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quote from speech by Steve Williams
Posted by bushrat on Dec 24 2005
Akres,
Respectfully, I beg to differ on your use of the term "subsistence" to include the money-driven market "shooters" (I don't think those guys were "hunters") who decimated the buffalo. They were NOT subsistence hunters.
I'd like to paste below an excerpt from a speech given by Steve Williams when he was director for the USFWS. Pertains to the inital "What's best for resource?" question. He mentions some of what you bring up in this post as well. It wasn't just "sport" hunters who saved the day back then...it was just "hunters." That, to me, is an important distinction. If you want to read the whole speech, it can be found here: http://news.fws.gov/speeches/director2002march9.html
"If we were to be visited by the Ghost of Hunting's Past, we would perhaps see a group of people, gathered around a camp fire, with tents in the background, enjoying each other's company and passionately sharing with friends what they saw and what they experienced in the course of the day's hunt. It is a familiar scene for many of us, because hunting is a timeless pastime. For hundreds of generations, it has brought people closer to each other and to the world of nature.
In this room, we know that hunting is about more than bringing down a deer, a turkey, or something more exotic. It is, in many ways, about a spiritual experience that teaches us about ourselves, about each other, and about nature. In our hearts, we, as hunters, have a deep respect for the natural world. Through the ages, we have developed and passed down a hunter's creed, a code of ethics that had gone unwritten for a long, long time.
That is until the 1800s, when here in the United States, we began to see widespread wildlife population declines. The great buffalo herds began to disappear and the seemingly endless flocks of passenger pigeons eventually vanished altogether. The hunting community saw what was happening. Those who did not share their unwritten credo killed animals indiscriminately. Scores of market hunters went into the wilderness, not for the love of the hunt, but for the love of money, with tactics and equipment designed to kill as many animals as quickly as possible. Scores of conservationists and the hunting community sounded the alarm, and great men like Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, both avid hunters themselves, decided to do something about it. They started by committing the unwritten code of ethics to paper. With federal and state laws and regulations, and with tough law enforcement, the abuses associated with unchecked wildlife consumption were greatly reduced, and we saw flocks of waterfowl and herds of deer rebound. And for this, the hunting community deserves a great deal of credit.
And so the Ghost of Hunting's Past leaves us, having shown us the hunting community's proud tradition and its rise as the influential force in the field of wildlife management. From here, the Ghost of Hunting's Present will pick up the story.
We find ourselves on a rocky ledge in the southwest looking down at a young forester standing over a dying wolf. This is a famous scene for wildlife conservationists. Aldo Leopold, the young forester, would later immortalize it in his widely-read "A Sand County Almanac." In the course of his public service career, Leopold participated in the government's plan to eradicate predators – wildlife that competed with hunters for game. The idea was to improve on nature and create a hunter's paradise based on a simple equation: fewer predators means more game. But when Leopold stood over that wolf and watched it die, he began to question this plan.
Now we know that a world devoid of predators does not make for a hunter's paradise. Perhaps some of you here remember or have heard about what happened at Kaibab Plateau in northern Arizona, when a deer population, devoid of predators, exploded, ravaged the local vegetation, and then crashed.
Wildlife conservation matured from predator control to wildlife restoration, to wildlife habitat management, and then to adaptive harvest management. Hunting has and will continue to be part of the conservation equation.
Hunting is not just about making the kill. What real hunters want is a truly wild experience, with wild game. The goal is no longer to supply as much game as possible by any means possible, but to restore and enhance wildlife habitat and thereby conserve wildlife that are truly wild.
This is the general direction that the wildlife management community is moving in. At the same time, we are seeing the growing influence of other wildlife management advocates. The concerns of hunters remain vitally important, but they now vie with other constituencies in exerting influence over wildlife management priorities. The conservation mission of government wildlife management agencies like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have expanded. As a result, the responsibilities of these government agencies have had to grow to encompass non-game species . . . including threatened and endangered species.
As a wildlife manager, and as an avid hunter, it frustrates me to see our traditional constituency – the hunters – and our newer constituency – the environmental groups – depicted as adversaries. In my 20-year professional career, I have observed that although there are differences, both groups share a great deal of common ground. They both want abundant wildlife. They want wildlife to be varied and broadly distributed. And they want truly wild wildlife. In my mind, they are both wildlife conservationists. And they should be able to work together more closely than they have in the past. If they do, we will be a powerful, unstoppable force, a force with economic and political influence that will be able to overcome any wildlife conservation challenge.
Wildlife management challenges are growing greater as the issues have become more complex and, yes, politicized. Believe me, after a long and drawn out confirmation process, I understand the politics of wildlife conservation. The waterfowl hunting season framework is undergoing a north-south tug-of-war. Predator re-introductions are raising concerns with ranchers, farmers, and local communities. Overabundant deer and goose populations are creating their own set of problems, some with serious human health implications.
And so the Ghost of Hunting's Present leaves us with wildlife conservation challenges increasing in both numbers and difficulty, at the same time a broadening base of wildlife conservation advocates have been unable to come together and speak with a unified, coherent, and powerful voice."
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