Is duck-hunting a moral activity?

I doubt the question creates much angst among Madduck readers who go afield each autumn to await the dawn flight, but the issue demands exploration, partly because of what appears to be rising – or bolder, more highly vocal – moral/religious criticism of hunting, as evidenced by reaction to several of my recent newspaper columns that focused on hunting.

The critics’ reasons for opposition varied. Some viewed all hunting as immoral. Many were especially offended by dove hunting, viewing the dove as a religious symbol – God’s chosen “bird of peace” – and the killing of one as tantamount to sin. Others opposed hunting under the guise of “sport.”

These are not minor criticisms. The individuals who raised them are not caterwauling, in-your-face, animal-rights activists, but down-to-earth Midwest folks who eventually will play a role in determining whether hunting remains a lawful activity. (The lone, faith-based radical asked how I would explain my earthly actions to God on Judgment Day.)

Their criticisms prompted me to evaluate their moral/religious arguments from a biological and historical perspective, the results of which follow:

Life devours life. This is a fundamental law of biological existence. It is, one must conclude, God’s will.

To some this might seem cruel, but the natural world is programmed to accommodate this ruthless state of affairs. It works this way: All organisms produce more young than can possibly survive, an observation first made by none other than Charles Darwin. This yields what today is sometimes described as a “harvestable surplus,” animals not needed to sustain a species’ population but which provide sustenance for other forms of life. Population biologists further theorize that if the growth of a species is left unchecked, the species will overpopulate its habitat, resulting in starvation or disease outbreaks that could ultimately doom the species. Death therefore is not only necessary to sustain the vigor and health of a species, it provides sustenance for other life to flourish. It does not necessarily represent a tragic loss.

It is against this backdrop that we must consider Man, who emerged some 500,000 years ago (possibly longer, depending on one’s interpretation of the fossil evidence). He faced a harsh struggle. His survival depended on the hunting and killing of wildlife. (Our hunter-gatherer ancestors could not fall back on agriculture or domesticated stock for sustenance. These developments are only 12,000 years old.)

Thus, the scientific and historical record tells us death is not only a biological necessity, but the hunting and killing of wildlife was central to our emergence and survival as a species. This raises a theological question: How can anyone suddenly declare as immoral the very act that nourished and sustained us throughout most of our history, and is in fact responsible for our flourishing existence today?

To my mind, one cannot, especially in the absence of evidence that today’s hunting endangers our biological existence. I have never heard a critic offer proof that this is the case. I have never heard a critic address in any meaningful fashion the historic dependency between Man and the killing of God’s creatures. I therefore dismiss the assertion that hunting is immoral or offensive to a Higher Power as factually vacant and contrary to the biological and historical record.

A second and more highly contentious issue focused on the “bird of peace.” This was especially true for those who expressed no objection to the hunting of, say, ducks, but found it tantamount to sin to kill a bird possessing religious symbolism.

There are more than 300 members of the dove family worldwide, and biologists who have studied the issue estimate that some six species can account for all biblical references to doves, a conclusion based on the geographic distribution of the various species. Since mourning doves and white-wing doves are strictly New World species, this prompts some pro-hunting advocates to argue the religious references found in the Bible do not apply to the doves we hunt.¹

A similar argument involves the religious view of white-plumaged doves as a symbol of purity and love. Mourning and white-wing doves possess tan plumages.

I find these arguments intriguing, but not compelling.

I find more persuasive the fact that archaeologists tell us doves were viewed as a symbol of peace, love and virility as far back as 4500 b.c. This has allowed sufficient time for various cultures and religions to reach agreement on our relationship with the bird. But this has failed to occur.

Ancient Syrians may have proscribed their killing and use as food, but other cultures and religions have not. In medieval Europe many Christian monasteries and manors raised the birds for human consumption. One English monastery, in fact, maintained a dovecote with 1,400 birds – a number described as “the medieval equivalent of our large-scale chicken factories.”

Thus, 6,500 years of religious symbolism have not brought about a universal prohibition on the killing and eating of doves. This failure to reach universality effectively removes the killing of a dove from the catalog of egregious acts offensive to mankind that we characterize as “sin.” Indeed, mankind’s judgment over the millennia suggests killing and eating a dove killing is best left to each individual/culture/religion to decide.

A third issue involved sport, and here we enter murky, linguistic water.

Sport began in ancient times as a celebration of individual excellence for skills related to hunting/food-gathering (think of archery and javelin) and warfare (recall the marathon’s origin and chariot racing). A related element involved religion (the ancient Greeks named the Olympic Games after Mount Olympus, the home of the Gods.) The key point is that most ancient sports focused on individual skills necessary for survival on the hunting-ground or battlefield.

The Industrial Revolution brought about an increase in leisure time and the rise of team sports. The result is that today in this nation we celebrate such recent arrivals on the sporting scene as baseball, football and basketball. It is worth noting that our culture views team sports differently – and this is reflected in our language. We play football. We play basketball. We play baseball. We strive to reach the play-offs. By comparison, we compete in archery. We run a marathon.

Words have meaning. Words have power. Words can persuade. Since our language today characterizes our major sports as play, an activity viewed by some as morally frivolous, a belief that dates back to the days of our dour Puritan ancestors, this has significant implications for what we collectively describe as sport hunting, and for the highly skilled and ethical hunters we celebrate as sportsmen. We coined the phrase sport hunting to distinguish our actions from those of market hunters who plundered our once abundant wildlife, the prime examples being the extirpation of the buffalo and extinction of the passenger pigeon.

But judging from comments of my critics, an increasing percentage of the general public today equates sport hunting with team sport – a form of play. One individual expressed her belief that killing under the mantle of sport is wrong, because it involves (in her view) a form of play that focuses on killing God’s creatures and leaving the dead to lie in the field to decompose.²

We face the unfortunate fact that the evolving (some would say devolving) definition of sport has come home to haunt us. We have been painted into a linguistic corner.

Naturally, I responded to my critics by writing a defense-of-hunting column, citing much of the above. It prompted this response from a veteran newspaperman, an individual wise in the ways of humanity, “You’re right, of course. But I doubt you have changed anyone’s mind.”

His insight, I believe, is pivotal to the future of hunting. If logic in the form of biology, history and etymology will not prove persuasive, we must ask ourselves, “What will?”

Any suggestions?

¹ I am indebted to the wonderful and authoritative book “Ecology and Management of the Mourning Dove” by Thomas S. Baskett, et al, for the details regarding the religious symbolism and biology of doves.

² I explained to the woman that her definition of sport hunting differed significantly from mine, and that all doves shot and killed were taken from the field and eaten. I cite her only because she was the most articulate. Many others opposed hunting for “sport.”