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We are honored to host Dr. John F. Reiger, noted sportsmen author and historian, as our first interviewee on Sierra Sportsmen.
Dr. Reiger literally "wrote the book" on the history of American sportsmen and conservation, called American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation.
Originally published in 1975, it was revised and expanded in 2001. His knowledge and experience are particularly relevant to our Independence Day for Independent Sportsmen theme, and we are very proud to share his perspective with you.
How did you first start hunting/fishing?
My father introduced me to saltwater fishing first on Long Island, New York, where I spent my early years, and then later in the Florida Keys. My oldest brother introduced me to hunting for waterfowl on Lake Okeechobee, Florida, in the 1950s, when I was in my mid-teens.
How did your interest in hunting/fishing turn into American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation?
As a Ph.D. student at Northwestern University in 1967, I needed to find a topic for my dissertation. With my long-time interest in hunting and fishing, with a sense of responsibility for wildlife and habitat that I believe hunting and fishing engenders, and with a description of the importance of sportsman-conservationist, George Bird Grinnell, that I found in a book on the history of wildlife conservation, I decided to make him the subject of my dissertation. After discovering the bulk of his personal papers in Connecticut, I soon expanded my research to include the entire sportsman-conservationist movement of the late nineteenth century, which Grinnell led as the owner, publisher, and editor-in-chief of Forest and Stream weekly (no connection to the present Field & Stream).
What is special, or unique, about the American sportsman's experience? How is it different than other places around the world?
Unlike in Europe and in other places around the world, the sportsman's experience in America has always been a fundamentally democratic one. From the start, virtually anyone who could get ahold of a gun or fishing rod could pursue game. In Europe the game was historically reserved for the nobility, and commoners had little if any access to it. This was the major reason why it was so hard for so many years in early American history to pass and enforce "game laws," which were seen by so many as a vestige of Old World tyranny. But once sport hunters and anglers came to realize the importance of these laws-- largely through a process of education by the sporting press like Forest and Stream-- they rallied behind conservation and continue to do so to this day.
What are some of the wildlife successes of American sportsmen?
The fact is that the great successes in wildlife conservation like the return of the wild turkey, white-tailed deer, and pronghorn antelope are all due to the unflagging concern and financial support of millions of sportsmen and sportswomen, and the system they and their biologist allies created for preserving both wildlife and the diverse habitats on which they depend is the most successful one of its kind on the planet.
I would be remiss, given our Independence Day theme, if I didn't ask whether there is an element of patriotism in hunting/fishing. Is it also patriotic to be a conservationist?
I think there is more than an "element." When we hunt and fish, we are following-- at least symbolically-- in the footsteps of our forebears who knew how to "live off the country" by bagging and catching their own food. Many of our greatest heroes in American history were hunters and/or fishermen who found inspiration for exploration, conservation leadership, or political greatness in their favorite pursuits-- men like Daniel Boone, David Crockett, George Bird Grinnell, and Theodore Roosevelt. Being a patriot is more than waving the flag; it is about loving the country, and most hunters and anglers I have known love the land, the wildlife, and all the experiences he or she has on a hunting or fishing outing. We only love and want to protect what we know personally, which is the reason why, I believe, that hunters and anglers have always been at the center of efforts to save the natural world for-- as George Bird Grinnell put it in an 1882 Forest and Stream editorial-- "generations yet unborn."
What are your "categories" for people who hunt/fish? What distinguishes them from one another?
Before 1918, the greatest difference between hunters had to do with those who hunted solely for recreation and those who hunted chiefly for subsistence and/or the market. Before commercial hunting was made illegal, a huge number of hunters hunted almost exclusively in order to sell their ducks, deer, etc. The opposition of sport hunters to these individuals was a major source of fuel for the early conservation movement, because sportsmen believed, correctly, that market hunting was the surest way known to drive a species to extinction. Commercial fishing also depleted many species, but, of course, it continues to this day under tighter regulations.
And categories for today?
