
         self-reliance,  hardihood,  woodcraft, and marksmanship.
         These are intangibles, but  they  are  not  abstraction.
         Theodore Roosevelt was a great sportsman, not because he
         hung  up  many  trophies,  but because he expressed this
         intangible American tradition  in  words  any  schoolboy
         could  understand. A more subtle and accurate expression
         is found in the early writings of Stewart Edward  White.
         It  is  not  far  amiss  to  say  that  such men created
         cultural value by being aware of it, and  by  creating a
         pattern for its growth.
       
            Then  came  the  gadgeteer,  otherwise  know  as  the
         sporting-goods   dealer.  He  has  draped  the  American
         outdoorsman   with  an  infinity  of  contraptions,  all
         offered as aids to self-reliance, hardihood,  woodcraft,
         or  marksmanship,   but   too   often   functioning   as
         substitutes  for  them.  Gadgets  fill the pockets, they
         dangle from the neck and belt. The  overflow  fills  the
         auto-trunk,  and  also the trailer. Each item of outdoor
         equipment  grows  lighter  and  often  better,  but  the
         aggregate  poundage  becomes  tonnage.  The  traffic  in
         gadgets adds up to astronomical sums, which are  soberly
         published  as  respecting   `the   economic   value   of
         wildlife.' But what of cultural values?
       
            As an end-case consider the duck hunter, sitting in a
         steel  boat  behind  composition decoys. A put-put motor
         has brought him to the blind  without  exercise.  Canned
         heat  stands  by to warm him in case of a chilling wind.
         He talks to a passing flock on a factory caller,  in  what
         he  hopes  are  seductive  tones;  home  lessons  from a
         phonograph record have taught him how. The decoys  work,
         despite  the caller; a flock circles in. It must be shot
         at before it circles twice, for the marsh bristles  with
         other  sportsmen,  similarly  accounted, who might shoot
         first. He opens up at 70 yards, for  his  polychoke  is
         set  for  infinity, and the advertisements have told him
         that Super-Z shells, and plenty of  them,  have  a  long
         reach.  The  flock flairs. A couple cripples sale off to
         die elsewhere.  Is  this  sportsman  absorbing  cultural
         value?  Or  is he just feeding the minks? The next blind
         opens up at 75 yards; how else is a fellow to  get  some
         shooting?  This  is  duck shooting, current model. It is
         typical on all public grounds, and of many clubs.  Where
         is the go-light idea, the one-bullet tradition?
       
            The  answer  is  not  a simple one. Roosevelt did not
         disdain the modern rifle; White used freely the  aluminum
         pot,  the silk tent, dehydrated foods. Somehow they used
         mechanical aids, in moderation, without  being  used  by
         them.
       
            I  do  not  pretend  to  know what is moderation, or
         where the line is between  legitimate  and  illegitimate
         gadgets.  It  seems  clear,  though,  that the origin of
         gadgets has much to  do  with  their  cultural  effects.
         Home-made  aids  to sport or outdoor life often enhance,
         rather than destroy, the man-earth drama; he who kills a
         trout with his own fly has scored tow coups, not  one. I
         used many factory-made gadgets myself. Yet there must be
         some  limit  beyond  which  money-bought  aids  to sport
         destroy the cultural value of sport.
       
            Not all sport has degenerated to the same  extent  as
         duck-hunting. ......
       
       ***** The chapter continues but I chose not to continue my
         typing  of it. It goes on to talk of the value of sport.
         Good reading but lengthly to type in. I have entered the
         parts I feel most appealing. *****************
       
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                            The Deer Swath
       
            One hot afternoon in August  I  sat  under  the  elm,
         idling,  when I saw a deer pass across a small opening a
         quarter mile east. A deer trail crosses our farm, and at
         this point any deer traveling is  briefly  visible  from
         the shack.
       
            I  then  realized that half an hour before I had moved
         my chair to the best spot for watching the  deer  trail;
         that I had done this habitually for years, without being
         clearly conscious of it. This led to the thought that by
         cutting some brush I could widen the zone of visibility.
         Before night the swath was cleared, and within the month
         I  detected  several  deer which otherwise could likely
         have passed unseen.
       
