Editor’s note: This commentary is by David F. Kelley, who is an attorney and a member of the board of the Vermont Wildlife Coalition. He is the co-founder of Project Harmony (now PH International) and a former member of the Hazen Union School Board. The views expressed are his own.
The first days of hunting season are here again. They come with memories of years gone by and traditions that carry on. I grew up in a hunting and fishing family. Together with skiing and sugaring, they defined the rhythms of life in Vermont. In another month it will be deer season. For many, deer season was essential. It was about having enough to eat during the winter. It was also about fathers and sons going to “deer camp.” The first year at deer camp and getting our first deer was a rite of passage. It was a time for stories that got passed from one generation to the next. It was about sharpening card games and proving men could cook. When Thanksgiving arrived, and when neighbors and families got together, the stories were largely about deer hunting.
Without fully realizing it at the time, I came to understand there was more to growing up in our family than telling yarns at Thanksgiving. It was a time for developing an appreciation for our relationship to the land and to wildlife. It was a time for developing a sense of respect and care for the use of firearms. When a life was taken for food it was done knowing that we weren’t paying others to kill for us. It was done knowing our prey was born free and lived free, never subject to the hideousness of factory farms, cattle trucks or packing plants. It went without saying that, when we took an animal’s life to feed our families, that animal was entitled to our greatest respect.
Along with the respect and appreciation due to our quarry (from the Latin “cor” meaning “heart”), the Vermont hunting tradition has also bred a recognition that we have a responsibility for the welfare of the wild. It is a duty that was first born out of our own instinct to eat and survive, but with the passage of time that tradition has evolved to recognize a more complex interdependence with wildlife. Today it is a set of ethics embodied in the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation.
Skilled hunters almost all appreciate Mother Nature’s rhythms, her often delicate balance, and how hunting plays a role in the balance between predator and prey. That role can be beneficial, as with the Vermont deer herd; and it can be destructive, as with the bison of the American plains. When any species becomes threatened or endangered, the way the bison once was, it is a warning signal, and around the world those signals are sounding louder than ever.
For many, growing up in Vermont, coping with the elements, camping in the wild, hunting for food, learning to use a compass and a gun, learning to build a fire and manage it safely, to understand the ways of flora and fauna, and the importance of wildlife habitat have all worked to breed a unique sense of personal responsibility. It has helped shape a conservation ethic that is one reason why Vermont passed a Protection of Endangered Species law a year before the passage of the Federal Endangered Species Act of 1973.
Traditions are an important part of our shared and collective memory, but sometimes they can be a glance backward through rose-colored glasses. Sometimes they can be worse. They can be little more than recently created myths or a poor excuse for irresponsible behavior. The Vermont hunting tradition never embraced wasting any life. It never embraced torturing animals for the fun of it. It never embraced what some people have been doing in recent years using satellites, GPS systems and radio-collared dogs to terrorize sows with cubs that are only two or three months old.
Tradition is a memory of where we come from. It can sustain us. But tradition is not a road map to the future. It should never be an excuse for doing less than what we have learned is right. As the human footprint gets ever larger and heavier, and the future of wildlife and wildlife habitat becomes more fragile, we need to have the wisdom to disavow practices that dishonor the essential, underlying values of our traditions. No animal should be hunted all year long. Every animal should be protected while raising their young.
The Vermont hunting tradition has always embraced an abiding respect for the wildlife that have given us so much in the way of sustenance and survival. Hopefully, in the months and years to come, we will find the wisdom, and the leadership, necessary to nurture the best of that tradition, and the wisdom and leadership to help discard the conduct and habits that dishonor that tradition’s essential values.
