African Outfitter is an independent bimonthly publication promoting
fair hunting and ethical business practices within the hunting industry.
From a hunting perspective, the preservation of biodiversity on the
African continent is the first and foremost priority. The emphasis
is however also on the sustainable utilisation of wildlife.
SOME THOUGHTS ON HUNTING ETHICS - PH Flack
When we look at some of the old, faded, sepia photographs of the spoils of the hunt dating from the 19th century, most modern hunters are appalled at the evidence of what seems to be the vast and wanton slaughter by early settlers to continents such as North America and Africa. There are rows and rows of birds, fish and game neatly laid out on the ground or hung from wagons, buildings or at butcheries of one kind or another.
How much of this wildlife was used to provide food and how much sheer, unadulterated slaughter for the mere sake of slaughter, is not clear. We know, for example, that one royal hunting party in South Africa accounted for some 5 000 head of game in under a week of frenzied ‘pig-sticking' and shooting. I have also read accounts of people like these boasting that "I did not kill as many as the others but I certainly wounded a lot".
But these were not ugly or evil people. They were simply people of their time who believed that there was no end to wildlife. They probably did not believe for one, solitary second that these killing orgies could or would affect the vast quantities of game that they encountered – from springbok migrations in the Karoo to white-bearded wildebeest herds in the Serengeti. But they were clearly wrong.
And, to be fair, in time, many recognized they were wrong. Long before laws, rules and regulations were introduced to govern hunting, serious, thinking hunters were already applying fairly simple, straight-forward, self-governing, ethical codes of conduct to regulate their own behaviour, for example:
- don't shoot females;
- don't hunt in the birthing season; and
- don't shoot more game than you can use, i.e. don't waste game.
A hundred and thirty years ago, Clive Phillipps-Wolley wrote in Big Game Shooting, "Looked at from any point of view, the wholesale slaughter of game must be condemned by every thinking man. The sportsman who in one season is lucky enough to obtain a dozen good heads does no harm to anybody … But the man who kills fifty or a hundred … shocks humanity and does a grave injury to his class. The waste of good meat is quite intolerable; kindly natured men hate to hear of the infliction of needless pain and waste of innocent animal life; good sportsmen recoil in disgust from a record of butchery misnamed sport, for, according to the very first article of their creed, it is the difficulty of the chase which gives value to their trophies. If there were no difficulties, no dangers, no hardships, then the sport would have no flavour and its prize no value."
With time, these codes of ethics have changed and continue to change from country to country and from culture to culture. They have certainly also become far more detailed and elaborate.
To digress for just a moment. I don't know if you have come across the phenomenon but I have on a number of occasions, particularly in business. Picture the scene. The boss walks into your office. You jump to your feet in time to have a bundle of papers slapped on your desk. "That's your budget plan for next year," says the big man. Immediately, two unspoken thoughts may go through your mind; firstly, "Well, if you know so much about my job, why don't you come down here and try it on for size?" The second thought is usually a wish to see the plan fail and, even if you do nothing deliberate to sabotage it, you take secret pleasure in the fact that it does. Why? Simply because it is his plan not yours. You were not consulted. You gave no input. In fact, you had nothing at all to do with it. By his arrogance, it is implied that your views are irrelevant.
In a way, laws are similar to the budget plan, whereas ethics are not. Laws are, for the most part, imposed on us, whereas ethics are of our own making. Ethics are a little like beauty – in the eye of the beholder. Each of us lives by his own, self-imposed, ethical code and, because it is yours, decided on by you and for you, it makes no sense to breach it.
But therein lays a problem. When you voluntarily join a hunting organisation, you equally voluntarily (albeit automatically) ascribe to the code of ethics adopted by that body. I belong to six hunting organisations – three in South Africa and three abroad. Each has its own ethical hunting code and, although five are roughly similar, they are not the same. One is different and adopts a code which essentially says, "If it is legal in the country where you hunt, that's OK with us." Let's leave this one out and focus on the other five. Is any one of the five better than the others and, if so, why?
There is no definitive way of answering this question because the answer inevitably comes down to a value judgment, to a statement of belief: "I believe this is the best ethical code." And I would hazard a guess that, if you were to ask 100 people to evaluate the five codes, you would probably come up with nearly 100 different answers as to which was the best code and why.
So, do I want to add my five cents' worth and criticize any of these codes or, conversely, argue the merits of which is the best one? Definitely not! I am no arbiter or expert on hunting ethics. Quite simply, I have made far too many mistakes over nearly 40 years of hunting to try and pretend that I have all the answers. I am certainly not one of those fortunate people who can say, "If I had my life over again, I would do everything exactly the same." While I have certainly tried to limit the "If onlys" in my life, I have simply done too many things which, with the perfect, 20:20 vision of hindsight, I should not have done or, conversely, have left undone those things I really should have done.
Having said that, there is something I would like to comment on when it comes to hunting ethics and that is the inability that many of our hunting organisations seem to have when it comes to enforcing their own ethical rules or codes of conduct. I believe there are a number of reasons for this – lack of time, expertise, will and money on the part of the organisation and its governing body being the main factors but the ugly spectre of blackmail has also far too often reared its evil head. "If you sanction me, my friends and I will say that you were guilty of the same thing" has been a frequent threat.
These and other factors have often allowed serious transgressors of the voluntarily adopted hunting codes to flout the self-same codes with impunity, and the hunting bodies, when faced with the imminent prospect of expensive litigation launched by the person they propose to discipline (which they have no way of combating due to the organisation's lack of funds, expertise etc., etc.), have
been obliged to bend the knee, slink off in defeat and tolerate the continued presence of an unethical member. It does not take a neuro-surgeon to know that this is the thin end of the wedge or, to put it another way, ethics are a little like justice – it must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.
You can also argue that ethics are a little like leadership – they must be established by example. You cannot say, for example, "Follow me boys, I am right behind you." The blow to the morale of an organisation, should it lose the battle to sanction the unethical behaviour of some member who richly deserves to have his backside well and truly kicked, simply because such a member has too much money or influence, is a debilitating one and one from which the governing body of the organisation (and sometimes the organisation itself) can often not recover. Most of life is a function of carrot and stick and the organisation has now lost the stick.
I am fortunate. Some years ago, I found my hunting home. It is not a body to which I have to belong in order to retain my firearm licences. No, it is a body of like-minded hunters begun by those doyens of the South African hunting scene, Robin Halse, Steve Smith and Chappy Sparks. What makes it unique is not only the practical, traditional and authentic ethical code of conduct they espouse but the requirement that each member sign an undertaking not to resort to litigation in the event of his conduct being censured by a committee of his peers. The body is called the Rowland Ward Guild of Field Sportsmen. Should you be interested in becoming a member, details are available on the Rowland Ward web site – www.rowlandward.com.
At the end of the day, however, we are all fallible human beings. We all make mistakes. We may even breach our own ethical codes of conduct or those of the bodies to which we belong. The important thing, I believe, is that we recognize when we have done so, and then not trying to rationalize or excuse our actions but sincerely resolve not to make the same mistake again and APOLOGISE – if only to ourselves.
In conclusion, as more and more people, who are not really hunters, are obliged to join our hunting bodies in order to retain their firearms licences, I foresee that this issue of sanctioning members for unethical conduct is going to become an ever-greater problem. I also wonder whether, sooner or later, if our hunting bodies are not prepared to grasp the thorny nettle of proper disciplinary processes, the government will not feel compelled to use its usual 20-pound hammer to crack this thin-shelled walnut. If it does, we will have well and truly shot ourselves in the foot and have only ourselves to blame.