Massachusetts wildlife officials have done away with hunting contests, according to a statement on the MassWildlife website earlier this week.
The regulations will go into effect once signed administratively and filed with the secretary of state’s office.
The regulations will make it illegal for a person to "organize, sponsor, promote, conduct, or participate" in a hunting contest for coyote, bobcat, red fox, gray fox, weasels, mink, skunk, river otter, muskrat, beaver, fisher, raccoon, and opossum. The regulation changes would not impact other standard hunting and trapping seasons for these species.
On the surface, the ban seems like a step forward; removing the competitive nature of “sport hunting” (quotes intended), changing harvest reporting requirements for fox and coyote, and even featuring a wanton waste clause - because what ethical hunter is going to argue with a wanton waste rule, right?
I’m not so quick to give a tip of the hat. In fact, MassWildlife gets the slow clap for what seems like yet another politically-charged knee-jerk reaction to hollow virtue signaling.
But hold off on lighting those torches and burning me at the stake like some devilish fur-harvesting heathen. You may be asking, how can one promote conservation, regulated management, AND poo poo MassWildlife’s decision to give up their rook in today’s “conservation versus preservation” chess match with a hunting contest ban?
Glad you asked.
Because despite the fact that I’ve never entered a predator hunting contest, and likely never will, I do still recognize regulated take of wildlife under the watchful eye of management professionals as far more beneficial to biodiversity than another Humane Society coyote coexistence flyer.
I’ll add, for the sake of argument, that I consider the coyote (and all currently (naturally) established predators) part of the natural environment. My debate and discourse does not come from a “kill ‘em all” standpoint towards predators. Although this mentality is, sadly, still alive and well in a large chunk of American culture.
The reality is that coyotes and other mesopredators will continue to be killed in Massachusetts regardless of a contest ban. It’s the nature of the beast (of both the two and four legged variety). But when “farmer John” or the fed-up suburbanite down the road blows away ol’ Wile E for getting too close to the chicken coop or boundary fence, it won’t be documented, or grab headlines, quite as emphatically as organized hunting contests apparently do.
I think few folks have qualms with the wanton waste or increased reporting aspects of last week’s rule changes. But the perceived “holier than thou” attitude towards hunting “contests” (which is a broad concept itself), seems like the kitchen-sink-pitching mentality plaguing conservation agencies across the country these days.
Because of my inquisitive nature, I question the assertion that all hunting contests are wasteful and serve as a detractor from wildlife management ethics. There’s so much MassWildlife could’ve done to regulate and manage hunting contests in a positive direction; an outright ban just seems so darned cliche given our current societal climate.
Have we no morals?
“Wildlife killing contests,” “North American Model”, “fair chase”, “trophy hunting”, “predator culling” - all terms that have been manipulated and conjured into political testimony and public campaigns to elicit a notion of poor taste on the part of the broader hunting community. In the case of hunting contests particularly, anyone who doth dare to defend what many believe to be such “deplorable” acts of indiscriminate killing must be unethical.
The bottom line, most non-hunting folks don’t realize that these buzzwords rarely mean what they think they mean.
Unregulated market hunting, coupled with immense deforestation throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries pushed many native wildlife species to the brink of non-existence. Through regulated hunting and the support of science-based wildlife management, the balancing act of restoring wild species while still offering citizens an opportunity to utilize these resources (for both food and fur), continues today - successfully, mind you.
Despite the immense benefits regulated hunting promotes, concern over protections for the natural world become more polarized as society drifts farther and farther away from these subsistence activities. This includes any perceived “perversion” of natural resources - backing both the greater hunting community and wildlife management professionals into a corner with regard to what should or should not be tolerated.
Read More: Americans continue to support regulated hunting, trapping and fishing.
Despite overall public approval for hunting and trapping as wildlife conservation tools, it hasn’t stopped those opposed to wildlife management and hunting from utilizing the “gray areas” of hunting contests to take full advantage of the broader hunting community’s high moral standards.
Let’s take, for example, the tenets of ethical fair chase hunting outlined by The Boone & Crockett Club (B&C) - an organization founded by conservation grandfather Theodore Roosevelt in 1897. Animal rights groups have attempted to paint predator contests in particular as unethical, unsportsmanlike, and as flying in the face of B&C principles of “fair chase”.
In response, B&C was forced to submit a wave of push-back, exposing the animal rights industry’s misusing and misinterpretation of these principles to gain support for their efforts to ban coyote hunting contests. These environmental extremists have done the same with misrepresenting The North American Model of Conservation - the foundation of modern wildlife management ethos.