Today, as always, the categories of hunters and fishermen are determined by a great variety of factors, including geographical location, family tradition, income level, and, particularly, the species pursued. My experience is that waterfowl hunters are, for example, a breed apart, who have little interaction with deer hunters, rabbit hunters, etc. It seems that there are mainly bird hunters like me, and mammal hunters, and even though I have, on rare occasions, "crossed over," and hunted squirrels and rabbits (but never deer); I really have little interest in hunting anything that does not fly. Like all such generalizations, there are exceptions, and one is that with the return of the wild turkey, many deer hunters now seem to be as dedicated to their pursuit as to white-tails.
As for fishing, the differences are dramatic in terms of the income levels required to pursue blue water, big-game species in the Gulf Stream as distinct from catching bluegills and catfish in a farm pond. I happen to believe that there is more snobbishness connected to the different categories of fishing than there is to hunting, in the sense that a hunter using a rifle does not usually look down his or her nose on a shotgunner, because of the understanding that there are two very different skills involved in being a crack shot with these different types of guns. On the other hand, I have experienced the silly, and unwarranted, disdain that fly fishermen show towards everyone else, a good example being tarpon and bonefish anglers in the Florida Keys who show nothing but disgust for anyone using conventional tackle, even light spinning rods.
Given the American sportsmen's unique experience, is there an antagonism between "responsible game management" and "egalitarianism"? Is there a special challenge for us?
There shouldn't be any antagonism between the two if we keep in mind that the most important goal in game management is the perpetuation of the species in question. This aim in my opinion takes precedence over everything else, including the supposed "rights" of human beings to take the game. This is what the battle was all about between nineteenth-century sport hunters and fishermen and their market hunting and fishing opponents. They wanted the wildlife preserved not just for themselves, but for future generations of Americans to enjoy, while the market men insisted that they had a right to make a living and kill and catch as much as they liked-- they also attacked the sportsmen as "elitists," who only wanted to preserve wildlife for their own personal use.
I believe that if we "keep our eye on the ball," and use sportsman-conservationist-ecologist, Aldo Leopold, as our model for understanding our relationship with wildlife, both game and non-game, we will realize that game should only be pursued as long as it can be perpetuated indefinitely into the future. Species that have a low reproductive capability or those that have dropped drastically in numbers should not be taken at all, regardless of the opinions of hunters or fishermen. This determination can only be made using George Bird Grinnell's concept of game management as a process that has to be continuous, apolitical, and scientifically based. Just as one small example of what I'm talking about is the decline of the black duck and the greater scaup in my favorite hunting areas along the Atlantic coast, and the necessity for much smaller daily limits on these two species than the ones I used to enjoy, but which now I accept with good grace because of my desire to see them rebound to their former numbers.
Fast-forwarding to today, private game farms are becoming more popular. Given the historic role of "class" with US sportsmen, do these private game farms play into the historic theme of "noble privilege"?
Wealth has always played a huge role in hunting access in American history and is fundamentally different than the European experience in that class or "blood" has not played a direct role in the same way that it has in the Old World. Despite what many people believe, money is only one factor in class status and is probably not even the primary factor. In the United States people have always had access to private game preserves, or more recently game farms like the ones that our vice president, Dick Cheney, seems to enjoy visiting. I have "hunted" on these game farms a few times, and have always found the experience wanting. It was reported that Cheney had to almost kick the quail into the air to get them to fly, and I have seen the same thing at pheasant farms, where the birds feebly rise into the air and present such an easy target as to be referred to as "chickens." To me, the whole point of what I have called in my book the "code of the sportsman" is to have a kind of contract with the game fish, bird, or mammal that challenges you before you are able to catch it or bag it. Thus, if rich people want to hunt mainly on game farms, let them, but for me and others who think of themselves as "sportsmen," I prefer to hunt wild game.
In reading your book, it struck me as an irony that New York City originally had been at the vanguard of game management regulations. In short sketch, what are some of the "firsts" in terms of game management in the US?
There are so many, it is hard to choose, but here are a few of my early favorites:
- The 1886 creation of the first Audubon society by George Bird Grinnell and his Forest and Stream weekly that recognized for the first time the connection between non-game conservation and game conservation. By endeavoring to save species that had never been hunted for sport, Grinnell extended the responsibility of every good sportsman-conservationist to all birds by making a clear distinction between the few species that were legitimate game and all the rest.