            The new deer swath was pointed out  to  a  series  of
         weekend  guests  for  the  purpose  of  watching   their
         reactions  to  it.  It  was soon clear that most of them
         forgot it quickly, while others watched it,  as  I  did,
         whenever  chance allowed. The upshot was the realization
         that there are  four  categories  of  outdoorsman:  deer
         hunters,  duck  hunters,  bird hunters, and non-hunters.
         These categories have nothing to do with sex or age,  or
         accountrements;  they  represent  four diverse habits of
         the human eye. The deer hunter watches  the  next  bend;
         the  duck  hunter  watches  the skyline; the bird hunter
         watches the dog; the non-hunter does not watch.
       
            When the deer hunter sits down he sits where  he  can
         see  ahead,  and  with  his  back to something. The duck
         hunter sits where  he  can  see  overhead,  and  behind
         something.  The non-hunter sits where he is comfortable.
         None of these watch the dog. The  bird  hunter  watches
         only the dog, and always knows where the dog is, whether
         or  not  visible  at  the  moment. The dog's nose is the
         birds hunter's eye. Many hunters who carry a shotgun  in
         season  have  never  learned  to  watch  the  dog, or to
         interpret his reactions to scent.
       
            There are good outdoors men who  do  not  conform  to
         these  categories.  There is the ornithologist who hunts
         by ear, and uses the eye only to follow up on  what  his
         ear  has  detected.  There  is the botanist who hunts by
         eye, but at much closer range; he is a marvel at finding
         plants, but seldom sees birds or mammals. There  is  the
         forester  who sees only trees; and the insects and fungi
         that prey upon trees; he is oblivious to all  else.  And
         finally  there  is the sportsman who sees only game, and
         regards all else of little interest or value.
       
            There is one illusive mode of hunting that  I  cannot
         associate  exclusively  with  any  of  these groups: the
         search for scats,  tracks,  feathers,  dens,  roostings,
         rubbings,  dustings,  diggings,  feedings, fightings, or
         preyings collectively  known  to  woodsmen  as  `reading
         sign'  This  skill  is  rare,  and too often seems to be
         inverse to book learning.
       
            The counterpart of reading animal sign exist  in  the
         plant field, but skill is equally rare in occurrence and
         illusive  in  distribution. To prove this I cite African
         explorer who detected the scratchings of a lion  on  the
         bark of a tree 20 feet up. The scratchings, he said, had
         been made when the tree was young.
       
            The  biological  jack-of-all-trades  called ecologist
         tries to be and do all these things. Needless to say, he
         does not succeed.
       
      --------------------------------------------------------------       
                              Goose Music
        

            Some years ago the game of golf was commonly regarded
         in this country as a kind of social  ornament,  a  petty
         diversion  for  the  idle rich, but hardly worthy of the
         curiosity, much less of the serious interest, of men  of
         affairs.  Today  scores of cities are building municipal
         golf courses to make golf available to the rank and file
         of their citizens.
       
            The same change in point of view has occurred towards
         most other outdoor sports-the frivolities of fifty years
         ago have become the social  necessities  of  today.  But
         strangely  enough, this change is only just beginning to
         permeate   our  attitude  toward  the  oldest  and  most
         universal of all sports, hunting and fishing.
       
            We have realized dimly, of course, that a day  afield
         was  good  for  the  tired  businessman.  We  have  also
         realized that the destruction of  wildlife  removed  the
         incentive  for  days afield. But we have not yet learned
         to express the value of  wildlife  in  terms  of  social
         welfare.  Some  have  attempted  to   justify   wildlife
         conservation  in  terms  of  meat,  others  in  terms of
         personal pleasure, others in terms of cash, still others
         in the interest if science, education, agriculture, art,
         public health, and even military preparedness.  But  few
         have  so  far  clearly  realized and expressed the whole
         truth, namely, that all these things are but factors  in
         a  broad social value, and that wildlife, like golf, is
         a social asset.
       