“There is important distinction that is being overlooked here,” says Mark Streissguth, chair of the club’s Hunter and Conservation Ethics Committee, featured in an article for The Outdoor Wire. “Fair chase applies to the ethical, sportsmanlike, and lawful pursuit and taking of any free-ranging wild, big game animal in a manner that does not give the hunter an improper or unfair advantage over the game animals. Coyotes are not game animals.”
Streissguth concluded, “While we object to applying fair chase incorrectly to gain a political victory, the Boone and Crockett Club maintains that no animal should be culled or killed without a purpose and encourages anyone participating in predator and varmint reductions to do so as respectfully and humanely as possible and commends those that do.”
And, as B&C lays out, this concluding statement is where the crux of my argument lies with MassWildlife’s latest reactionary stunt - Hunting with purpose.
Many professionals in the wildlife management sector assert the same, maintaining that the debate around hunting contests lies with the wasteful “sport killing” of wild species. Especially with regard to coyotes - which tend to trigger far more debate than many other furbearer species.
Making “sport” of taking a living creature isn’t exactly embraced by many (myself included). Nor is the hunting community helping itself by being disrespectful to targeted species of contests. We get it - the projecting of a “contest” to kill wildlife is undoubtedly in poor taste in the eyes of most. It’s even worse when there appears little empathy on the part of contest participants towards hunted animals.
The Wildlife Society, for example, states the following in their position statement regarding “killing” contests:
When informed about killing contests, a segment of the public, including hunters and groups seeking ethical hunting and humane treatment of wildlife, find these contests offensive. Pictures and disturbing language posted on social media or other electronic communications can further negative perceptions about hunting.
Killing contests differ from typical regulated hunting by the very nature of the organized public competition and prizes being given specifically for killing the largest, smallest, or most animals. “Big Buck” pools or organized record books differ from killing contests because the animals recognized in these competitions are harvested consistent with ordinary and generally accepted hunting practices and then introduced to the competition.
This important aspect of using “generally accepted hunting practices” within the parameters of a “contest” - which can be defined as anything from an organized event to a friendly wager between two hunting buddies - is where many are contending MassWildlife’s decision; and more importantly, their blanket assertions on hunting contests.
Provided the “contest” doesn’t adversely affect the wildlife resource, and supports the notion that wildlife killed must be put to legitimate uses, many in the hunting community are befuddled by the decision to implement a ban by a state wildlife agency.
Clearly, a dissertation on what, exactly, constitutes a “contest” didn’t phase MassWildlife. And so the hunting contest gets the axe in Massachusetts.
As a result, the non-hunting public feels like they’ve “saved” a “misunderstood” species, the animal rights industry feels they’ve scored another political win, the broader hunting community feels they’ve staved off the activists for a little while longer, and the state agency, caught in the middle, feels they’ve stuffed another pacifier down the gullet of the activism machine.
However, MassWildlife may have been a tad overzealous in their quick response to feed the angry mob.
To save hunting, or not to save hunting?
According to their own press release, MassWildlife asserts that the decision to ban hunting contests was in direct response to “save” the hunting community and align regulations more closely with modernized management protocols. The agency states it recognizes “that public controversy over this issue (hunting contests) has the potential to threaten predator hunting and undermine public support for hunting in general.”
I’d say this ship has long since sailed in the eyes of the animal rights industry - the biggest cheerleaders of the ban.
The release further asserts that the banning of hunting contests fulfills “one of MassWildlife’s core functions to develop and maintain hunting, fishing, and trapping opportunities in Massachusetts”.
Interesting strategy - not so sure I follow, but I’ll go along with it for a moment.
So in other words, these regulatory bans are clearly for the hunter’s own good - you’re welcome hunters.
News of the rule changes on MassWildlife’s social media pages tends to revert back to this debate and the impending laws being a purely “social” argument - with little support from the broader hunting community or fair chase principals. We aren’t talking about high-fence, canned hunting practices here; nor are we talking about negative impact to coyote populations in the Northeast as a result of said contests.
So if the motives for banning hunting contests were, in fact, to “save” hunting as MassWildlife asserts, why not move for an all-encompassing wanton waste clause, which would eliminate the “waste of killed wildlife” as supporters of the changes assert?
Despite MassWildlife’s attempts to frame the decision in the form of a “best for all” success story, news of the decision to implement the ban suggests otherwise, with many believing the decision was politically motivated; more so than science-based.
