COMMENTARY : Hunting Is Headed to Extinction

It’s the year 2000, and things have settled down at the California Department of Fish.

All hunting has been banned in the state since the old Department of Fish and Game lost its last case in court in the early 1990s. When Cleveland Amory became the new director, his first move was to strike half of the department’s title. His second was to fire all the biologists who advocated killing any wildlife species--furry or feathered--as a management tool.

There is no longer any game management. Without hunters to support it, there were no funds. So the creatures were left to themselves, as nature intended.

There also is no longer any game, because nature did not intend that freeways, housing tracts and industrial parks would be built the length and breadth of the state, devouring and subdividing the habitat and crippling the balance. Without help, the creatures couldn’t cope and so died natural deaths, which was preferable to a slug from a .30.06.

There is no quarrel with this. The anti-hunters prevailed legally in court and at the polls, not by running around hunting sites in camouflage clothing, blowing airhorns and getting themselves arrested.

The forests are silent. There are no tracks in the wilderness. The people got what they wanted.

The future . . . or just a worst-case scenario? Consider:

--Item: Prop. 117 passes by a margin of 52% to 48%, outlawing the hunting of mountain lions in California forever.

--Item: Sacramento Superior Court Judge Cecily Bond disallows this year’s archery bear hunt proposed by the Fish and Game commission.

--Item: Anti-hunting activists, on a roll, indicate that they will oppose the migratory bird and waterfowl seasons.

There is only a whisper of protest about all of this.

Jim Moose, the Sacramento lawyer who represents the Fund for Animals, which is leading the anti-hunting crusade, said: “We haven’t lost a single hearing yet and, frankly, it’s almost like shooting fish in a barrel.”

Hunters, did you miss your wakeup call?

“I’m surprised that they slept through it,” said Wayne Pacelle, national director of the Fund for Animals. “Before the bear suit, the DFG had lost four lawsuits in a row and a proposition that was clearly in the public eye for a year.”

But while hunters slept, the DFG was fighting a lonely, losing battle.

And if hunting interests are finally starting to stir, said author Cleveland Amory, who founded the Fund for Animals in 1967, “They’re a little late. (Hunting of the) mountain lion’s gone and (hunting of the) the bear’s gone, and maybe by the time (hunters become organized), a lot of other things will be gone.”

Loren Lutz of Pasadena, who has organized the California Wildlife Conservation Committee to fight the trend, said: “Anti-hunting hysteria is sweeping the North American continent.”

But the anti-hunting forces have picked their battleground carefully. It is California, a large, progressive state known for flouting tradition--and a tiny percentage of hunters. The state’s current population is 29,473,000. Only 411,752, or 1.4%, bought hunting licenses in 1988-89, the last full season for which figures are available, and the numbers are declining steadily.

Fred Romero of Simi Valley, field representative of the National Rifle Assn. for Southern California and southern Nevada, said: “California is the battleground for all issues pertaining to firearms. The rest of the states are looking at us to see which direction we’re going to go.”

Others think the NRA is partly responsible for letting the anti-hunting movement get this far by concentrating its powerful lobby on gun control issues rather than hunters’ interests.

“They’re not doing the job they should do,” Lutz said. “And Ducks Unlimited does nothing but sit around and wring their hands.”

Walt Powell of San Marino, an archery hunting advocate, conceded that the NRA opposed Prop. 117, “but too little and too late.”

Rocky Evans, executive vice president of Quail Unlimited who is organizing a national pro-hunting movement, said: “Prop. 117 could have easily been defeated, but nobody was organized on the national level to fight it. We were in the NRA boardroom, and I was screaming at these people, ‘Hey, if you guys had put $150,000 into this thing to battle it like you would one of your gun bills, we would have won.’

“That is one of the key problems with the NRA today. They haven’t been involved enough in the hunting issues. (But) they are a hunters’ group, and you are going to see them heavily involved (now).”

