Unconscious Hypocrisy
The Anti-Hunting Campaign

During the turn of the century, North American wildlife suffered from vast and unregulated exploitation. Perhaps one of the most in-depth documentations of this assault is Farley Mowat's book Sea of Slaughter (1984). The markets for wildlife luxury products combined with an unregulated common resource set the stage for what Garret Hardin termed "The Tragedy of the Commons" (1968). This combined with the "last ditch attempt by the military to subjugate 'hostile' natives by starving them into submission virtually eliminated wildlife from much of the continent" (Geist, 1994). Present day North American anti-hunting activists would have served a very valuable service in those days. Unfortunately they are behind the times. Wildlife management in North America for the past 70 years has been a "model example of sustainable ecological development" (Geist, 1994). This system has both defeated Garret Hardin's assertion that public goods in a commons will inevitably be depleted, and also returned wildlife from the "brink of extinction, made it abundant and economically important. …The system illustrates how a renewable resource, publicly owned and managed, can be exploited by the private sector to create a job sensitive manufacturing and service industry worth more than 70 million annually in the US and Canada" (Geist, 1994). Today, the threat to wildlife is not over-hunting but the destruction of wildlife habitat. It is for this reason that kind-hearted people who pour resources into anti-hunting campaigns could in fact be doing wildlife a disservice. Their efforts and money would play a far more productive role if directed at habitat protection and restoration. Instead, their money and efforts are going towards the alienation of both subsistence and sport hunters, many of whom are tremendous environmentalists and potential allies in the struggle to save habitat and therefore wildlife.
How could such an absurd situation evolve? Quite simply it is the result of compartmentalism. That is, thinking in a box, as opposed to holistic thought; thinking of the big cute black eyes of a single juvenile harp seal on a PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) poster, instead of dynamic rich ecosystems and cultures involving a plethora of life, land and sea. Compartmentalism is a combination of the age-old but flourishing Cartesian-Newtonian mechanistic philosophy that does not recognize the concept of the whole being of greater value than the individual parts, and the information age’s affinity with the 30-second sound bite. Add to this combination popular culture and the end result is an absurd situation. To further this point, bare with me while I describe a recent whale hunt…
The nine Sperm whales had formed a rosette, heads facing the center and their powerful tails facing outward - a position of defense. The hunters had surrounded them; their attack cruel, relentless and random. When the hunt was over most of the sperm whales were mortally wounded and were soon to die; others were able to escape but would not live long with their wounds (Pitman and Chivers, 1998). It appears to be a glutinous greed-driven attack. Wasteful. One sperm whale killed and taken, eight others almost surely mortally wounded. The whale hunters in this scenario are not human, but a species that the likes of Disney have named ‘Willie’ or ‘Shamu’. A pod of killer whales was witnessed attacking this pod of sperm whales off the coast of California by marine biologists studying Sperm whale diving habits. These whales did not display any of the traits popular culture attributes to them. Even though our culture would be traumatized by this event, it would and does eventually accept it as nature red in tooth and claw. Had the hunters been human, however, (and as such far more ‘humane’ in the kill), public outcry would be tremendous in the opposition of this natural history event of a predator-prey relationship. A part of compartmentalism is the myth that humans are separate from the natural world and above those aspects of nature that are red in tooth and claw. The point of all this is that our culture, force fed Walt Disney’s idea of natural history, is in no legitimate position to enforce values on those whose cultural roots tap much deeper into the land. Indeed this pod of killer whales would severely traumatize those who see killer whales as ‘Willie’ or ‘Shamu’. Consider: “…more than 80,000 killer whales live in the waters off Antarctica during the summer. There they are well known for their habit of eating just the fleshy lips and tongues of minke whales, then leaving their victims to die. The image of the gentle giant may be ingrained in many people's minds, but the name ‘killer whale’ is an appropriate reminder that this species consumes huge numbers of marine mammals annually and that its predatory habits are a significant force in shaping marine communities” (Pitman and Chivers, 1998).
Ironically, the anti-hunting campaign is a boon to the industrial harvesters of our natural lands and waters. Resources utilized by this movement would otherwise be directed towards habitat protection if they were not being utilized for anti-hunting campaigns. The combination of movie stars, Walt Disney, and animal rights activists has created an extraordinary level of unconscious hypocrisy in North America and Europe. For example, the outcry over the Makaw whale hunt, by a society that thrives on fast food outlets such as McDonalds, is both shameful and hypocritical. This small aboriginal community garnered an unproportional amount of media attention and criticism for hunting a whale whose populations are no longer endangered. In the meantime there is virtually no debate concerning the fact that cattle herding -1.28 billion cattle grazing on 24 percent of the earth’s landmass in 1993- is destroying habitats on six continents, polluting and depleting water resources and contributing significantly to global warming via methane (Rifkin 1993).
