As the author of this thread I wanted to say how much I value this forum. Every single opinion was discussed in a thoughtful and respectful manner in what could have been a very contentious topic.
Every day I sadly hear more things that rub me the wrong way about what is done (and used against us all) in the name of hunting. This week it was hearing from a filthy rich acquaintance that he shot 70 gemsbok on a cull from a helicopter in South Africa last month. Sigh. Anyway, to counter these less than positive PR moves by our hunting acquaintances has anyone thought of creating a new alternative to the SCI book that would have higher standards? It seems to me that the "flexibility" of how something is harvested has created an ever growing desire to hunt the biggest trophy over hunting the "hardest" best trophy.
Case and point: I shoot a single shot rifle accurate to 400 yards. A trophy taken by me is by its nature subordinate in difficulty to an animal taken at 200 yards by a double rifle. We both are taking a less challenging path than a stalk with a compound bow and even he is subordinate to that done with a recurve. No bait? No waterhole? No lights? Now things get really interesting and the outcome deserves to be shared with ourselves and to the general public of which we are trying to evangelize.
I feel that we should lavish praise on those that are really doing the amazing hunting but somehow the record books don't rank by the more important details first and isn't that causing some of our troubles and encouraging poor behavior? Shouldn't that fellow that stalked a Cape buffalo with a bow and took it at 45 yards with a 40" boss harvested be more extolled and publicized than the guy that dropped one at 200 yards with a .458 near a water hole?
I'm not trying to diminish anyone's experience but it seems we should elevate those that are earning trophies under incredibly challenging circumstances more than those that do not?
If SCI says you can't register trophies shot behind fences why do I get the feeling that most entrants are cheating or at least omitting the full story? Isn't 99% of South Africa a fence in some way?
Isn't all of the above the key to not "causing our own problems"? It would seem to me that to gain the respect of the uninformed general public we need to show more struggle, purity of pursuit and ethics and less "money shots" of big dead animals. Thoughts?
And one additional tangent, have we become near pornographic in our style of presenting our hunts in pictures? No foreplay, no pictures of the experience, the vistas, the people, the animals we passed on, instead a tremendous focus on the trophy shot? When we were all little kids we got interested in this stuff because of the adventure, the stories, the Allan Quartermain and Papa Hemmingway perceived way of life. Would we be as interested in hunting if introduced today where every hunting or fishing show or website focuses on the end of the hunt and "money shots" instead of on the amazing journey that was the whole point of the experience? If we told such tales and shared those pictures, wouldn't we be better recruiters and reduce anti-hunting sensationalism too?
Case and point worthy of praise: the national geographic quality pictures featured on this site did more to intrigue me about Pakistan than a thousand dead ibex photos. Just an incredible tale told in pictures. Isn't that the way to gain public respect and set the right tone of what a hunt is all about?
Have we lost our desire to show hunting as a journey? Is that a big piece of "causing our own problems"?
Rookhawk, you keep doing this to me. Once again, I want to agree with everything you say, because you make so much sense, but once again, I really can't.
First, the culling. Culling - the type of culling you describe (I don't mean hunting for a cull animal vs a trophy animal) is something that game ranchers have to do if they are at all successful. But this is really a way of dealing with livestock, rather than wild game. But because the game isn't domesticated, it can't be easily rounded up. So large culling operations take place. I don't think that has anything to do with hunting, and we shouldn't apologize for it, nor should we excuse it. It's part of farming and ranching.
But we should not call it hunting.
Second, the record books. I've mentioned before that record books are a valuable insight into the health of a wild population, so they serve a purpose. Personally, I'm not a big fan, but I realize others are, and provided that they aren't abused, I'm OK with record books. I know they incentivise bad behaviour is some people, but I suggest those people were badly intentioned in any case. I do wish, though, that they had categories for something other than just horn size. Oldest trophy for example. Kevin Robertson is sponsoring (with Sports Afield magazine) an ugliest buffalo contest, in an effort to get away from the shooting of huge, but young, buffalo. He's to be applauded. And as far as tough hunts go, I am proudest of my bongo, just because it took 12 days of misery to find him. I will never forget that, but I don't really need a prize for it either!
Thirdly, as for pictures, I think that hunting pictures have changed over the years - for the better! You hardly ever see the old fashioned pictures with people standing on elephants anymore, and most people are careful to avoid (excessive) blood, tongues hanging out, etc. There are some bad apples, and we should ostracize those. But overall, hunters are doing a better job. What has changed is the other side. The antis have just become crazier, because they can find each other on the internet, but even the reasonable middle have become more squeamish as people get farther from rural roots and ways of life. Heck, most people don't want to see a side of beef any more than they want to see a side of kudu. So I don't think we should despair about hunters and their pictures.
Lastly, about the "money shots" (to continue with your porn metaphor!). Most of us have dozens of pictures of things other than dead animals for every picture of a trophy. And when we're telling a story, we can use those - as many do who post hunt reports on this site. But when you're talking about the animal, how many sunset pictures do you need? So I agree with you here - we should do a better job of telling the tales, but I think we are moving in the right direction, and AH is helping.
Regrets for being longwinded . . . but these are important subjects.
