Endangered Species and
Wildlife Policy
Instructor: Steven J. Bissell
Dr. Bissell was the head of Environmental Education at the Colorado Division of Wildlife. He worked for the State of Colorado for more than twenty-five years in wildlife law enforcement, endangered species and non-game management, land use policy development, and conservation education. He has a BS from the University of Utah in Environmental Biology, an MS from the University of Nevada at Las Vegas in Zoology, and a Ph.D. in Public Administration from the University of Colorado at Denver. Dr. Bissell specializes in environmental policy and ethical issues in wildlife policy. He is currently the Senior Associate at Responsive Management, a consulting firm specializing in social science research in Natural Resource Management; primarily fish and wildlife management issues. He is on the faculty at University College, University of Denver, in the Environmental Policy Management Program. He is also a faculty member at Colorado State University in the Outdoor Recreation and Tourism Department.
Office: 970-613-0692 mailto:sbissell@du.edu. Office hours by appointment only.
Context:
This course is an introduction to endangered species and wildlife policy development in the United States. It will be conducted as an on-line class with active participation by the students. This course will place endangered species policy and wildlife policy as a subset of environmental policy and will cover issues pertaining to state and federal levels of policy. It will also be directed at administrative issues in endangered species and wildlife policy. There will be some issues of applied wildlife management, but that is secondary to the issue of endangered species and wildlife policy.
Grades will be based on the following factors;
Blackboard participation 30 pts
Book/Article Critique or paper 30 pts
Exam 40 pts
Book or Article Critique: By the second week, the student should have selected a book or journal article from the suggested reading list or one approved by the instructor. The student will then write a short (less than ten page) critical review of the book or article which will be posted to the Blackboard site. A critical review is one in which the student will analyze the subject content from a specific view point. For example, a book on endangered species management could be critically analyzed from an economic impact model. Each student should apply their own expertise to a wildlife policy topic. Any questions should be addressed by the instructor prior to writing the review.
Paper: Students may alternatively select to write a term paper. Students taking this option should prepare a brief (one or two paragraph) proposal to be approved by the instructor. The paper topic should be approved by the instructor. The paper is expected to be comprehensive and professional. It should be approximately 10 pages in length (too long or too short will be viewed with equal disdain) and include appropriate literature citations. The paper will be due the final class meeting.
Exam: The exam will consist of four essay questions to be selected from six possible questions. Responses to the questions are expected to be comprehensive; i.e. four or five pages per question and include appropriate literature citations.
All written assignments are expected to be professional. An appropriate style should be followed. All assignments should be typed, double spaced. Grades will consider style, economy of language, spelling, punctuation, grammar and presentation as well as content. Written assignments are intended to demonstrate the students professional development as well as understanding of course material.
Participation: The class will be conducted primarily on the Discussion Board of the Blackboard site. This is a ten (10) week class. In general I expect you to make at least two contributions to the discussion each week. However, this is just a rule of thumb, if the discussion is more active, I expect more contributions. I also look for the inclusion of relevant Web sites in your contributions to the discussion. Instructions on how to post ‘hotlinks’ will be given on the discussion board. I keep track on a weekly basis of the number and content of contributions. This is the area that most students loss significant points in each quarter. Please take this seriously, it is an important part of your grade.
Grading Rubrics:
90-100 pts = A. (I do not give an A- because the University does not allow me to give A+, so I think that is only fair)
87-89 pts = B+
83-86 pts = B
80-82 pts = B-
77-79 pts = C+
73-76 pts = C
70-72 pts = C-
60-69 pts = D (if you are this low there is little point in the difference between a ‘ –‘ and a ‘+’)
Below 60 pts = F
Strongly Recommended Texts:
The Evolution of National Wildlife Law. (revised and expanded edition). Michael J. Bean. Praeger. (there are three editions of this book, try to get the latest, 3rd Edition, 1997).
The Endangered Species Act: History, Conservation Biology, and Public Policy. 2001. Brian Czech and Paul R. Krausman. The John Hopkins Press.
Averting Extinction: Reconstructing Endangered Species Recovery. 1997. Tim W. Clark. Yale University Press.
Also Recommended:
Endangered Species Act Handbook. Ray Vaughan. 1994 Rockville: Government Institutes, Inc.
Human Dimensions of Wildlife Management in North America. 2001. Daniel J. Decker, Tommy L. Brown, and William F. Siemer (eds) The Wildlife Society.
