While browsing a newspaper recently, I was encouraged to read the headline: “State moves to regulate ‘captive hunting.’” It detailed the fact that after 10 years of debate, the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Board has finally approved a rule that regulates “game farms” in the state. This is a good thing.
What I’m less comfortable with is the fact that the justifications for and against the ban seem to be playing out along emotional lines. In a Brattleboro Reformer story, the chairman of the Fish and Wildlife board is quoted as saying: “The board was reluctant to take this up. The board has issue with the practice but we didn’t want to put anyone out of business.”
You have another board member who says: “Vermont hunters as a whole have a very high ethical standard when it comes to fair chase . . .”
And then, of course, there are the obligatory quotes from the regional director of the Humane Society of the United States, a group who generally opposes all hunting but takes particular offense to killing animals that have no chance of escape.
Now all the emotional talking points are fine, and, on a certain level, important. Putting people out of business is bad. Fair chase and ethical behavior are good. Many people take offense to killing game animals that have no chance of escape, myself included (although I do raise and slaughter pigs and chickens – please note the hypocrisy there).
The problem with emotional arguments is that they’re flimsy, and often hypocritical, especially when they’re applied towards public policy. As a result, they don’t hold water. Because emotional arguments are not objective, they can be debated endlessly. One man’s job is another man’s pink slip. One man’s fair chase is another man’s brutal slaughter. What’s lost in the activism and shrill hyperbole of such debates is often science, biology, truth.
The real reason people should be vehemently opposed to captive hunting is that it’s biologically irresponsible. There is strong evidence that game farms, which often contain exotic beasts from around the globe, are the vector through which chronic wasting disease (CWD) is spread. Chronic wasting disease has the potential to wipe out tens of thousands of deer in the state. There’s no reward that’s worth that risk.
Nature has taught us again, and again, and again that it’s bad to shrink the planet. Stay tuned for an upcoming story in Northern Woodlands on Chestnut blight, a disease brought over from China that wiped out 4 billion trees. There’s no biological reason why a similar animal disease, imported on (or in) exotic animals, couldn’t do the same thing to a native animal species.
The board’s ruling will probably be challenged in court. I hope that in future debates, instead of property rights vs. animal rights, the argument focuses on ecosystem rights. Through such a lens, there’s no argument at all. Importing exotic plants or animals from around the world and storing them behind a chain link fence is just a really dumb idea.
To learn more about CWD, check out www.cwd-info.org.
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