Game management - Biology or Politics?
10-11-2004, 12:24 PM
#1
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: USA
Posts: 494
Game management - Biology or Politics?
This question was brought to my mind by the discussion on Quality Deer Management and Antler Restrictions.
This sort of issue can really become cantankerous (sp?) because it reflects peoples' understanding of biology-based management (and possible misunderstandings and even outright falsehoods), but also reflects VALUES as to the proper use of game. Just one little example: should game be managed strictly for numbers (biomass, meat on the hoof, Deer Per Mile) or to increase the number of mature bucks for those who really want to get a shot at one. These goals are not necessarily compatable, in my mind. The way I see it is if the biologists are managing strictly for numbers, if there's plenty of deer, you have no restrictions and everyone who wants meat has a pretty good chance of getting some. You don't care if the deer are does, yearlings, mid-aged bucks or old bucks. And if you're a meat hunter, you don't care if that meat comes from a beautiful mature multi-pointed buck, a yearling doe (OK, you'd need two of those!) or a mid-aged, spindly 6 pointer. So, if the first deer you see is the 2 year old 6 pointer you shoot it because it's there and it will taste good. You don't wait for the doe or large buck. But it won't have the chance to grow into a real trophy. But the numbers stay healthy and from year to year, success stays high, so it's not a problem from the biological standpoint.
So my point? We often hear voices complaining when "politics" comes into game management. It should be strictly based on biology, they say. But I say, how can politics NOT be involved? This is a public resource. The public has to decide how that resource is used. Public decisions, are by it's very definition, politics, not biology.
Some of our fellow citizens really don't want to kill them, but want to see them alive. Like it or not, mis-guided as it may be, this is what they see as the proper role of wild animals (and as I tipped my hand in previous posts, the way I TEND -not absolutely- to look at predators). Some of us hunters feel that game should be managed simply for maximum yield (meat in the freezer). Others among us feel that it should be managed, at least in part, to improve chances of a healthy trophy population. Still others feel that wild animals are pests and should be elimitated - whether they be predators eating livestock or people, or deer eating crops, or geese $hitting on public park lawns or causing hazards at airports.
Some of these uses are compatable enough to find middle ground and compromise, but some are mutually exclusive. And that's what politics are - the public finding a public policy by either compromise or pure power, majority over minority politics. In my opinion, game management decisions are absolutley political, and the biology only should support the political decision. As hunters, we need to acknowledge that and look at it as a political excercise and get off of this "it's biology, not politics" soap box.
This sort of issue can really become cantankerous (sp?) because it reflects peoples' understanding of biology-based management (and possible misunderstandings and even outright falsehoods), but also reflects VALUES as to the proper use of game. Just one little example: should game be managed strictly for numbers (biomass, meat on the hoof, Deer Per Mile) or to increase the number of mature bucks for those who really want to get a shot at one. These goals are not necessarily compatable, in my mind. The way I see it is if the biologists are managing strictly for numbers, if there's plenty of deer, you have no restrictions and everyone who wants meat has a pretty good chance of getting some. You don't care if the deer are does, yearlings, mid-aged bucks or old bucks. And if you're a meat hunter, you don't care if that meat comes from a beautiful mature multi-pointed buck, a yearling doe (OK, you'd need two of those!) or a mid-aged, spindly 6 pointer. So, if the first deer you see is the 2 year old 6 pointer you shoot it because it's there and it will taste good. You don't wait for the doe or large buck. But it won't have the chance to grow into a real trophy. But the numbers stay healthy and from year to year, success stays high, so it's not a problem from the biological standpoint.
So my point? We often hear voices complaining when "politics" comes into game management. It should be strictly based on biology, they say. But I say, how can politics NOT be involved? This is a public resource. The public has to decide how that resource is used. Public decisions, are by it's very definition, politics, not biology.
Some of our fellow citizens really don't want to kill them, but want to see them alive. Like it or not, mis-guided as it may be, this is what they see as the proper role of wild animals (and as I tipped my hand in previous posts, the way I TEND -not absolutely- to look at predators). Some of us hunters feel that game should be managed simply for maximum yield (meat in the freezer). Others among us feel that it should be managed, at least in part, to improve chances of a healthy trophy population. Still others feel that wild animals are pests and should be elimitated - whether they be predators eating livestock or people, or deer eating crops, or geese $hitting on public park lawns or causing hazards at airports.
Some of these uses are compatable enough to find middle ground and compromise, but some are mutually exclusive. And that's what politics are - the public finding a public policy by either compromise or pure power, majority over minority politics. In my opinion, game management decisions are absolutley political, and the biology only should support the political decision. As hunters, we need to acknowledge that and look at it as a political excercise and get off of this "it's biology, not politics" soap box.
10-11-2004, 07:02 PM
#3
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Almost Heaven,WV
Posts: 4,087
RE: Game management - Biology or Politics?
Don't forget about all the money that hunting generates and that's another reason the politicians want their hands in it. I think it should be managed for the benefit of the people who pay to hunt.
10-11-2004, 07:37 PM
#4
Join Date: May 2004
Location:
Posts: 255
RE: Game management - Biology or Politics?
Here is a blurb from Bryon Shisslers little ditty he gave at Pa Audubons first 'kill the deer conference' in Penna in 1998. For those who are not familiar Bryon is the architect of Penna's 'sustainable forest' certification for Pa's state owned forests (2.5 million acres, the largest in the country) which generate in excess of 20million a year every year for the state bank accounts. He wrote into that certification that PA must cut its deer herd if the state wants to maintain it ecological friendly certification to sell pa hardwoods at premium prices over seas. Bryon knows politics is what determines wildlife management. At least in pa.
