Swan: Woods ethics
Majority say worst day ever spent afield was due to unethical behavior of others
By James A. Swan, Ph.D.When crowds of people come together, "contagion," occurs — people's emotions take over and a group mentality starts to emerge. You can see this at a football game, or a musical concert. The same thing can happen hunting or fishing.
One of the most important researchers of hunting psychology is Wisconsin psychologist Dr. Bob Norton, who along with Robert Jackson, identified the Five Stages of A Hunter that all hunters pass through to become an ardent conservationist — The Shooter, Limiting Out, Trophy, Method and Sportsman.
In his recent book, "The Hunter: Developmental Stages and Ethics" (Riverbend Publications, 2008, $9.95, 165 pages, paperback), Norton shares another important finding about hunting psychology. Interviewing 417 duck hunters, Norton found that the majority said that the worst day they ever spent in the field was due to unethical behavior of other hunters.
A few years ago I got lucky and was drawn for Opening Day of waterfowl season at the Klamath National Wildlife Refuge along the California-Oregon border. Opening Day is always exciting. You know that the air will be filled with birds — average bags limits for the 500 hunters they let into Klamath on the opener range about five to six ducks a person, as well as geese.
You also know that it's going to be a little crazy.
I well remember paddling my boat out to a group of tules and setting out decoys as all around me in the darkness you could hear ducks taking off and hunters grumbling about who was going where, as their flashlight shot beams probed the darkness. Hunters were also discovering how close they were to the next hunters.
At shooting time, it sounded like a war was starting up. For some who had set up too close to each other, it meant heated exchanges of words until someone picked up and moved.
In situations like this, when birds come straight in and drop into the decoys, it's great. But when the birds start circling, and people are pass shooting the birds that are working your decoys, well, the joy starts to wane. You get angry, maybe start taking shots you would not have otherwise. Then you miss or cripple the ducks, and get even angrier. What could have been a wonderful awesome day turns ugly.
The same conditions are possible on a stream when salmon start moving upstream. Boats come closer together, jockeying for position. Someone hooks a fish and it starts to run. The ethical thing to do is to reel in and let the guy play his fish, but that means you can't be fishing. Lines get tangled. Tempers escalate. I've fished the Kenai when the kings surge in, and stood in the lines along the bank when the sockeyes are running.
The most extreme mob fishing experience I've been in was smelt dipping in Beulah, Mich., several decades ago. I don't know if it's still like this, but it used to be that the small stream that comes out of Crystal Lake where you dip, is roped off when you arrive.
The dipping does not start until 10 p.m. An eager crowd of dippers with nets, pails and crowds in the darkness behind a line. Suddenly, the line is dropped and lights come on. People rush forward about 50 yards and plunge into a stream about 6- to 8-feet wide, maybe one-foot deep. There are so many people getting into the stream that the water level rises almost a foot.
People start swinging nets at the dark clouds of smelt that are trying to spawn. People slip and fall in. I remember one guy who dumped his net full of smelt into another guy's hip boots, instead of his pail.
Out here in California, the same kind of conditions can occur when there is a big minus tide early in the morning on the North Coast during abalone season. At a good spot for abs, a couple hundred people will congregate, squeeze through the slippery rocks and plunge into the water as waves come crashing through.
Something similar happens at clamming beaches at extreme low tides. Boatloads of diggers assemble. Water squirts up to show where clams are, people lunge for the spot and shovels and mud starts to fly. Soon there are piles of mud and holes everywhere.
We already have wildlife laws — probably too many of them in some states. But on top of wildlife laws, there are ethics — woods ethics I call them. Ideally, when sportsmen come together, ethics should prevail, as they do in golf. When they don't, chaos occurs, tempers flare, people can get hurt, and habitat can be destroyed.
There is a time and a place for competition in outdoor sports. When it is at its best, there are rules, like for bass and walleye tournaments. There are judges there to make sure people follow the rules and act decently toward each other. People break the rules, and they are out.
Aldo Leopold eloquently wrote about the need for people to develop a "Land Ethic" that would stimulate people to form an "ecological conscience" that would guide conservation action.
For sportsmen and women, developing a "woods ethic" about how to treat fellow anglers and hunters, is also important. Woods ethics go beyond laws, and include how you treat your fellow sportsmen.
When human ethics, or the lack of, spoil outdoor experience, the people we most want in the field tend to leave. And what is left, and what remains are those whose behavior and attitude work against future generations coming afield, as well as present ones.
When judges are not there, we all have to pitch in. One woods ethic is for all sportsmen to carry with them the hot-line number to call to report poachers and polluters. Out in California it's CAL-TIP.
James Swan — who has appeared in more than a dozen feature films, including "Murder in the First" and "Star Trek: First Contact," as well as the television series "Nash Bridges," "Midnight Caller" and "Modern Marvels" — is the author of the book "In Defense of Hunting." Click to purchase a copy. To learn more about Swan, visit his Web site.
