In the first of periodic offerings on hot topics from the Gray Matters web page, Michael Brick writes on hunting’s Fair Chase principles.
The trophy hunter remains in hiding. Nearly two months have passed since he admitted killing a collared lion known as Cecil outside Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. A local conservation group said the animal was lured from a protected area, shot first by an arrow, then finished by a bullet, skinned and decapitated.
By day, Walter J. Palmer had been a prosperous citizen of Eden Prairie, Minn., a 55-year-old family man and the proprietor of River Bluff Dental. In a letter to clients, he lamented the futility of defending his sport.
“I don’t often talk about hunting with my patients,” he wrote, “because it can be a divisive and emotionally charged topic.”
Divisive and emotionally charged topics do exceedingly well on the Internet, where anonymous typists set upon him with tools ranging from negative reviews of his dentistry to threats on his life. Vandals tagged his house. Among the few who backed their words with their names, actress Mia Farrow posted his business address on Twitter. Ingrid Newkirk, the president of PETA, suggested his hanging.
One layer below the vitriol, reasonable differences of opinion do exist. Hunting, according to hunters, supports conservation by culling herds, financing habitat preservation, and spreading appreciation of the outdoors. According to animal rights advocates, it amounts to a senseless exercise in pain, slaughter and ego gratification by a species with the entire food chain at its greedy disposal. Measured thinking
To scan the Internet, you might never guess that anyone on either side holds a considered position on the questions raised by Cecil’s killing. Perhaps keeping a low profile is the only way to avoid graffiti, death threats and Mia Farrow.
But some hunters have developed their own reservations about the case. And the distinctions they are drawing provide an important perspective on the modern brand of instant justice in America. When I called Jim Willems, president of the Pope & Young Club, a national bow hunting organization, he said: “If Walt Palmer did this, he deserves to be punished. He’s a disgrace to the hunting community.”
I don’t hunt. I’m a city guy; it’s not my thing. Several years ago, writing a series on outdoor sports, I interviewed numerous hunters and outfitters, including Palmer. I spent time on hunting grounds in Texas, Mexico, California and Mississippi. And I took great interest in a concept called Fair Chase.
Fair Chase, as defined by the hunting group Boone & Crockett, involves obeying applicable laws and respecting local customs. Some interpret it to ban practices like the use of all-terrain vehicles. The end result should be a kill that confers no “improper” advantage. Recognizing the subjectivity of that term, one tenet suggests: “Exercise a personal code of behavior that reflects favorably on your abilities and sensibilities as a hunter.”
Come November, when Texas deer season opens, some 700,000 hunters will set out after a population of about 4 million animals. Some will legally shoot a deer at a feeding trough inside a fenced enclosure at one of more than 1,200 breeding ranches. Many others will be appalled. Wasn’t for food
Even under the extraordinary circumstance of a big game safari, with geopolitical issues including extreme poverty complicating the conservation debate, a sense of fair play strikes a deep chord with our better angels. Nobody wants to eat a lion, including Walt Palmer, who left the skinned carcass to decompose in the sun. Though baiting in general surely qualifies as a traditional practice, no reasonable person defends killing a tagged research subject or luring an animal from a protected reservation.
So what gives you the right, I asked Dave Samuel, a prominent bow hunter based in West Virginia, to decide what counts as fair?
“You make that decision,” Samuel said, “based on your own morality.”
We all deserve that right. Up to a point. For this season’s pariah, the big game trophy hunter who stepped off the savannah into the wilds of the Internet, it’s time for justice to involve a court of law. Wittingly or not, Walt Palmer clearly ventured beyond the bounds of Fair Chase. So have his vigilante pursuers.
The rest of us can take a lesson. Sportsmanship won’t automatically make you a good person, but it can be useful practice. And a man does need a code.