Necessity con,inued,rompa9e
The result is a potential
population explosion, according
to Greer. When that happens,
the general hunting season is
extended or a special hunting
season is added.
Special hunting seasons are
often designed to reduce the
number of breeding animals in a
herd, Greer says, and thus
reduce the further growth of the
herd.
But herds are also protected
when they dip to low levels, as
the muledeer in Eastern Oregon
are currently being shielded.
There, the general hunting
season in many areas has been
cut to seven days, he says, while
the hunting season for blacktail
deer in Lane County's McKenzie
and Siuslaw management units
is 39 days this year.
Greer rejects the claim by
anti-hunting groups that only the
biggest and strongest deer and
elk are shot. He points out that
44 percent of the deer shot in his
district in the first weekend of
the general hunting season were
less than three years old.
“The average hunter will take
the first legal animal he sees,”
Greer says. The larger animals
are harder to hunt, he says,
because they usually have
several seasons of avoiding
hunters behind them.
“Bull elk and large bucks will
prove that every year, because
we don’t see them in the hunter
bag but we do see them in our
fall counts when we go out at
night."
Both Greer and Caine
acknowledge that some hunters
abuse their rights in the out
doors — to the detriment of the
hunting population in general.
"The slob hunter gets a lot
more visibility than what you
might call the good hunter,”
says Greer. ‘‘That guy —
although he’s a very small
percentage of the population —
is the one who the finger gets
pointed at.
"Everyone notices what the
slob hunter does,” he says. “No
one notices what the good
hunter does.”
"Slob hunters” anger Caine
because they not only don’t
know how to use the outdoors,
but they present a danger to
other hunters and an incorrect
image to the public.
Caine professes frustration —
and anger — when he talks of
hunters wounding deer and leav
ing them to bleed to death, or
hunting deer but leaving the
dead animal at the bottom of a
canyon.
Caine is equally frustrated by
the emotionalism of some anti
hunters, such as the television
special “Guns of Autumn”
which was^ shown several years
ago.
Greer points to a current bat
tle in Maine as an example of
where hunting fits into the
outdoors.
When the state wildlife
department announced plans to
allow limited hunting to reduce a
burgeoning state moose popula
tion that had grown to between
10,000 and 20,000, the state
legislature moved to block the
issuing of hunting permits.
Greer believes the state win
suffer in the long-run if the
moose herd is allowed to con
tinue growing.
"You would probably have
damage complaints running
rampant. You would probably
have to to into full-scale fencing
or repellent or hazing or
anything short of killing the
animal. That is an expensive pro
position,” Greer says.
"Once it is taken out of the
biologist’s hands, then you lose
kind of control you might have to
keep that population biological
ly stable,” Greer says. “You
can’t manage on a biological
level through a legislature that
makes its decisions based on
emotional issues.”
By John Healy
| Y Continued from Page 4B
Kelley says that man is
wildlife's prime enemy.
“Humans tend to destroy
these systems by their lack of
sensitivity and knowledge of the
ways and the needs of the
animals,” she says. “The best
thing we can do to preserve
what's left of our declining
wildlife is to leave them in
peace."
Many species have become
entirely extinct due to man’s
manipulation of the wilderness.
For example, the wolf is non
existent in all but about three
areas of the United States.
According to Kelley, the
eradication of wolves is part of
the reason why there is an
overabundance of deer in some
areas. With no wolves to prey on
deer and rodents, those popula
tions explode, she says.
Hunters often use the
overabundance of deer as
justification for their activities,
but actually the best thing would
be to bring back the wolves and
leave them alone, Kelley says.
"Make trapping, hunting and
poisoning illegal and let the wolf
take care of it,” she says. “Man
messes everything up.”
The three agree hunting is not
as bad as some other forms of
habitat manipulation, such as
the clearcutting, spraying, and
burning done by timber
companies.
“Habitat protection is our
greatest concern,” says Wood,
noting many people involved in
the ONRC do hunt. “How forests
and lands are managed — that is
important.”
Part of the callousness of peo
ple stems from “the belief that
because of being human you are
superior to all other creatures on
the planet and have some quasi
divine right to hunt, trap, poison
or maim any animal besides a
human,” says Kelley.
The image of the macho
hunter is another reason many
men hunt, says Kelley
Many men are taught to be
tough in early hunting ex
periences and to hide their inner
feelings of horror at the killing of
innocent animals, she says.
‘‘Perhaps the hunter is a
basically compassionate person
who is secretly horrified by kill
ing in such an uneven contest
and by the sight of the animal
suffering,” says Kelley. "But
this person would sorrow secret
ly because of a fear of not being
tough. This person may have
been taught by his father that
hunting is some sort of badge of
manhood."
The man should just face up
to his feelings and "tell his fami
ly he no longer subscribes to
this barbarism," she says He
should start to teach his
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children more constructive
things about forests and wildlife
— “that would be a manly act.”
"I would think that this indif
ference and this callousness
would carry over into human af
fairs,” Kelley says. "For exam
ple, I’d be very concerned if my
daughter married a hunter.”
Hunting is also “just a few
steps apart" from killing in war,
she says.
Hunters are a real resource for
the army because when they
start using a gun they are
already hardened to killing, she
says. So if they are told to start
aiming at humans, they are more
likely to start shooting without
questioning orders
Another argument hunters
use to justify killing animals is
that people kill animals daily for
their meat and often under less
humane conditions than
hunting.
“If you eat meat, you are pay
ing someone else to do the dirty
work for you," says Kelley, who
does not eat meat. "I don’t feel
angry at everyone who eats
meat. I accept there are non
meat eaters and meat eaters."
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