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By Chelsea Zblewski Many hunters consider themselves conservationist. This many seem very confusing to some, including myself. How can someone who is killing the non-human animals be helping the non-human animals at the same time? There are many ways hunters believe they contribute to the conservation of non-human animal. All conservationist-hunters say they provide most of the money used towards conservation effort, they control the non-human animals’ populations, and that thanks to hunting more non-human animals are around than ever before. I will be looking at these claims and seeing if this concept of a conservationist-hunter is just a paradox or the truth. No One Gives MoreHunters contribute to most of the money given to many conservationist programs. Hunters buy yearly licenses and pay fees, totaling 796 million dollars per year. This money is given to many conservation management programs. These programs help with conservation research, wildlife enforcement work, and habitat conservation. Hunters also donate 440 million dollars a year to conservation foundations. The Pittman–Robertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act requires an 11% tax on hunting long guns and ammunition, and a 10% tax on handguns that goes to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. With a grand total of 1.6 billion dollars contributed to conservation efforts conservationist-hunters believe that “No one gives more!”. The money contributed by hunters goes to things such as paying employees, conserving habitats, purchasing new land, and conserving animal populations. This all seems so great, but the habitats that are being conserved are habitats that hunters use to find their next kill. The land purchased is land that is typically open to hunters. The animals with the highest conservation propriety are prey animal, such as, deer and elk, because without the programs their populations would explode, due to the decrease or eradication of natural predator. All that money seems great, but is it truly used to help the non-human animal or is it instead used to help the hunter? They Help Control PopulationMany conservationist-hunter believe they are controlling non-human animals’ population by hunting and without their contribution the animals’ populations would grow too much for what their habitats will allow, causing starvation to the animals. If we take white-tailed deer United States population as an example of this, most hunters prefer to hunt bucks, male deer, not the does, female deer, this in turn has altered the sex ratio to be eight does for every buck. Typically, white-tailed deer have a fifty/ fifty sex ratio. With this sex ratio and the fact that deer are non-monogamous individuals, meaning they have more than one mating partner, it brings up a concern of a population explosion. The explosion is caused by the population having more does than bucks which allows for the bucks to mate with more does, due to the plentiful amount of does. In 2015, in the city of Eau Claire, WI, the city’s government gave the okay to a city wide urban hunt, this means that it was legal to hunt within the urban parts of the city. Why you may ask? Well, it was because the population of white-tailed deer had increased from 15-25 deer per square mile to 100 deer per square mile. This increased population within the city is a result of a population explosion. The city wide hunt resulted in a 10% decrease of deer per square mile. It may seem great that we can pick and choose what non-human animals live and which don’t from a population control perspective, but non-human animals have natural ways of keeping their populations in check without the help of humans. They have natural sex ratios to limit the amount of mating and have natural predators that help control their populations. The non-human also rely on the weak individuals to die before the strong individuals, which gets altered with hunters, because hunters prefer the more visually appealing. They Contribute to Increase of Animal Population If one were to look at current commonly hunted animal populations, you would see a complete increase in all of their populations. This is one thing that conservationist-hunters believe they are helping with. Their money that is given to the conservation organizations helps with the conservation of the populations. In 1900, only 500,000 white-tailed deer remained, now today more than 32 million are around in the United States. In 1900, only 100,000 wild turkeys roamed the United States, now there are 7 million. In 1901, there were as few wild ducks in the United States, now there are 44 million wild duck. On paper this seems great, millions of non-human animals roaming the United States, but is this necessarily good for the animals themselves? Studies show the effects of an increased deer population are not as good as they seem. Aldo Leopold, a great ecologist of the early 20th century, was once quoted saying, “I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer.” This quote perfectly represents the effects deer have on an environment when their populations increase. It has been noted that when deer population get out of hand the environment as a whole gets altered and not in a good way. An extensive study done at Yellowstone National Park when wolves were eradicated in 1927, found that the elk and deer populations began to increase. This was great for tourism at the park because there were “more desirable” wildlife animals and fewer “less desirable” animals. Little did the park know a trophic cascade was about to happen. Everything seemed fine for the first few years but then many noticed there were few songbirds and very few shrubs and trees near the rivers. This was a result of the extreme amount of deer and elk eating away at the shrubs and trees. The songbird, who normally would nest in those shrubs and trees, had