            But   to   those   whose hearts  are stirred  by  the
         sound of whistling wings and quacking mallards,  wildlife
         is  something  even  more than this. It is not merely an
         acquired taste; the instinct that  finds  delight  in  the
         sight  and  pursuit  of game is bred into every fiber of
         the race. Golf is sophisticated exercise, but  the  love
         of  hunting  is almost a physiological characteristic. A
         man my not care for golf and still be human, but the man
         who does not like to see, hunt, photograph, or otherwise
         outwit  birds  and  animals  is  hardly  normal.  He  is
         supercivilized, and I for one do not know  how  to  deal
         with  him.  Babes  do  not tremble when they are shown a
         golf ball, but I should not like to own a boy whose hair
         does not lift his hat when he sees his  first  deer.  We
         are  dealing,  therefore,  with something that lies very
         deep. Some can live without opportunity for exercise and
         control of the hunting instinct, just as I suppose  some
         can  live  without  work, play, love, business, or other
         vital adventure.  But  in  these  days  we  regard  such
         deprivations  an  unsocial. Opportunity for the exercise
         of all the normal instincts has come to be regarded more
         and more  as an  inalienable  right.  The  men  who  are
         destroying  our  wildlife  are  alienating  oen of these
         rights, and doing a thorough job of it. More than  that,
         they  are  doing  a  permanent  job of it. When the last
         corner lot is covered with tenements we can still make a
         playground by tearing  them  down,  but  when  the  last
         antelope  goes  by  the  board,  not  all the playground
         associations in christendom can do aught to replace  the
         loss.
       
            If  wild  birds  and  animals are a social asset, how
         much of an asset are they? It is easy to say  that  some
         of  us,  affected with hereditary hunting fever, cannot
         live satisfactory lives without them. But this does  not
         establish any comparative value, and in these days it is
         sometimes  necessary  to  choose between necessities. In
         short, what is a wild goose worth? I have  a  ticket  to
         the  symphony.  It  was not cheap. The dollars were well
         spent, but I would forgo the experience for the sight of
         the big gander that sailed honking  into  my  decoys  at
         daybreak  this morning. It was bitter cold and I was all
         thumbs, so I blithely missed him. But miss or no miss, I
         saw him, I heard the wind whistle through his set  wings
         as he came honking out of the gray west, and felt him so
         that  even  now  I  tingle  at the recollection. I doubt
         not that this very gander  has  given  ten  other  men a
         symphony ticket's worth of thrills.
       
            My  notes  tell  me I have seen a thousand geese this
         fall. Every on of these in  the  course  of  their  epic
         journey from the arctic to the gulf has on one occasion or
         another  probably  served  man in some equivalent of paid
         entertainment. One flock perhaps has thrilled a score of
         schoolboys, and sent them scurrying home with  tales  of
         high  adventure.. Another, passing overhead of a dark night,
         has  serenaded  a  whole  city  with  goose  music,  and
         awakened  who  knows  what  questions  and  memories and
         hopes. A third perhaps has given pause to  some  farmer
         at  his  plow, and brought new thoughts of far lands and
         journeyings and peoples, where before was only drudgery,
         barren of any thought at all. I am sure  those  thousand
         geese  are  paying  human  dividends  on a dollar value.
         Worth in dollars is only an  exchange  value,  like  the
         sale  value  of  a  painting or the copyright of a poem.
         What about the replacement value? Supposing  there  were
         no  longer  any  painting, or poetry, or goose music? In
         the  black  thought  to  dwell  upon,  but  it  must  be
         answered. In dire necessity somebody might write another
         Iliad,  or  paint an `Angelus,' but fashion a goose? `I
         the Lord, will answer them. The hand of  the  Lord  hath
         done this, and the Holy One of Israel created it.'
       
            It  is  impious  to  weigh goose music and art in the
         same scales? I think not, because  the  true  hunter  is
         merely a noncreative artist. Who painted the first picture
         on  bone  in the caves of France? A hunter. Who alone in
         our modern life so thrills to the sight of living beauty
         that he will endure hunger and thirst and cold  to  feed
         his  eyes  upon  it?  The  hunter.  Who  wrote the great
         hunters poem about the sheer wonder  of  the  wind,  the
         hail,  and  the snow, the stars, the lightning, and the
         clouds, the lion, the  deer,  and  the  wild  goat,  the
         raven, the hawk, and the eagle, and above all the eulogy
         of  the horse? Job, one of the great dramatic artist of
         all time. Poets sing  and  hunters  scale  the  mountains
         primarily  for  one  in  the  same  reason--the thrill to
         beauty. Critics write  and  hunters  outwit  their  game
         primarily  for  the same reason--to reduce that beauty to
         possession. The differences  are  largely  a  matter  of
         degree,  consciousness,  and  that  sly  arbiter  of the
         classification of human activities, language. If,  then,
         we  can  live  without  goose music, we may well do away
         with stars, or sunsets, or Iliads.  But  the  point  is
         that we would be fools to do away with any of them.
       