The issues run deeper than simple, clashing philosophies about the killing of birds and animals for sport. Under the California Environmental Quality Act, the Department of Fish and Game is required to submit scientific evidence that specific hunts will not harm the overall resource--and such reports concerning bears, tule elk and mountain lions have been repeatedly rejected by the courts as inadequate.

But the DFG has gone a step further in pursuing the basic premise--a myth, opponents call it--that hunting is an important tool of game management, controlling populations within limited habitat.

Said Pacelle: “There are 10 times the number of species in California that are not hunted that are doing fine.”

And Amory added: “The ‘management’ of birds is a joke. It’s a sport to kill as many birds as you can . . . (within legal) limits.”

The next critical date is Wednesday, when the Fish and Game Commission will meet in Sacramento to consider approval of the dove and band-tailed pigeon seasons that would open Sept. 1. Ordinarily a rubber-stamp procedure, approval this time would immediately trigger another challenge by the Fund for Animals.

On Oct. 3, the court will consider the challenge against the regular, firearm bear season scheduled to open 10 days later. Again the case will be heard by Bond.

“I’m not as optimistic as I was,” said Terry Mansfield, assistant chief of the DFG’s Wildlife Management Division.

However, during the archery bear hearing Aug. 9, Bond commended the DFG for its documentation and said her decision will have no bearing on the firearm bear season, which will be considered on its own merits. Her main objection seemed to be with what she considered to be the inhumane method--i.e., trying to kill a bear with a bow and arrow.

Opponents contend that more than half the bears shot were merely wounded and escaped to die a slow death or carried arrows around in their bodies for the rest of their lives. They submitted as evidence surveys done on hunting deer with bows in Texas.

Mansfield said archers have killed an average of 30 of the 1,245 bears taken the last nine years during which legal hunting was allowed in the state.

“If the contention was that there’s high wounding associated with archery hunting, why wouldn’t we see it?” Mansfield said. “Instead, the judge apparently put more weight on information presented by the petitioners on wounding rates in Texas in archery hunting of white-tailed deer.”

For the archery bear case, the Fund for Animals brief alluded to the 1989 book, “The Bowhunting Alternative,” by Adrian Benke, advocating the use of arrows treated with the tranquilizer succinylcholine chloride (SCC).

Powell, the Southern California representative for bow hunter education, said: “It isn’t any panacea. It’s a hazard to you if you’re messing with the stuff, and if you hit an animal, it doesn’t cause an immediate, humane death. What it does is paralyze the breathing muscles, and the animal suffocates (without losing consciousness).”

The use of so-called “poison arrows” is illegal under the Fish and Game Code. Earlier, the Fund for Animals urged repeal of that provision, then had second thoughts.

“(The poison arrow issue) was not a major thrust of the brief,” Pacelle said. “We argued (instead) that under CEQA principles (the DFG) had an obligation to reveal all sides of the scientific issues involved with bow hunting, and that they had failed miserably to do so.

“We provided about 20 documents which demonstrated that the crippling rate for bow-and-arrow use exceeded 50%. They didn’t even include the discussion in (their) document.”

Powell said: “In places where detailed studies have been made--(such as) military installations where they have a closed area and conduct hunts to keep the population to a reasonable number--they’ve searched the area after the seasons, and there has been no evidence that the archery fatalities that aren’t recovered are as much as (those from) firearms.

“With an arrow, you have a smooth, clean cut, and if you don’t cut a blood vessel, there’s a good chance of healing. If you do cut a blood vessel, there’s a very good chance of recovering the animal.”

So, where was that documentation Aug. 9? Clearly, hunters in general and bow hunters in particular are going to have to mobilize if they want to protect their interests.

Amory said the Aug. 9 decision was a “landmark” case, adding: “We’re the first to pinpoint the cruelties involved in the kind of game management today. I’ve never heard of a suit that addressed itself to the cruelty to the animal.”