- The 1887 creation of the Boone and Crockett Club, led by Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell, and which played a huge role in preserving big-game animals and their habitats.
- The 1891 Forest Reserve Act, which gave the president the right to take large tracts of land out of the public domain and preserve them as areas that would be harvested according to the principles of scientific forestry. Even though many of these areas have been managed badly over the years, they would probably not even exist today as undeveloped, wildlife habitat if it had not been for this Act.
- The 1892 creation of the Sierra Club by John Muir, which has done so much to increase the public's appreciation of wildlife and wild places.
- The 1894 Yellowstone National Park Protection Act that defined that national park and all later ones as inviolate wilderness and wildlife sanctuaries.
- The 1900 Lacey Act, which made the interstate shipment of game killed in violation of state laws a federal offense.
- The 1905 creation of the National Association of Audubon Societies.
- The 1911 creation of what came finally to be called the Wildlife Management Institute, which has trained so many wildlife managers and biologists.
- The 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which implemented the 1916 treaty with Canada to restrict the hunting of migratory wildfowl and prohibited the sale of game.
- The 1922 creation of the Izaak Walton League, which has done so much to preserve wetland-dependent wildlife.
- The creation in 1934 of the Duck Stamp, which requires waterfowl hunters to buy a stamp that, has resulted in the preservation of large wetland tracts around the country.
- The 1936 creation of the National Wildlife Federation, which began as a consolidation of hunting and fishing clubs and which has long been the largest conservation organization in the United States.
- The 1937 Pittman-Robertson Act, which levied a tax on firearms and ammunition to provide monies for state wildlife projects.
Are there any recent public decisions/laws regarding game management/public lands that encourage/discourage you?
I'm really not an expert on recent legal decisions, but I do know there seems to be a lot of opposition to what I consider to be important conservation principles, including land trusts and protecting endangered species on private lands. Much of the idealism that used to be evident in environmental decision-making seems to have dissipated in favor of private property rights and immediate financial gain, though here I may be manifesting my interpretation of the present political milieu rather than actual legal decisions that have been passed.
As an expert on the history of American sportsmen, what is your opinion on the Endangered Species Act-- good for sportsmen, or bad?
I think the Act is very good for sportsmen and sportswomen, for the simple reason that I appreciate the totality of the outdoor experience, which includes seeing endangered species that are still surviving despite all the forces against them. A key component of what I call in my book the code of the sportsman is the taking of responsibility for the total environment in which one hunts or fishes. This is the reason why so many sport hunters and anglers have worked so hard to preserve non-game species as well as those they normally pursue as game. Don't forget that, in my book, I point out that Henry William Herbert introduced one of the first laws to preserve non-game species ever to have passed a legislative body, and George Bird Grinnell began the Audubon movement with the creation of the first society for protecting non-game birds in American history.
What about carnivores, such as wolves, cougars, and grizzlies? What value are they to sportsmen who may compete for big game with those species?
In a healthy ecosystem, I do not believe that hunters are usually competing with other large carnivores, but I suppose it is possible in areas where the game and their predators are not able to spread out into new regions. Some have claimed that the reintroduced wolves have greatly depleted the elk in their habitat, but if true, this is where game biologists/managers have to make a determination about how to address the situation based on science and not political pressure from hunters who now find the elk much warier and harder to hunt. I would say that large carnivores should only be reduced as a last resort. Finally, I would have to say that some of my grandest experiences in the wilderness were seeing wolves and grizzlies, and I hope that we will always have that opportunity possible.
A recent US Fish and Wildlife national survey showed sportsmen declined by 10% since 2001, and fewer kids are learning the experience. What is lost when kids are no longer taught how to fish and hunt?
