By Eric Nuse, VT District Hunter Education Coordinator

There is a famous story about a frog that is placed in a pan of cool water. The pan is put over a low flame. The frog could jump out at any time, but as the water heats it just sits there-and cooks. I think that the water is heating up on the future of hunting, and we should be jumping out of the pan and turning the heat down while we still can.

Hunting is not in a crisis in Vermont. But the evidence is mounting that the future of hunting is in jeopardy. Available land is shrinking due to the increase of posting, suburban sprawl and leased hunting rights. Mounting pressure to legislate better hunter behavior is evidenced by tougher tree stand and road hunting laws passed recently and points to a growing dissatisfaction by the public with current hunter behavior. Lackluster recruitment and retention of hunters can in part be attributed to hunter dissatisfaction with loss of traditional hunting grounds and awareness of poor behavior by fellow hunters.

Hunters, fish and game agencies, and conservation groups have faced major challenges to hunting in the past and overcome them. A prime example is hunting accidents. In 1909 Wisconsin had one deer hunter killed for every 90 deer harvested. At that ratio Vermont would have had 222 hunting fatalities last year . Rather than shrugging their shoulders and accepting these statistics as inevitable, hunters have changed how they hunt through education, regulation, enforcement, and the wearing of hunter orange. Sound shots, shooting at tails and night hunting became unacceptable. The results are an 86 % reduction of hunting accidents  from 1958 to today.

To influence the future of hunting three things have to happen:

1. A critical mass of people must recognize that there is a problem. A slowly building problem  makes that tougher (which is why frogs don't jump).
2. Leaders need to step forward and act- by example, by motivating others, and by facilitating a process to figure out what needs to be done.
3. Finally, hunters collectively must have the courage to act.

As hunters we need to think deeply about why we hunt, how we hunt and what is important about hunting. If hunting is worth saving, then I think we all have to raise our ethical standards and only hunt in the most respectful, thoughtful way we possibly can. I don't believe this will happen without fundamental educational and philosophical changes.

If there isn't change, I see the following future scenario. Access to private land will be limited to members of hunt clubs and by how much money one is willing to spend. The average person will only be able to hunt on their own land or on over hunted public land. The public's perception of hunting will  be increasingly negative based on rampant trespassing, illegal road hunting and poaching by frustrated shooters. Hunters will fragment into the haves and the have-nots, with the moneyed  elite monopolizing the best hunting grounds and animals. In short, we will have adopted the worst aspect of the European model of hunting.

In the Vermont Hunter Education program we are strengthening the ethics and law sections of our basic course; and we have started a remedial outdoor ethics course for violators. But this only represents an incremental, long range possibility for positive change.

Ted Kerosote, in his book Heart of Home, says: " First and foremost, the hunting community and wildlife agencies need to find the money and staff to provide more rigorous hunter-education programs. … This will be an extremely difficult task given that a more stringent program will eliminate some hunters, which of course will decrease funding for agencies and profits for the sporting industry. If more stringent hunter education is to succeed, agencies will have to find additional funding besides the current bargain-basement prices of licenses…"

I suspect that just raising the standards for new hunters will not be enough. Current hunters will have to also meet the new higher standards. We don't have the luxury of 50 years to improve behavior. Consider this story relayed to a department biologist last year. A hunter stopped in to ask a farmer if he could hunt snow geese on his land the next day. The hunter introduced himself and made his pitch. Without a word the farmer grabbed a milk bucket and flung it against the wall and told the astonished hunter to get the hell out of his barn. It turned out that the day before a "hunter" had driven all over this farmer's new seeded piece while putting out his decoys and had torn it to shreds.

Shane Mahoney, one of the leading thinkers on the future of the hunting tradition offered the following at the 1998 Governor's Symposium on Hunting Heritage. "How do we safeguard the continuance of hunting and fishing as legitimate activities contributing to the conservation of wildlife and also providing unbroken connectedness between ourselves and the natural world? We do so I think …by abandoning practices and terminology which are no longer reflective of what we as conservationist/hunters represent, … by establishing and abiding by codes of behavior which are above reproach, and by treating the land, as well as animals, with respect."

As hunter citizens we should all be actively supporting anti-sprawl actions, speaking up when we see or hear about illegal or unethical behavior, and being avid conservationists. Just working to increase huntable species and giving lip service to other environmental problems is not sufficient. In the tradition of Aldo Leopold we all must be conservationists first and then hunters.

Jay Hair offered the following challenge at the first Governor's Symposium on Hunting Heritage in 1992. "The crossroads that hunters face is a choice between two scenarios.- We can circle our wagons and defend the status quo, while being stampeded into the ground. Or we can become part of those on the cutting edge and be viewed as positive agents of change. As I see it, the choice is clear- we either lead or become irrelevant."

The water is getting hotter. But we're not frogs- are we?