Mansfield said: “Here’s an indictment against one method of take. I think you’re looking at a blanket challenge for archery hunting next year.”

Those opposed to hunting say the DFG documents share a common, major flaw: All are conceived with the purpose of justifying a hunt, not with an open mind as to whether a hunt is really a good idea.

Pacelle and Amory say their intent is not to outlaw all hunting in California and ultimately the country--only what they call the most “egregious” forms, such as bow hunting and the use of dogs.

“The Fund for Animals is against sport hunting--all sport hunting,” Pacelle said. “To outlaw all hunting at this point is not feasible. (But) I think the trends in California are clear. The hunters represent a small and diminishing lobby.

“Short of seeing an end to sport hunting, we’d like to see some responsible ecosystem management, and we’re not seeing that from the California Department of Fish and Game. It continues to be controlled by a bunch of hook-and-bullet boys.”

As for a blanket attack on all hunting, Amory said: “I don’t think that would win in the courts. We are going to make continued attacks on a sport that is represented by about 4% of the people of California. We are sick and tired of them calling the shots--in all senses of the word.

“What we really need is a fish and game (body) that represents the vast majority of people . . . the non-hunter as well as the hunter.”

The Fund for Animals has 250,000 donors and paid office staffs in Sacramento, Washington and New York.

“I don’t think we’re fanatics,” Amory said. “But we stick to our guns.”

That is what the hunters are up against.

The NRA’s Romero said: “It’s not really fair to say we’ve forsaken hunting interests to go after the firearms issue, but the firearms issue came up a lot stronger and with more motivation.

“And to tell you the truth, hunters by and large have been rather apathetic. As a sports group, they are the hardest to get on a bandwagon to become interested in those things that are going to affect them. Even now, a lot of them still think, well, they don’t have to hunt bear or mountain lion, but there are still deer.”

Two other movements have sprung from the Antelope Valley--one for each sex. David Whiteside, who owns a private pheasant ranch called the Antelope Valley Sportsman’s Club, has organized the Shooting and Hunting Sports Legal Defense Fund, with a goal of raising $1,000 a day to fight the anti-hunting challenges in court.

Whiteside said: “We want to have those guys looking over their shoulders from all directions. If we don’t stop ‘em here, they aren’t going to stop until hunting is stopped all across the United States.”

A splinter group is the California Sports Person’s Legal Defense Fund, a women’s group less oriented to hunting.

“They don’t want to be with the gun-waving guys,” said Whiteside, who nevertheless has agreed to serve on their board.

Quail Unlimited’s Evans said: “We’ve got to reach the hunter and wake him up. When we tell people what’s going on in California, they say, ‘Nahhh, that’s not going to happen.’ And I say, ‘It just happened. You’re on the threatened or endangered list right now.’ ”

Part of Evans’ program is to organize an educational program to reach non-hunters “to tell them about wildlife management . . . where the money comes from for the programs we have been enjoying for so many years (and) to make the term hunter synonymous with conservationist.

“If hunting were ever banned, we would lose hundreds of millions of dollars for other wildlife conservation programs. Wildlife would suffer a crushing blow.”

Pacelle disputes that notion.

“The non-hunters are quite anxious to foot the bill,” he said, “(through) a general form of funding for wildlife.”

Evans is also organizing a legal war chest supported by the hunting industry and publishers of hunting-oriented magazines.

“We’ve got to reach our elected officials (and) judges. The point of the coalition is to say, ‘We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.’ ”

One DFG official, who declined to be identified, is looking for help from those officials and judges, many of whom are known to favor duck hunting as a winter rite.

Lutz, a leader in the pro-hunting Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep, said: “The Department of Fish and Game is not getting enough help (and) is certainly not at fault in the bear situation, nor ducks or anything else. I don’t think anything’s been more studied in this state than ducks and black bears, except for bighorn sheep.

“(But) the sportsmen sit by rather complacently and say, ‘God will take care of it for me.’ ”