If sportsmen and sportswomen (who make up an ever larger percentage of the whole) continue to decline in numbers, conservation will suffer dramatically. For one thing, hunters and anglers still pay for most of the budget of state wildlife bureaus, and for another, they have proven repeatedly that they are the most reliable source of political pressure for saving wildlife and habitat that we have in the country. As I said in response to an earlier question, we only love what we know, and as our society becomes more and more disconnected with the land, we will care less and less about its future. I was a butterfly collector before I was a birder, and later an angler and hunter, and I know firsthand how much more intimate one's relationship is to wildlife when one catches it or bags it than one who merely "watches" it at a distance through binoculars. Though I still fish, I have long been mainly a hunter, and for me-- like a character in one of William Faulkner's stories-- hunting is "the best of all breathing."
What is your favorite place in the world to hunt/fish? What is your best memory in the outdoors?
Though I have had great hunting and fishing in a number of places around the country, I still prefer the Northeastern coastal area, where I spent most of my early years, hunting waterfowl and fishing for flounder. I used to spend a lot of time on the South Shore of Long Island, New York, but in recent years, I divide my hunting and fishing about equally between coastal New Jersey and coastal Massachusetts.
The second part of the question is really tough, since I have had so many wonderful memories over a period of fifty years. But certainly one of the best is when I bagged my first duck, a hen ringneck, which I shot on Lake Okeechobee, Florida, in 1958 when I was 15. Because I couldn't compete with my father or my two brothers, who were four and six years older than I, when it came to shooting at these fast-flying ducks from the blind as they swept in over the decoys, I decided to go off on my own. Using a cheap, bolt-action, twenty-gauge shotgun that my father had bought for me for, I believe, $30, I waded out behind the blind through the waist-deep water and in and out of a series of sloughs that extended for a large distance out behind the blind. I had missed many ducks before that day and was eager to see if, in fact, I could be a waterfowl hunter. While pushing out of some head-high grass, I spotted the ringneck coming from behind my left shoulder, swung on the bird as I had been taught to do, caught up with it, swung the muzzle past it, and fired. Just like Aldo Leopold's account of his first duck in the Epilogue of my book, I experienced the same "unspeakable delight" when the duck hit the water. When I returned to the blind and proudly presented my trophy to my oldest brother, who was the one who introduced the family to hunting, the first words out of his mouth were: "Did you shoot it in the air or on the water?" In other words, from the very beginning of my hunting experiences, I learned to have a certain reverence for the game, and that I could only take it in a fair, "sporting" manner; I should not take an unfair advantage over the game. At the time, I did not realize that this was my introduction to what I have called the code of the sportsman, which has had such a tremendous impact on the history of wildlife conservation in the United States. Neither did I realize that my internalization of this code would be the key to my understanding of the role of sportsmen in American history and the basis for my major book.
What gives you hope about the future of wildlife and sportsmen in America?
There are a number of reasons to be hopeful. One is the greater number of girls and women engaging in fishing and hunting with great enthusiasm. The old sexism that kept females out of these activities, particularly hunting, seems to be disappearing. This fact seems to be diffusing the attacks by animal-rights advocates on both sports (as I point out at the beginning of my book, some believe that sport fishing is even more cruel than sport hunting). It now seems to be fashionable to be an angler or even a hunter, as presidential candidates show by constantly claiming that they hunt even when they don't!
I am also more optimistic about the future when I see groups like the Sierra Club and the National Audubon Society reaching out to the fishing and hunting community, as well as the creation of new umbrella organizations like the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, which casts a very large net that includes working men and women. And some older organizations devoted to hunting, particularly the Boone and Crockett Club and the Wildlife Management Institute, have shown a renewed vigor in their conservation activities in the face of so many threats to the environment that now exist.
Finally, there are so many species that are highly adapted to a world made by humans that there should be abundant fishing and hunting opportunities in the years to come. Scientific wildlife management has proven so effective that species like cottontail rabbits, white-tailed deer, wild turkeys, largemouth bass, bluegills, etc., are so abundant today that it is hard to foresee a time when their habitats are so reduced that they will no longer exist in harvestable numbers. There is, indeed, much hope that we will have these species around for-- in my favorite phrase from the "father of American conservation," George Bird Grinnell-- "generations yet unborn," and isn't that what it's all about?