Say Anything Blog

Here’s an editorial from last week’s Grand Forks Herald on a ballot initiative in North Dakota

OUR OPINION: N.D. game farm plan strengthens our ethical code
Tom Dennis
Grand Forks Herald - 04/27/2008

There is hunting and there is killing. The difference is why North Dakota Hunters for Fair Chase ought to get its initiative on the November ballot and then why the measure ought to pass.

The initiative would “prohibit shooting captive deer, elk and exotic mammals behind escape-proof fences,” the group’s Web site reports.

“We support hunting without reservation,” the Web site continues. “We base our support on sound science and ethical behavior applied in the interest of wild game. Shooting tame deer, elk and exotic mammals inside escape-proof fences is unethical and a poor example for our children and grandchildren.”

Thanks in part to Teddy Roosevelt, America has a unique relationship with “shooting sports” and wildlife that has served hunters, nonhunters, conservationists and everyone else for 100 years. It’s based in part on the distinction between hunting and killing — hunting being defined by the rules of “fair chase,” and killing being for-pleasure practices that can and do violate those rules.

So: Cockfights are illegal. Pheasant hunting is not. Dogfights are felony offenses, while veterinarians and animal shelters legally and humanely euthanize dogs every day.

Deer hunting is legal; but even Texas — where game farms are common — has banned “computer assisted remote hunting,” the practice where someone uses a computer to remotely aim and fire at a live animal.

Hunters for Fair Chase believes a majority of North Dakotans feels the same the same way about game farms here. The “fair chase” tradition is part the state’s DNA, so much so that many hunters themselves feel repulsed when animals aren’t given a sporting chance.

But game farm animals are privately owned; they’re livestock, owners will counter. If that’s the case, though, then the animals should be slaughtered in the manner of livestock. Cattle owners don’t sell the privilege of shooting cows.

By the way, Montana voters debated and passed a similar initiative in 2000. Afterward, game-farm owners challenged the constitutionality of the initiative on property-rights grounds. They lost. Voters were within their rights to impose the ban, the courts concluded (up to and including the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals).

Property rights don’t override the voters’ own right to reasonably regulate property use.

All this being said, the case for the initiative isn’t open-and-shut. Honest and moral people own, operate and enjoy game farms. In fact, some number of owners got into the business with the encouragement of and even financial support from the state. Should the state consider reimbursing the owners for their losses if the initiative should pass? If the group hasn’t done so already, Hunters for Fair Chase should figure out if the answer could be “yes.”

Society evolves, and what was acceptable in one decade becomes unacceptable in the next. The initiative would have a better chance of passing if voters knew the game-farm owners wouldn’t be unfairly hurt.

Besides hunting vs. killing, another distinction applies in this argument: public vs. private. Like our national parks, wildlife are a public resource that Americans own in common. This common ownership, one of Teddy Roosevelt’s great conservation achievements, has helped species recover from the brink of extinction and let wildlife stay “wild” while still being enjoyed and appreciated by humans.

Passing the Hunters for Fair Chase initiative would preserve and strengthen this legacy. Jim Posewitz, executive director of a conservation and hunting-ethics group called Orion, The Hunter’s Institute, said it best:

“Game farming commercializes the last remnants of the great wild commons. It seeks to privatize what was held in trust by all of us, it domesticates the wildness we sought to preserve. .?.. The things we value die inside the woven wire of game farms.”

For these reasons, North Dakota should sign the Hunters for Fair Chase petitions and approve the measure once it’s on the ballot.

click here for the link to original.