Ecology: Concepts and Applications. 1999. Manuel C. Molles, Jr. McGraw-Hill
Introduction to Wildlife and Fisheries: An Integrated Approach. 1996. Charles G. Scalet, Lester D. Flake, and David W. Willis. W. H. Freeman and Company.
The Philosophy and Practice of Wildlife Management. (3rd Edition) 2001. Frederick F. Gilbert and Donald G. Dodds. Krieger Publishing Company.
Phase I.
Introduction to Wildlife Policy.
This section will be directed at historical coverage of wildlife policy development up to about 1890. There will be a brief discussion of European antecedents of North American wildlife policy and parallels to the development of land use policy will be discussed.
Suggested Reading: Chapters 1 through 3 in Bean
Historical Review by Bissell (syllabus).
Suggested Collateral Readings:
Clawson, D. 1977. The Federal Land Policy and
Management Act of 1976 in a broad perspective. 21 Arizona Law Review 585, 587-91; as reprinted in T. J. Schoenbaum. 1985. Environmental policy law. The Foundation Press.
Coggins, G. C., and C. F. Wilkinson. 1987. Federal
public land and resources law. (2nd ed). The Foundation Press.
Cronin, W. 1991. Nature's metropolis: Chicago and the
great west. W. W. Norton & Company.
Gilbert, F. F., and D. G. Dodds. 1992. The philosophy
and practice of wildlife management. (3rd ed). Robert E. Krieger Publ., Co.
Mayr, E. 1982. The growth of biological thought.
Harvard University Press.
Nash, R. F. 1982. Wilderness and the American mind.
(3rd ed). Yale University Press.
Tober, J. A. 1981. Who owns the wildlife? The political
economy of conservation in nineteen-century America. Greenwood Press.
Worster, D. 1977. Nature's economy. Cambridge
University Press.
Phase II
Wildlife Policy in the United States from the Civil War Through the Progressive Era: The American Conservation Movement.
This will be an examination of the development of modern wildlife policy. Most of the discussion will be directed at the Progressive Era and the influence of Aldo Leopold on the beginnings of wildlife policy in North America.
Suggested Reading Assignment: Chapter 4, 5 and 6 in Bean.
Suggested Collateral Readings:
Belanger, D. O. 1988. Managing American wildlife. The
University of Massachusetts Press.
Brown, D. E., and N. B. Carmony (eds). 1990. Aldo
Leopold's wilderness: Selected early writings by the author of "A Sand County Almanac". Stackpole Books.
Dunlap, T. R. 1988. Saving America's wildlife.
Princeton University Press.
Flader, S. L. 1974. Thinking like a mountain: Aldo
Leopold and the evolution of an ecological attitude toward deer, wolves, and forests. University of Missouri Press.
Flader, S. L., and J. B. Callicott. 1991. The River of
the Mother of God and other essays by Aldo Leopold. University of Wisconsin Press.
Fox, S. 1981. The American conservation movement: John
Muir and his legacy. The University of Wisconsin Press.
Hays, S. P. 1959. Conservation and the gospel of
efficiency: the progressive conservation movement, 1890-1920. Harvard University Press.
Hofstadter, R. 1969. The age of reform: From Bryan to
F.D.R. Alfred A Knopf.
Leopold, A. 1915. Stinking Lake. The Pine Cone (as
reprinted in Brown and Carmony, 1990).
Leopold, A. 1916. Game conservation: a warning, also an
opportunity. Arizona Magazine (as reprinted in Brown and Carmony, 1990).
Leopold, A. 1918a. Make Stinking Lake a refuge. Outer's
Book-Recreation (as reprinted in Brown and Carmony, 1990).
Leopold, A. 1918b. Forestry and game conservation.
Journal of Forestry (as reprinted in Brown and Carmony, 1990).
Leopold, A. 1919. Wild lifers vs. game farmers: A plea
for democracy in sport. Bulletin AGPA (as reprinted in Flader and Callicott, 1991).
Leopold, A. 1923. A criticism of the Booster Spirit.
unpublished ms. (as reprinted in Flader and Callicott, 1991).
Leopold, A. 1928. Mr. Thompson's Wilderness. USFS
Bulletin 12:26 (as quoted in Meine, 1988).
Leopold, A. 1933. Game management. University of
Wisconsin Press.
Leopold, A. 1949. A Sand County almanac. Oxford
University Press.
Meine, C. 1988. Aldo Leopold: His life and work.
University of Wisconsin Press.
Nash, R. F. 1982. Wilderness and the American mind.