A legitimate concern of those opposed to the Makaw hunt was the underlying fact that the Makaw planned on a commercial trade of whale products to Japan. The Makaw hunt was viewed as the thin edge of the wedge for a new industrial whaling campaign for Japan and Norway. However, the unsustainable habits of nations should be dealt with directly, not by attacking what could revitalize and sustain aboriginal cultures that relied on the whale for both sustenance and cultural identity for thousands of years. Besides, merely instituting the tool that has made the North American wildlife management system successful for the past 70 years could also mitigate this concern. That is to “keep wildlife out of the marketplace, and thus out of private hands, while encouraging its diverse use under close public scrutiny” (Geist, 1994). This is a very feasible option in this circumstance, since for nation states “…the political costs of a pro-whaling policy seem to outweigh any conceivable economic benefits” (Ingebritsen, 1998).
Consider that whaling has been a central cultural feature of the Makaw tribe for centuries. The Makaw’s diet focused on whale meat, their economy was based on the trade of whale blubber and oil that was not needed for their own sustenance, and they made tools and weapons with the bones of their prey (Schmidt, 1999). Due to the ravenous nature of white whalers, the Makaw’s mainstay -the Gray Whale- was hunted to the verge of extinction by 1937, resulting in the US government's ban on all Gray whale hunting. By 1972, the Gray whale made the endangered species list and a global whaling ban of all species was incorporated in 1986 by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) (Chang, 1999). In 1993, however, the Gray Whale, now numbering some 22, 000, was removed from the endangered species list (Chang, 1999). The Gray whale population hit historic population highs. Comparatively, the Makaw tribe was suffering from severe unemployment, alcoholism, drug abuse and domestic violence (Schmidt, 1999). “A return to whaling, the Makaw leadership reasoned, would give the tribe's young men something to believe in, a sense of who they were, where they'd come from and a good deal of money" (Schmidt, 1999).
The same conservation contradictions are occurring with regards to the grizzly bear hunt in British Columbia. A fisheries official in Rivers Inlet, BC, points out that shrinking and threatened salmon runs are resulting in the inevitable destruction of grizzly bears that enter communities in search of food (Associated Press, 1999). This area has recorded salmon runs of more than three million in past seasons. This year's figure was expected to be 3,500 (Associated Press, 1999). The destruction of salmon habitat is resulting in an ecological catastrophe that will resound straight up the food chain. The destruction of salmon spawning streams by industrial forestry and development is a proven threat to grizzly bears whereas the impact on populations by hunting is less precise. It may or may be not beneficial, depending on management regimes. Once again, North America’s wildlife management regimes, as pointed out by the University of Calgary’s Valerius Geist, is proven to be the most successful in the world. Also, although BC grizzly bears are threatened by development and habitat loss, this accounts for only 8% of grizzly range permanently lost to human settlement and 11% currently lost but recoverable. Grizzly bears currently occupy 92% of their original territory, 81% of that at or near historic levels (Ministry of Environment Lands and Parks, 1995). In this light, energy put into banning the grizzly bear hunt in BC is wasted effort.
Organizations that promote hunting bans would save more bears if their efforts went towards protecting and rehabilitating salmon bearing streams. The battle to secure, protect, and rehabilitate habitat should be first and foremost in all conservation motives. If such a situation is ever achieved, then and only then should a value-driven debate over the ethics of hunting occur.

References
Associated Press. (1999). Starving Grizzlies Killed in Canada. November 24.
Chang, M. (1999). Whale hunt. Science World, 56 (1), 4
Geist, V. (1994) Wild life conservation as wealth. Nature 368 April.
Hardin, G. The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162 (Dec), 1243-1248.
Ingebritsen, C. (1998). The politics of whaling in Norway and Iceland.
TheScandinavian Review, 85 (3), 9-15.
Ministry of Environment Lands and Parks. (1995). A future for the grizzly. British
ColumbiaGrizzly Bear Conservation Strategy. Victoria, BC.
Mowat, F. (1984). Sea of slaughter. Toronto. McClelland and Stewart Ltd.
Pitman, R. and Chivers, J. (1998). Terror in black and white. Natural History, 107 (10),
26-29.
Rifkin, J. (1993). Beyond beef: the rise and fall of the cattle culture. New York: Plume.
Schmidt, S. (1999). The one that got away. Saturday Night, 114 (2), 78-84.