nowhere left to nest. The beavers, who would normally use the trees to build dams had no more trees to use so they left too. When the beavers left, the non-human animals who utilized the dams began to die out. This whole situation seemed so ironic—taking away one non-human animal caused almost all the other animal die out or leave. It may seem great to have an increase of deer but it is not good for the environment. They Harm a Few to Save ManyMany conservationist-hunters believe they are causing no harm to non-human animal populations. According to a study looking at all the causes of extinction since the 1600s, 23% of all extinction was caused by hunting. The Javan tiger, the western black rhinoceros, the Tasmanian tiger, and the passenger pigeon are just a few animals that went extinct because of hunting. Many non-human animals are affected by the aftermath of hunting as well. Waterfowl, such as, duck, geese, and swans contract lead poisoning from the lead bullets released into the lakes and wetlands when waterfowl hunters shoot other birds. The waterfowl ingest the lead bullet fragments which causes lead poisoning. The lead poisoning of the bird causes lethargic behaviors, inability to fly, weight loss, and ultimately death. Lead poisoning can also effects non-waterfowl birds, such as eagles and condors. In 1987, the California population of condors were affected so badly from lead poisoning that as few as 22 condors were alive. It may seem like hunters are only intentionally killing a few non-human animals, but their actions cause more than just instantaneous harm but continuous harm to the environment and the animal populations. Their actions are causing disease and extinctions on non-human animals that they were not intending to kill. Closing ThoughtsGetting back to my initial thought, is the idea of conservationist-hunters a paradox or the truth, I personally believe that it’s a combination of both. The money conservationist-hunters contribute to the conservation programs does help the animals in many ways, but if you research and look at the effect on the environment, you can see that not all things that hunters do result in good. Hunters have caused extinction, disease, and even population decreases from their actions. It seems to me like it is just one big cycle with the hunters and conservation programs. The hunters give money to the conservation programs, the conservation programs help the non-human animals, and then the hunters hurt the non-human animal’s populations in some other way, resulting in more problems for the conservation programs to resolve. From this nasty cycle, the money that hunters contribute to conservation programs do help with conservation effort, but hunters also cause the problems the conservationist programs are trying to resolve. I do think that without hunters’ money contributions, conservation programs would have little funding and the current problems that the animals endure would go unresolved. I also think that if hunting were to stop, many feature conservation problems that face non-human animals would never happen. The idea of conservationist-hunters seen like a great solution to fix current solutions, but what happens in the future? What happens when there are so many problems caused by hunting the non-human animal, that the conservationist programs can’t handle resolving them all? Maybe, the idea of conservation-hunter should be considered a paradox. Bibliography: Animal Liberation Front. “Facts: Deer Population Control.” In Animals Defense. 2014. “Concerns Rise Over Known and Potential Impacts of Lead on Wildlife.” United States Geographic Survey. 2016. “Deer Hunting” City of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. 2015. “Effects on the Environment.” Regulated Hunting. N.d. Foundation, Rocky Mountain Elk. "Hunting Is Conservation." Hunting Is Conservation. Rocky Mountain Foundation, n.d. Foundation, Rocky Mountain Elk. "25 Reasons Why Hunting Is Conservation." 25 Reasons Why Hunting Is Conservation. Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, n.d. Garrott Robert, J.A. Gude, E.J. Bergman, C. Gower, P. J. White & K.L. Hamlin. “Generalizing Wolf Effects across the Greater Yellowstone Area: A Cautionary Note.” 2005. Wildlife Society Bulletin. Vol. 33, No. 4.1245-1255. Gerken, James. “11 Animals That Are Now Extinct ... And It’s Our Fault.” Huffington Post. 2013. Nelson, Rob. "Is Hunting Conservation? Let's Examine It Closely." Untamed Science. N.p., Aug. 2015 Palmer, Cynthia. “Pesticides: Lead.” American Bird Conservancy. 2017. Pursell A., T. Weldy, & M. White. “Too Many Deer: A Bigger Threat to Eastern Forests than Climate Change?” Cool Green Science. 2013. Ripple William, R.L Beschta. “Wolf reintroduction, predation risk, and cottonwood recovery in Yellowstone National Park.” 2003. Forest Ecology and Management. 184. 299–313. U.S Fish and Wildlife Services. “Pittman-Robertson Excise Tax.” National Shooting Sports Foundations. 2017. Vallverdú-Coll, Núria et al. "Lead Exposure Reduces Carotenoid-Based Coloration And Constitutive Immunity In Wild Mallards". 2016. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. 35.6 1516-1525. Wheeler, Emma. “Eau Claire urban deer population decreases by 10 percent.” WQOA. 2017. "Wolf Reintroduction Changes Ecosystem.” National Parks Trips Media. 2017. Chelsea Zblewski is currently working on a bachelor degree in zoology, a statistics minor, and a GIS certificate. She grew up in Northern Wisconsin deep in the woods, were she there fell in love with animals. She loves spending time outside and when indoors you’ll find her with her cat Morris watching Netflix. More Posts From Chelsea:
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This is a website about nonhuman animals, written by human animals taking a Society and Animals class at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Archives
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