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Vermont Regulations. Market Hunting Era – 1858 to 1896. Exploitation of Wildlife Visionary People Put a Stop to Market Hunting. Class Conflict Landowner vs. Non-landowner State resident vs. Non-resident Rural vs. Urban North vs. South The Gentleman Hunter. Uncontrolled Exploitation.
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Exploitation of WildlifeVisionary People Put a Stop to Market Hunting Class Conflict Landowner vs. Non-landowner State resident vs. Non-resident Rural vs. Urban North vs. South The Gentleman Hunter
Unregulated Hunt Techniques
Other Techniques • Deer Hounding • Netting • Mating Season • Night Hunting • Passenger Pigeon • Railroad Hunts
Where? • Cape Cod • Great South Bay, NY • Currituck Sound, NC • Chesapeake Bay, MD • Marsh Island, LA • Sunk Lands, AR • Klamath Lake Region, CA • Anywhere in the Upper Midwest
Other Markets • Millinery Trade • Pot Hunters • Fur Market - but only a minor market
1858 - 1896 • What Started It? • Railroad Land Grants • Augustus Swift • Swift Meats • What Stopped It? • Geer vs. Connecticut • Lacey Act
Theodore Roosevelt “…the hardier and manlier the sport is the more attractive it is, and…there is [no] place in the ranks of true sportsmen either for the game-butcher, on the one hand, or, on the other, for the man who wishes to do all his shooting in preserves, and to shirk rough hard work.
George Bird Grinell: Editor of Forest and Stream 1874 - “The known fact that all the best measures for the protection of game…must always emanate from those who shoot and fish for their pleasure.” 1881 - “Game legislation is too much in the hands of know- nothings, and know-nothings are…a class of man who are concerned not to preserve the game, but to squeeze the almighty dollar out of it as it goes.” 1894 - “Game laws can benefit the community only as, and in such degree as they are in the interest of the sportsman.”
William T. Hornaday - Director of Smithsonian 1913 - “Italians are pouring into American in a steady stream… Toward wildlife the Italian laborer is a human mongoose. Give him power to act, and he will quickly exterminate every wild thing that wears feathers or hair. To our songbirds he is literally a ‘pestilence that walketh at noonday’.” “[The] army of black hunters and their dogs cross field after field, combing the country with fine teeth that leave neither wild animal nor bird behind.”
Objections • Ballistics • Big Guns • Swivel Guns • Punt guns • Efficiency • Snares • Traps • Fire Hunting • Crusting • Unfair Advantage • Boats • Night Hunting • Water Hunting • Deer Hounding!
Rules of the Game/ Rules of Fair Chase • Ensuring an Uncertain Outcome • Limited Hunt Seasons • Limiting Technological Advantage
The Gentleman Hunter Pinnacle of “Manhood” Rugged Independent Wise in the ways of nature Restrained/Refined “A grouse which gives a man a holiday afield is worth more to the community than a grouse snared or shot for the market stalls.”
Legacy • Stopped waterfowl exploitation • Set us on the route to contemporary wildlife management But… • Urban interest won out over rural interests? • Dispossessed rural and ethnic peoples?