The Diasappearing Hunter
Steve Tuttle writes an interesting article on the declining number of hunters in Newsweek. Hunting was once a way of life in America but has been in decline for a number of years. What gets lost when the tradition enters a long twilight?
There aren't that many boys today who grew up the way I did—kids who are willing to put down their Gameboys, pick up a rifle and head out into the field. Hunting in America has entered a long twilight. The number of license holders—roughly 15 million through 2004—has actually shrunk by about 2 million people since 1982, when the population was 230 million (versus 300 million today). Since 1990, the number of license holders in Massachusetts has dropped by 50,000, or 40 percent; in California since 1980 the number has fallen by almost half, from 540,000 to 300,000. In Michigan, there were 1.2 million licensed hunters in 1992—but fewer than 850,000 in 2004. Hunters are aging: about seven in 10 are older than 35 (in 1980, only four in 10 were over 35). The reasons for hunting's decline are pretty basic: fewer fields and streams and hills full of game to hunt (Census data show that urban America more than doubled in acreage from 1960 to 1990); more restrictions and lawsuits; more videogames and diversions to keep junior (and his dad) on the couch.
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Hunting where I grew up was a ritual of male bonding, but the whole community was caught up in it, boys and girls alike. School was let out the first day of hunting season in late November. On opening morning you could hear the shots popping off in the distance, one after another, all day long. The population of my little rural county swelled by thousands (my school friends and I called the city slickers in their fancy new gear "Fudds," as in Elmer). Men grew beards and didn't shave them until they got their first buck. Men who shot and missed a deer had to cut their flannel shirttails off—or their buddies did it for them. (In rural Scotland, ancestral home of many of these Appalachian men, young boys still have grouse blood smeared on their faces after their first kill in the field.) You learned to skin and eat what you killed. I hated gutting and cleaning animals and always wondered if I were the only one, and was happy to see my grandfather, Colvin, gag as he dressed a deer. He had been a veteran of Omaha Beach, so it gave me cover.
But more importantly, some interesting things are starting to happen as the number of hunters declines:
Judging from polls, most people are at least vaguely supportive of hunters—as long as they (and their guns) stay far away. Protective of bunnies and Bambis, suburbanites increasingly restrict hunting from getting anywhere near their mini-mansions. The overabundant wildlife, in turn, attracts coyotes and more aggressive predators. Children have been mauled by bears who wander into backyards, and in Florida recently, three women were killed by alligators. In March, a coyote was seen in Central Park, in the middle of Manhattan.
Man took the place of many of the top predators, of course. As fewer hunt, nature will seek balance by increasing the number of other predators. Unfortunately, that means those animals will also get closer to humans and become more dangerous. As Tuttle points out, hunters are among the most fierce of conservationists, pouring millions of dollars into habitat conservation and reconstruction.
