Note from Tony Dean: This is my first column for the Fargo, ND Forum, that appears in today's Forum. I will be writing twice-monthly columns for them.
By Tony Dean
About a decade ago, a committee of waterfowl biologists created a snow goose population reduction plan. So far, so good. But it quickly morphed into a three-headed monster that chips away the foundation of our hunting heritage. Faced with a need to reduce snow goose numbers, the solution biologists offered, while sincere, could double as a game plan to end hunting. With a spin Karl Rove would envy, they called this monstrosity a “conservation order.”
Waterfowl managers removed a long-standing ban on spring goose hunting, but the mechanics raise serious ethical questions including:
* Legalizing electronic calls * Removing shotgun plugs * Liberal or no limits
Learning to become a good goose caller takes time and effort, though that’s how a good hunter separates himself from others. But the combined efforts of a quartet of championship callers can’t match the realism that emanates from a digital player rendering the sounds of contented feeding geese through Bose-quality speakers.
Some years ago, federal game wardens arrested a group of Louisiana hunters who killed several hundred geese after sneaking up on them. Our television screens displayed crippled birds flopping everywhere; scenes that enraged both ethical hunters and the non-hunting public, yet today, some hunters employ similar tactics under the banner of conservation.
I’ve hunted snow geese for nearly four decades and realized long ago, that by the time a third shot is fired, the birds are often beyond effective shotgun range, thus, no matter how well-intended, plug removal has turned a shotgun into a crippling machine.
But liberal or no limits may do more damage to the image of hunting. It causes some hunters to lose respect for the birds, while it sends the wrong message to the non-hunting public. Killing many snow geese via ethically questionable tactics does not make one a “conservationist.”
Examples abound.
The October, Outdoor Life magazine carried a short feature on Arkansas guide, Patrick Pick, who along with eleven hunting buddies, killed 1,029 snow geese over two days. The author wrote, “Rather than waste time and effort trying to call the huge flocks near, they decided to take the hunt to the geese, stalking within shotgun range,” an effort that conjures up pictures of the Louisiana slaughter footage.
“We had pushers and blockers,” Pitt said, “and we used radios and cell phones to work our way around the feeding flocks of birds.” (The use of such devices while hunting is illegal in most states.) The group determined the most likely escape routes and blockers set up there. The story did not mention crippling, but given the tactics, it’s hard to imagine there wasn’t a significant amount. For further justification, they said they used all the meat, but no matter how you slice it, nearly 86 birds per hunter is a lot of jerky.
Two photos illustrated the story; one picturing a grinning Pitt in front of a tall pile of dead geese, and another with the birds arranged in a square on green grass, with dead birds removed to spell out “1,029.” That’s some way to show respect for the birds.
Earlier this fall, a North Dakota hunting guide was ticketed for wanton waste after Nebraska game wardens found hundreds of dead and rotting snow geese in a storage shed he’d rented.
And not long ago, the host of a TV series, “Flyway Highway,” referred to the birds as “winged cockroaches,” but that’s probably no worse than the biologists I’ve heard call them “Sky Carp.” Why should anyone be surprised the worth of a wary bird has been downgraded, considering the decadent ways devised to hunt them?
When it began, I feared well-meaning waterfowl managers were unintentionally opening a can of worms, and not surprisingly, some have suggested using electronic calls to help curb populations of the Giant Canada’s that frequent golf courses, ball parks, and city streets in Fergus Falls, Minneapolis, and Pierre. What’s next?
Meanwhile, snow goose hunting continues almost year-round from the time they leave their arctic breeding grounds in the fall, winter in the Gulf States, and return to breeding areas a year later. For much of each year, they are pass shot, decoyed, and snuck on by hunters hiding behind plywood cows.
It’s unarguably changed snow goose behavior. Remember when they’d glide into crude spreads of paper plates, diapers and rags on sticks? By contrast, snow geese now ignore the most realistic decoys in North Dakota stubble fields.
You don’t have to be a biologist to understand what’s changed, but I’m betting a sociologist might suggest that using hunters to do the dirty work has hurt the image of hunting and lowered hunting ethics more than it’s reduced the size of goose flocks.