            What value has wildlife from the standpoint of morals
         and  religion?  I heard a boy once who was brought up an
         artist. He changed his mind when  he  saw  there  were a
         hundred-odd  species  of warblers, each bedecked like to
         the rainbow, and each performing yearly sundry thousands
         of miles of migration about which scientist wrote  wisely
         but  did  not  understand.  No  fortuitous concourse of
         elements'   working   blindly   through  any  number  of
         millions of years could quite account for why  warblers
         are  so  beautiful. No mechanistic theory, even bolstered
         by mutations, has ever quite answered for the colors  of
         the  cerulean warbler, or the vespers of the woodthrush,
         or the swansong, or--goose music. I dare say this  boy's
         convictions  would be harder  to shake than those of many
         inductive theologians. There are yet  many  boys  to  be
         born  who, like Isaiah, `may see, and know, and consider,
         and understand together, that the land of the Lord  hath
         done  this.'  But  where  shall  they  see,  know,   and
         consider? In museums?
       
            What  is  the  effect  of  hunting  and  fishing   on
         character  as compared with other outdoor sports? I have
         already pointed out that the desire  lies  deeper,  that
         its  source  is  a  matter  on  instinct  as  well as of
         competition. A son of Robinson Crusoe, having never seen
         a tennis racket, might get along nicely without one, but
         he would be pretty sure to hunt and fish whether  or  not
         he  were taught to do so. But his does not establish any
         superiority as to subjective benefits. Which  helps  the
         more  to build a man? This question (like the one we use
         to debate in school about  whether  boys  or  girls  are
         better  scholars) might be argued till doomsday. I shall
         not attempt it. But there are two points  about  hunting
         that  deserve special emphasis. One is that the ethics of
         sportsmanship   is   not  a  fixed  code,  but  must  be
         formulated and practiced  by  the  individual  with  no
         referee  but  the  almighty.  The  other  is that hunting
         generally involves hunting dogs  and  horses,  and  the
         lack  of  this  experience  is  one  of the most serious
         defects of our gasoline-driven  civilization.  There  was
         much truth in the old idea that any man ignorant of dogs
         and  horses  was not a gentleman. In the West the abuse
         of horses is still a universal blackball. This  rule  of
         thumb  was  adopted  in  the  cow  country  long  before
         `character analysis' was invented and, for all we  know,
         may yet outlive it.
       
            But  after  all,  it is a poor business to prove that
         any one good thing is better than another. The point  is
         that  some  six  or  eight millions of Americans like to
         hunt and fish, that the hunting fever is endemic in  the
         race,  that  the  race is benefited by many incentive to
         get out into the open,  and  is  being  injured  by  the
         destruction  of  the  incentive  in this case. To combat
         this destruction is therefore a social issue.
       
            To conclude: I  have  congenital  hunting  fever  and
         three  sons.  As  little  tots,  they  spent  their time
         playing with my decoys and  scouring  vacant  lots  with
         wooden  guns.  I  hope  to  leave  them  good health, an
         education, and possibly even competence. But  what  are
         they  going  to  do with these things if there be no more
         deer in the hills, and no more quail in the coverts?  No
         more  snipe  whistling in the meadow, no more piping of
         widgeons and chattering of teal as darkness covers  the
         marshes;  no  more  whistling  of  swift  wings when the
         morning star pales in the east? And when  the  dawn-wind
         stirs  through  the  ancient  cottonwoods,  and the gray
         light steals dawn from the  hills  over  the  old  river
         sliding softly past its wide brown sandbars--what if there
         be no more goose music?

      ******************** END OF EXCERPTS ************************

	Please read the book
	Steve

    
    Steve,
    
    
    Thanks for taking the time to input the excerpts. The reading was
    grand, the more read, the more I wanted, it was captivating.
    
    Rick
    

A Sand County Almanac. What a great book. It was required reading for one of 
my classes in high school and I've read it several times since then. One of my 
favorites.

Thanks for typing that in.

Geoff

    Read it in January - great !!! book. This guy virtually invented 
    modern wildlife management. Anyone who thinks the environmentalists
    and the outdoor sportsmen need be at odds should read this. His
    insights into the connectedness of life, land, air and water will
    cause you to walk with your eyes wide open to the world around you.