Imagine a 300-pound male bear at the edge of a hardwood forest that borders a crop field bursting with ripe corn. Does he take a detour to avoid venturing into this exposed area, or does he walk in and enjoy the abundance of food? Would it matter if this was the only crop field in the area or adjacent to five other fields? Or if there were many bears in the area? Or if there were people nearby? What if this bear was a sow with two cubs in tow?
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By John Organ — Nearly 100 years ago Aldo Leopold, the father of game management, coined the term “harvestable surplus.” The intended meaning of the term is that some wildlife species and populations may produce more young in a given year than can survive to the following year. Those individuals doomed to die over the winter, for example, represent the “surplus” in the population. Leopold observed that those surplus animals could be killed by hunters during the fall, instead of succumbing to winter mortality, and there would be little impact on the population. So, in theory, hunting would be sustainable because the population would not change.
THE ETHICS OF FAIR CHASE By Daniel A. Pedrotti Jr. B&C Regular Member Chairman, Hunter Ethics Sub-Committee Excerpt from Fair Chase, Spring 2015 We are a community of multitudes and generations. Our way of life predates recorded history. Our roots go back to a time when there was no thought of...
THE ETHICS OF FAIR CHASE By Daniel A. Pedrotti Jr. B&C Regular Member Chairman, Hunter Ethics Sub-Committee Excerpt from Fair Chase, Fall 2015 When man first hunted, “fair” was probably not on his list of priorities. Likewise, I am pretty sure “chase” was to be avoided at all costs, and was...
THE ETHICS OF FAIR CHASE By Daniel A. Pedrotti Jr. B&C Regular Member Chairman, Hunter Ethics Sub-Committee Excerpt from Fair Chase, Winter 2015 Wild (naturally occurring), free-ranging (unrestricted within its biological home range) big game has always been the central focus of the Boone and...
THE ETHICS OF FAIR CHASE By Daniel A. Pedrotti Jr. B&C Regular Member Chairman, Hunter Ethics Sub-Committee Excerpt from Fair Chase, Spring 2016 We all know that sometimes the words we use mean different things to different people. This happens be-cause we have diverse back-grounds and...
THE ETHICS OF FAIR CHASE By Daniel A. Pedrotti Jr. B&C Regular Member Chairman, Hunter Ethics Sub-Committee Excerpt from Fair Chase, Summer 2016 When you consider the phrase fair chase literally, it is nonsense. There is nothing fair about chasing animals with the advantage of our human...
THE ETHICS OF FAIR CHASE By Daniel A. Pedrotti Jr. B&C Regular Member Chairman, Hunter Ethics Sub-Committee Excerpt from Fair Chase, Fall 2016 I recently attended a meeting of the Texas Parks and Wild-life (TPW) Commission, which sets policy for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD)...
THE ETHICS OF FAIR CHASE By Daniel A. Pedrotti Jr. B&C Regular Member Chairman, Hunter Ethics Sub-Committee Excerpt from Fair Chase, Spring 2017 Here we are at the beginning of a brand new year with several good reasons to reconsider and rededicate ourselves to those things we hold most...
THE ETHICS OF FAIR CHASE By Mark Streissguth B&C Regular Member Excerpt from Fair Chase, Summer 2017 During a coffee break recently, I was thumbing through some outdoor magazines. Between the hunting stories and how-to pieces, I found myself really reading the advertisements and some product...
Recently my wife and I attended a documentary on the disturbing amount of food waste in our country and the world, titled, “Just Eat It.” I didn’t see a connection with hunting ethics until I was in a discussion at our recent annual meeting of the Boone and Crockett Club in Nashville. Many members were lamenting the bad press that hunters get, i.e., “Cecil the lion,” and the fact that study after study has shown that only about 20 percent of the non-hunting public approves of trophy hunting, whereas 70-80 percent or more approve of legal hunting if its purpose is to produce food and/or to enhance wildlife management.
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-Theodore Roosevelt
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