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The Fence:
History, Fair Chase, Democracy and Philosophy
Jim Posewitz
"We have duties to ourselves and duties to others --- we cannot shirk either." These are Theodore Roosevelt’s words. They come from his inaugural speech of March 4, 1905. The council these words convey is the reason for entering a discussion on high fence, fair chase, hunting ethics and the future of our heritage. It is time for the American hunting community to address sensitive issues as we prepare our heritage for its journey through the 21st Century. This article addresses three dimensions of our hunting landscape: 1) The ownership of game, 2) Theodore Roosevelt and his principles, and 3) Hunting in the 21st Century. All these topics have to do with high fence, the animals inside, and the people who shoot them there.
The People’s Game
Our hunting heritage has been part of the American commons since our forefathers declared our independence from kings. Sixty-six (66) years after the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Courts began to define the details of our national and personal relationship with oysters, fish, water and wildlife in America. The first step was litigation over oysters in the New Jersey Meadowlands. The court case was Martin vs. Waddell. The question was whether or not the king of England’s grant of "fishings, hawkings, huntings and fowlings" to his brother James the Duke of York survived as property attached to land. In deciding this case, the U.S. Supreme Court stated:
"…dominion and property in navigable waters, and in the lands under them [were] held by the King as a public trust" and further, it "… must be regarded as settled in England, against the right of the King, since Magna Carta, to make a private grant in such lands and waters." 1
In that same decision the court further noted:
"…when the people … took possession of the reins of government, and took into their own hands the powers of sovereignty, the prerogatives and regalities which before belonged either to the crown or the parliament, became immediately and rightfully vested in the state."2
In a subsequent wildlife case, Geer vs. Connecticut, the Court’s language became wonderfully more specific:
"…the development of free institutions has led to the recognition of the fact that the power or control lodged in the State, resulting from the common ownership, is to be exercised, like all other powers of government, as a trust for the benefit of all people, and not as a prerogative for the advantage of the government, as distinct from the people, or for the benefit of private individuals as distinguished from the public."3
These 1842 and 1869 decisions emphasize that the public ownership of wildlife was established early in our nation’s history. The arrangement is as unique as the Declaration of Independence. It is part of being an American. While this relationship between a society and its wildlife was being judicially defined, our nation was also engaged in a commercial decimation of wildlife unprecedented in human history. When Theodore Roosevelt (TR) was born (1858) there were about 10 Americans and 17 buffalo per square mile in the United States. When he entered the White House (43 years later) there were around 25 Americans per square mile in the country and only between 20 and 40 wild buffalo left, sanctuaried within Yellowstone National Park.4
We are all familiar with the action of Roosevelt and associates who formed the Boone and Crockett Club in 1887 and their campaign to end commercial killing. As heirs, endowed by this legacy, we need to revisit Roosevelt’s philosophy, appreciate his vision and respect his advice. TR’s action, coupled with the judicial articulation of public trust principles for fish and wildlife, defined the parameters of an all-American institution. The concept was as simple as it was unique: wildlife belonged to the people and hunting was for everyone. These were the principles that rallied a nation to conservation. Our perceptions of fair chase, high fence, trophy qualification and gaining honor through effort must be measured in the reflection of those same principles.
Theodore Roosevelt and His Principles
We live in the 100-year echo of Theodore Roosevelt’s presence in the White House (1901 – 1908). Having just experienced the narrowest of margins in a presidential selection, it is well to note that in 1904 TR was elected to a full term as president by the largest margin in American history. America loved that president, when he was gone we chiseled his likeness onto Mount Rushmore. TR’s views embraced hunting, the strenuous life and the democracy of the American wild commons - principles best reflected in his own words.
On The Ownership of Game
It is … in our power … to preserve large tracts of wilderness … and to preserve game … for … all lovers of nature, and to give reasonable opportunities for the exercise of the skill of the hunter, whether he is or is not a man of means.5
The movement for the conservation of wildlife, and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources, are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose and method.6
We do not intend that our natural resources shall be exploited by the few against the interests of the many,… Our aim is to preserve our natural resources for the public as a whole, for the average man and the average woman who make up the body of the American people.7
Public rights come first and private interests second.8
On Wildlife Conservation
No chase is more fascinating than that of the wapiti. … Every true sportsman should feel it incumbent upon him to do all in his power to preserve so noble a beast of the chase from extinction.9
In a civilized and cultivated country wild animals only continue to exist at all when preserved by sportsmen. …in reality the genuine sportsman is by all odds the most important factor in keeping the larger and more valuable wild creatures from total extermination.10
On Preserving Wildness
A peculiar charm in the chase of the wapiti comes from the wild beauty of the country in which it dwells.11
All really wild scenery is attractive. The true hunter, the true lover of the wilderness, loves all parts of the wilderness, just as the true lover of nature loves all seasons.12
On Honor Through Effort
The professional market hunter who kills game for the hide or for the feathers or for the meat or to sell antlers and other trophies; market men who put game in cold storage; and the rich people, who are content to buy what they have not the skill to get by their own exertions – these are the men who are the real enemies of game.13
When hunting him (wapiti) … He must be followed on foot, and the man who follows him must be sound in limb and wind.14
… skill and patience, and the capacity to endure fatigue and exposure, must be shown by the successful hunter.15
"I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, … the highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph."16
"We knew toil and hardship and hunger and thirst,… but we felt the beat of hardy life in our veins, and ours was the glory of work and the joy of living."17
These words are the thoughts of the greatest wildlife conservationist who ever lived. They are the words of a president who motivated a nation to greatness, as he himself noted:
We are not building this country of ours for a day. It is to last through the ages.18
I believe he was speaking of institutions as well as landscapes.
