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FIVE STAGES OF A HUNTER
Hunters change through the years. Factors used to determine
"successful hunting" change as well for each hunter. A
hunter's age,
role models, and his years of hunting experience affect his ideas of
"success."
Many hunters may fit into one of the following five groups. In
1975-1980, groups of over 1,000 hunters in Wisconsin were studied,
surveyed, and written about by Professors Robert Jackson and Robert
Norton, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. The results of their
studies form a widely accepted theory of hunter behavior and
development. Where are you now? Where would you like to be?
SHOOTER STAGE
The hunter talks about satisfaction with hunting being closely tied
to
being able to "get shooting." Often the beginning duck
hunter will
relate he had an excellent day if he got in a lot of shooting. The
beginning deer hunter will talk about the number of shooting
opportunities. Missing game means little to hunters in this phase. A
beginning hunter wants to pull the trigger and test the capability
of
his firearm. A hunter in this stage may be a dangerous hunting
partner.
LIMITING OUT STAGE
A hunter still talks about satisfaction gained from shooting. But
what
seems more important is measuring success through the killing of
game
and the number of birds or animals shot. Limiting out, or filling a
tag, is the absolute measure. Do not let your desire to limit out be
stronger than the need for safe behavior at all times.
TROPHY STAGE
Satisfaction is described in terms of selectivity of game. A duck
hunter might take only greenheads. A deer hunter looks for one
special
deer. A hunter might travel far to find a real trophy animal.
Shooting
opportunity and skills become less important.
METHOD STAGE
This hunter has all the special equipment. Hunting has become one of
the most important things in his life. Satisfaction comes from the
method that enables the hunter to take game. Taking game is
important,
but second to how it is taken. This hunter will study long and hard
how best to pick a blind site, lay out decoys, and call in
waterfowl. A deer hunter will go one on one with a white-tailed
deer,
studying sign, tracking, and the life habits of the deer. Often, the
hunter will handicap himself by hunting only with black powder
firearms or bow and arrow. Bagging game, or limiting, still is
understood as being a necessary part of the hunt during this phase.
SPORTSMAN STAGE
As a hunter ages and after many years of hunting, he "mellows
out."
Satisfaction now can be found in the total hunting experience. Being
in the field, enjoying the company of friends and family, and seeing
nature outweigh the need for taking game.
Not all hunters go through all the stages, or go through them in
that
particular order. It is also possible for hunters who pursue several
species of game to be in different stages with regard to each
species. Some hunters feel that role models of good sportsmen,
training, or reading books or magazines helped them pass more
quickly
through some stages.
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California Department of Fish and Game. "California Hunter
Education
Manual". 1995 (revised edition). Sacramento, California. [p.8]
TYPES OF HUNTERS
Many wildlife managers feel that Yale professor Dr. Stephen
Kellert's
1978 study of U.S. hunters and their attitudes and characteristics
still mostly applies today in North America.
He found three categories of hunters:
The dominionistic/sport group is the one that the non- and
anti-hunting public particularly dislike and often use to stereotype
or negatively portray ALL hunters and hunting.
UTILITARIAN/MEAT HUNTERS
"Hunting to obtain meat was the most frequently cited primary
reason,
accounting for 43.8 percent of persons who hunted..." [p.413]
Utilitarian/meat hunters were significantly more likey to have been
raised or presently living in rural, open-country areas. Relatedly,
utilitarian/meat hunters reported much greater experience with
raising
animals for either slaughter or nonslaugher purposes, and fathers
employed in farm-related occupations. This hunting group included a
disproportionate number of persons over 65 years of age and
significantly more respondents earning less than $6,000."
[p.414]
"Utilitarian/meat hunters appeared to perceive animals largely
from
the perspective of their practical usefulness... The
utilitarian/meat
hunter viewed hunting as a harvesting activity and wild animals as a
harvestable crop not unlike other renewable natural resources."
[p.414]
NATURE HUNTERS
"Hunting for the purpose of close contact with nature was
the... cited
primary reason for hunting, accounting for some 17.7 percent of
those
who hunted... Demographically, nature hunters included significantly
more persons under 30 years of age and far fewer over 65. These age
characteristics may suggest possible trends in motivation for
hunting. Nature hunters were also of higher socioeconomic status, as
indicated by more college-educated respondents and more fathers
employed in professional and business-executive occupations.
Nature hunters reported by far the most adult and childhood wildlife
interest, more backpacking and camping-out experience, and more
birdwatching activity. Importantly, nature hunters had far higher
knowledge-of-animals scale scores particularly in comparison to
dominionistic/sport hunters." [p.414]
[Nature hunters also] "...indicated strong concern and
affection for
all animals... [However this affection is] ...somewhat generalized
and
not specifically directed at pet animals or manifest in the feeling
of
"loving" animals. The desire for an active, participatory
role in
nature was perhaps the most significant aspect of the nature
hunter's
approach to hunting. The goal was the intense involvement with wild
animals in their natural habitats. Participation as a predator was
valued for the opportunities it provided to regard oneself as an
integral part of nature. The hunt was appreciated for its forcing of
awareness of natural phenomena organized into a coherent,
goal-directed framework." [p. 415]
DOMINIONISTIC/SPORT HUNTERS
"Dominionistic/sport hunters constitute 38.5 percent of all
those who
hunted... They were significantly more likely to reside in cities,
and to have been in the armed forces. Additionally, they differed
from
utilitarian/meat hunters in reporting far less experience raising
animals for a product, and from nature hunters in reporting
significantly less backpacking and birdwatching activities. One
outstanding characteristic was their low scores on the
knowledge-of-animals scale. Interestingly, only anti-hunters, of all
animal activity groups studied, had equally low knowledge
scores."
"...It appeared that competition and mastery over animals, in
the
context of a sporting contest, were the most salient aspects of the
dominionistic/sport hunter's interest in the hunting activity. This
group did not reveal strong affections for animals." [p.416]
"The hunted animal was valued largely for the opportunities it
provided to engage in a sporting activity involving mastery,
competition, shooting skill and expressions of prowness. ...They
were
not items of food but trophies, something to get and display to
fellow
hunters. For the dominionistic/sport hunter, hunting was appreciated
more as a human social than as an animal-oriented activity."
[p.416-417]
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Stephen Kellert, "Attitudes and Characteristics of Hunters and
Antihunters" (Transactions of the Forty-third North American
Wildlife
and Natural Resources Conference, 1978). pp.412-423.
USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN HUNTING
"...progress in weapons is foreign to the essence of hunting,
that reason is not a primary ingredient of it, since *hunting
cannot substantially progress* [italics his]...
...as the weapon became more and more effective, man imposed more
and more limitations on himself as the animal's rival in order to
leave it free to practice its wily defenses, in order to avoid
making the prey and the hunter excessively unequal, as if passing
beyond a certain limit, transforming it into pure killing and
destruction. Hence the confrontation between man and animal has a
precise boundary beyond which hunting ceases to be hunting, just
at the point where man lets loose his immense technical
superiority - that is, rational superiority - over the
animal. The fisherman who poisons the mountain brook to
annihilate suddenly, all at once, the trout swimming in it, ipso
facto ceases to be a hunter."
"To exterminate or to destroy animals by an invincible and
automatic procedure is not hunting."
"...present day hunting...consists precisely in restraining
itself, in its limiting its own intervention." [pp.45-46]
Jose Ortega y Gasset. 1942 (1985 ed.). "Meditations on
Hunting". Charles Scribner's and Sons, New York. ISBN
0-684-18630-6
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