“It’s good news and I’m glad to see action was taken,” said state Senator Julian Cyr, D-Truro, of the new regulations in a report posted by Providence Journal. The report notes that Cyr, along with state Rep. Sarah Peake, D-Provincetown, and others in the Cape delegation brought the issue to the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife’s attention. “This is a terrific example of constituents engaging with state government and challenging us to do better,” Cyr said in the report.
Oddly enough, political grandstanding was absent from MassWildlife’s press release listing reasons why the ban was enacted. The case for beneficial and science-based implementation seems to be waning by the minute.
Fox (left) and Coyote hides (middle, right) remain in demand for prospective fur buyers. (Photo | Dina Wakulchik)
While there has been plenty of pandering to the non-hunting sector with regard to hunting contests, it would appear state agencies from coast to coast have done very little to secure preemptive buy-in from the greater hunting community - financially, their biggest client base.
There are some hunters that are supportive of MF&W’s recent decision, but based on the muddy conundrum that is the comment section on MF&W’s Facebook page since Friday’s announcement, its safe to say supportive hunters are the minority, and many in both the hunting and greater conservation communities feel as though the blanket statement that all hunting contests are “wasteful” and threaten the hunting community is absolutely ludicrous.
On the contrary, many hunters on MF&W’s social media pages, as well as throughout the state, argue that coyotes shot during hunting contests within the state were fully utilized for their hides. The banning of these hunting contests also come at a coincidental time, when coyote hides are of great interest thanks to a resurgence in the fur market for such goods. If anything, this seems like an opportune time for professional managers to be promoting regulated take and ethical use of abundant and impactful species like coyotes, rather than restricting a potential source of future data.
Despite Plight, Dog Will hunt.
Ironic once more, Massachusetts is currently one of the highest coyote conflict states in New England; with a plethora of reports of brazen wild canids showing increased aggressive behavior, and turning up in areas where, historically, they’ve been unexpected visitors.
Read More: Teen Attacked by coyote in Massachusetts neighborhood.
Don’t take my word for it, a brief web search brings up an almost endless stream of local news headlines. “Rare” is becoming the new “norm” - and I stand firm that it isn’t the coyote’s fault. Evolutionary adaptation is part of an instinctual survival, and one is likely to have a hard go at arguing that the Eastern Coyote (Canis latrans var) hasn’t adapted well to mankind’s suburban sprawl.
A coyote hunts in broad daylight in a residential area of California. (Photo | Don DeBold)
Even the animal rights industry recognizes the changes in adaptability, asserting that humans must learn to coexist rather than demonize the canine predator. However, while both sides of the predator management debate (mostly) agree that coyotes are adapting to human life and extermination isn’t the answer, there is still heavy debate that “non-lethal harmony” is the end all/be all.
Recent research has found that hazing and non-lethal tactics are only temporary, and that lethal control, in a regulated sense, is still a viable management option. Even those who assert the fallicy that regulated hunting somehow “breeds more coyotes” have recently backpedaled these notions, conceding that coyote reproduction is directly linked to food abundance rather than “magical genitalia” churning out denser litters to “compensate” for hunting pressure. Whether or not predator hunting goes the way of the social dustbin, the reality remains there is no shortage of food abundance for a species that has adapted well by feeding on small rodents, deer, acorns, fruit, trash, birdseed, dumpster remnants, and, in several cases, each-other. Despite division in the research, most seem to agree that populations of coyotes will thrive regardless of hazing -or- hunting due to this mixed food abundance.
And while Massachusetts joins several other states who’ve “done away” with predator hunting contests in one form or another, various other New England states are utilizing the activity as a direct wildlife management tool.
Read More: Maine’s predator management plan showing positive results.
While MassWildlife tried to fend off the criticism from hunters online by pointing out that the impending regulations only impact contests, and not general hunting opportunity or “nuisance issues” for coyotes, many contended that the underlying argument seems to reside more with whether it is wise for state wildlife agencies to dictate what is and isn’t “popular”. More to the point, should abundant wildlife species be managed under emotional and charismatic banter rather than impartial or scientific merit?
If the remains of the hunted animal are being ethically utilized, and performed during the standard regulated hunting season (i.e. winter), is the activity still considered “unethical”?
Or did Massachusetts literally just ban words?
State agencies be forewarned - pandering to baseless, reactionary, and politically-motivated discourse towards regulated wildlife management is a deep, dark, muddy, and often sticky social bog in which one could easily get lost in.
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