Hunting in the 21st Century
Endowed by our Declaration of Independence, a court defined public trust doctrine, and the philosophy of a magnificent American leader - the people embarked on the process of wildlife restoration across an entire continent. In 1998, Canadian biologist Shane Mahoney summed up the result as follows:
We should engage in a continent wide explosion of congratulation to North America and peoples who live here, for we have achieved what most of the world can only dream about … wildlife abundance in the midst of human population increases and enough fire power to destroy every living creature. Instead we have geese on our lawns, turkeys in our driveways, deer in our fields and bears in our apple trees!
Mahoney went on to make another point that affirmed Roosevelt’s faith in the people:
The North American conservation achievement is outstanding … Unlike earlier historic movements … which were … consistently tied to an exclusivity tradition, spurred by caste notions ..., by monarchist traditions …, or by aristocratic world views … our tradition was based explicitly on inclusivity. Wildlife and access to it was to be in the public domain, by law.19
From this tradition, and within this North American hunting heritage, we come to the question of the fence. It doesn’t matter if it is six feet of barbed wire, eight feet of woven wire or ten feet of chain link. It is a fence -- a denial of movement in or out, a property claim against the public estate, an estrangement of all but a few of the 15 million American’s who bought hunting licenses in 1999. The fence -- a denial that wild game can and must be free, and an assertion that the hunter must pay a toll to follow the track. The fence -- a retreat to fortress, an acknowledgement that nature can’t be trusted, but must be controlled and manipulated. The fence -- a reason to justify artificial feeders, water manipulation, mineral supplements, shooting blinds, and bait stations. The high fence -- nature denied, the democracy of the hunt denied, the Roosevelt philosophy ignored, and the idea of fair chase tortured. And what about the hunter? Is honor earned through effort or gained through privilege? Is the magnificent antler a reflection of skill, or economic position? Is the quarry a product of wildness or animal husbandry?
There are probably reasons for the fence both real and hypothetical. The real problem with them is that they cause us to torture ourselves, our logic, our science and our philosophy in an effort to make them marginally acceptable. Biologist Mahoney told us, "We cannot afford to leave our minds out this."20 The question is where are we applying our best minds? Some of our best thinkers: search for justification, struggle with definitions of security, develop new terminology for home range, and probe for an ethical standard so low that everyone qualifies. We disguise ethical abandonment behind a euphemistic call for unity.
What if we took those same thinkers and set them to finding ways to lower, not the ethical standards, but the fence? TR clearly called for the bounty of the American commons to be for all Americans. What if we set our minds to describing a new trophy? Not a trophy class for fenced or restricted wildlife, but a real trophy - the American hunting heritage itself. A heritage restored to Roosevelt’s vision, principles and values. What if we gave up the idea that we can only survive if we retreat to a mythical hunting fortress wherein every practice of killing wildlife is embraced? We have already learned that retreat to fortress has doomed armies, cultures and civilizations throughout human history. Perhaps it is time we actually listened to Roosevelt, Mahoney and perhaps Senator John McCaine who told the Republican national convention on August 1, 2000:
"Walls are for cowards my friends, not for Americans."
1 Susan Horner. “Embryo, Not Fossil: Breathing Life Into The Public Trust” University of Wyoming Land and Water Law Review. Volume XXXV (Number 1, 2000). 75pp.
2 41 U.S. 367 (1842).
3 Horner, Loc. cit. (161 U.S. 519, (1896)).
4 Larry Jahn. A Look Behind, a Look Ahead. Wyoming Wildlife. January 2000.
5 T. Roosevelt, Wilderness Reserves: Taken from Schullery, Theordore Roosevelt Wilderness Writings, Salt Lake City, Peregrine Smith Books, 1986.
6 T. Roosevelt, Bird Reserves at the Mouth of the Mississippi. Taken from Schullery, Theordore Roosevelt Wilderness Writings, Salt Lake City, Peregrine Smith Books,1986.
7 Peter Wild. Pioneer Conservationists of Eastern America. Missoula, MT. Mountain Press Publishing, 1986 (p85).
8 TR Notes from PBS The Presidents TV Series.
9 T. Roosevelt. The Wapiti or Round-Horned Elk. Taken from Schullery, Theordore Roosevelt Wilderness Writings, Salt Lake City, Peregrine Smith Books, 1986.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Theodore Rooservelt. The Strenuous Life (a speech delivered in Chicago in 1905). Applewood Books, Inc., Dedford, MA, 1991.
17 John Eliot. ROOSEVELT COUNTRY: TR’s WILDERNESS LEGACY. National Geographic, Vol. 162, No. 3, September 1982. Pp 340-362.
18 TR’s Wilderness Legacy by John Eliot in National Geographic, Vol. 162 #3, September 1982. 903.
19 Shane Mahoney. Wildlife Conservation in the 21st Century: Can Hunters and Anglers Continue to Lead? 78th Annual Conference Western Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies, Jackson, WY 1998.
20 Op. Cit.
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