Pa. Audubon is the rented conservation group that was paid to start the effort to reduce Pa's deer herd and they were paid in part by Theresa Heinz's non hunting Heinz Endowments. The PGC needed a third party to do some of its dirty work and allow them plausable deniability. In pa we have had two such kill the deer conferences paid for by non hunters and a few sportsmans groups. His words sum up the role of politics and values in Pa.
"Will deer management be driven and directed by science? By values? Or by opinion? ...
Perhaps the place to begin is to consider that deer management is not--and never has been--driven by science. In fact, very little of our natural resource management is derived directly from scientific data. We manage our natural resources based on values and politics-not quantitative equations and studies, but feelings, ideas, and the political process.
The role of science in natural resource management is to flesh out the options, outline the probable results of our decisions, and provide the tools for manipulating, monitoring, inventorying, and understanding the resource. Ultimately, however, what we do with that resource and our scientific knowledge of it is a product of our personal and societal values--not science. " <====== Bryon Shissler, courtesy of Pa. Audubon
Pa. Audubon is the rented conservation group that was paid to start the effort to reduce Pa's deer herd and they were paid in part by Theresa Heinz's non hunting Heinz Endowments. The PGC needed a third party to do some of its dirty work and allow them plausable deniability. In pa we have had two such kill the deer conferences paid for by non hunters and a few sportsmans groups. His words sum up the role of politics and values in Pa.
"Will deer management be driven and directed by science? By values? Or by opinion? ...
Perhaps the place to begin is to consider that deer management is not--and never has been--driven by science. In fact, very little of our natural resource management is derived directly from scientific data. We manage our natural resources based on values and politics-not quantitative equations and studies, but feelings, ideas, and the political process.
The role of science in natural resource management is to flesh out the options, outline the probable results of our decisions, and provide the tools for manipulating, monitoring, inventorying, and understanding the resource. Ultimately, however, what we do with that resource and our scientific knowledge of it is a product of our personal and societal values--not science. " <====== Bryon Shissler, courtesy of Pa. Audubon
10-12-2004, 07:18 AM
#5
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Western MO
Posts: 321
RE: Game management - Biology or Politics?
It has to be a combination of both...
There are so many issues that cross lines. The needs of the habitat relative to the population and the impact on the habitat long term is an ongoing evaluation. The signs of habitat degradation are subtle and in early stages are not always apperant to the casual observer or hunter who is more interested in the game and less aware of the ecological issues.
Then there is the issue of the habitat ownership and the multiple uses of the habitat. The vast majority of habitat is private owned. And it has multiple uses...grazing, logging, and recreation as well as others like crop and pasture lands. So, the impact of an expanding or high population deer herd has to be looked at from a landowner perspective.
Aside from the economic and scientific parts of habitat management comes political issues of hunters vs. non hunters, insurance companies vs. everyone, economics of tag sales and tourism, and funding of conservation efforts as well as game law enforcement.
Politics will always play a role...
The impacts of population of woodlands and long term woodland health is a bigger issue than people want to give credit to. In the long term, we have to maintain a balance and seek a level where the timber can grow, mature, regenerate, and have the right mix of shrubs, trees, seedlings, species diversity etc. In some areas, deer have become so populated that the browse and the new sedling numbers and species have gotten in real trouble. There has to be a balance of all age classes of trees, especially in hardwood forests that grow and mature so lowly. When that happens today, the impact will be felt over the course of the next 100 years plus....Timber and forest management is a very long term management challenge.
We as hunters and fishermen need to continue to learn more about all areas of wildlife management, the various influences...scientific as well as political and economic. Only then can we be successful stating our points of view.
If we always have a one sided approach...more animals is good, nothing else matters, population is the only goal...well, then we end up looking uninformed and just another interest group.
There are so many issues that cross lines. The needs of the habitat relative to the population and the impact on the habitat long term is an ongoing evaluation. The signs of habitat degradation are subtle and in early stages are not always apperant to the casual observer or hunter who is more interested in the game and less aware of the ecological issues.
Then there is the issue of the habitat ownership and the multiple uses of the habitat. The vast majority of habitat is private owned. And it has multiple uses...grazing, logging, and recreation as well as others like crop and pasture lands. So, the impact of an expanding or high population deer herd has to be looked at from a landowner perspective.
Aside from the economic and scientific parts of habitat management comes political issues of hunters vs. non hunters, insurance companies vs. everyone, economics of tag sales and tourism, and funding of conservation efforts as well as game law enforcement.
Politics will always play a role...
The impacts of population of woodlands and long term woodland health is a bigger issue than people want to give credit to. In the long term, we have to maintain a balance and seek a level where the timber can grow, mature, regenerate, and have the right mix of shrubs, trees, seedlings, species diversity etc. In some areas, deer have become so populated that the browse and the new sedling numbers and species have gotten in real trouble. There has to be a balance of all age classes of trees, especially in hardwood forests that grow and mature so lowly. When that happens today, the impact will be felt over the course of the next 100 years plus....Timber and forest management is a very long term management challenge.
We as hunters and fishermen need to continue to learn more about all areas of wildlife management, the various influences...scientific as well as political and economic. Only then can we be successful stating our points of view.
If we always have a one sided approach...more animals is good, nothing else matters, population is the only goal...well, then we end up looking uninformed and just another interest group.