(3rd ed). Yale University Press.
Nash, R. F. 1989. The rights of nature: A history of
environmental ethics. The University of Wisconsin Press.
Norton, B. G. 1991. Toward unity among
enviornmentalists. Oxford University Press.
Penick, J. 1968. Progressive politics and conservation:
The Ballinger-Pinchot affair. University of Chicago Press.
Pinchot, G. 1987. Breaking new ground. (originally
published in 1947). Island Press.
Phase III
The development of Modern Wildlife Policy.
This will be directed at the state of modern wildlife management and the origins of the Endangered Species Act.
Suggested Reading: Chapter 7 and Part III in Bean. Part I in Czech.
Suggest Collateral Readings:
Belanger, D. O. 1988. Managing American wildlife. The
University of Massachusetts Press.
Bryan, H. 1979. Conflict in the great outdoors.
Sociological Studies No. 4. Bureau of Public Administration. The University of Alabama.
Callicott, J. B. 1987. The philosophical value of
wildlife. in: D. J. Decker and G. R. Goff. 1987. Valuing wildlife: Economic and social perspectives. Westview Press.
Callicott, J. B. 1989. In defense of the land ethic.
State University of New York Press.
Carson, R. 1962. Silent spring. Houghton Mifflin.
Clark, T. W. 1986. Case studies in wildlife policy
education. Renewable Resources Journal. Autumn: 11-17.
Clark, T. W., and S. R. Kellert. 1988. Toward a policy
paradigm of the wildlife sciences. Renewable Resources Journal 6(1):7-16
Cronin, W. 1991. Nature's metropolis: Chicago and the
great west. W. W. Norton & Company.
Decker, D. J., and G. R. Goff. (eds). 1987. Valuing
wildlife; economic and social perspectives. Westview Press.
Decker, D. J., R. E. Shanks, L. A. Nielsen and G. R.
Parsons. 1991. Ethical and scientific judgments in management: beware of blurred distinctions. Wildlife Society Bulletin 19(4):523-528.
Dunlap, T. R. 1988. Saving America's wildlife.
Princeton University Press.
Gilbert, F. F., and D. G. Dodds. 1992. The philosophy
and practice of wildlife management. (2nd ed). Robert E. Krieger Publ., Co.
Hendee, J. C., and C. Schonefeld (eds).1973. Human
dimensions in wildlife programs. Wildlife Management Institute.
Phase IV.
Contemporary Issues in Wildlife Policy.
This will examine the major issues in modern wildlife policy; hunting and fishing, endangered species management and biodiversity issues. The discussion will center on issues of wildlife policy differences between the State and Federal governments.
Suggested Reading: Part IV in Bean, all of Clark.
Suggested Collateral Readings:
Hamilton, M. S. (ed). 1991. Regulatory federalism,
natural resources, and environmental management. ASPA.
Hargrove, E. C. 1989. Foundations of environmental
ethics. Prentice Hall.
Kellert, S.R. 1974. From kinship to mastery: A study of
American attitudes toward animals. A report to the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service of the United States Department of the Interior.
Kellert, S. R. 1978. Attitudes and characteristics of
hunters and anti-hunters and related policy suggestions. Unpubl. Ms. (Speech delivered at a Hunter Safety Conference in Charleston, SC, January 24, 1978.
Kellert, S. R. 1980a. Public attitudes, knowledge and
behaviors towards wildlife. Transactions of the North American Wildlife and Natural Resource Conference. 45:111-124.
Kellert, S. R. 1980b. Contemporary values of wildlife
in American Society. in: W. W. Shaw and E. H. Zube. 1980. Wildlife values. U.S. Forest Service., Rocky Mt. Forest and Range Experiment Station., Ft. Collins. 31-60.
Kellert, S. R. 1983. Affective, evaluative and
cognitive perceptions of animals. in: I. Altman and J. F. Wohlwill (eds). 1983. Behavior and the natural environment. Plenum Press. 241-267.
Kellert, S. R. 1985. Historical trends in perceptions
and uses of animals in the 20th century America. Environmental Review IX(1):19-33.
Kellert, S. R. 1987. The contributions of wildlife to
human quality of life. in: D. J. Decker and G. R. Goff (eds). 1987. Valuing wildlife; economic and social perspectives. Westview Press. 222-229.
Kellert, S. R. 1991. Japanese perceptions of wildlife.
Conservation Biology 5(3):297-308.
Kellert, S. R., and R. J. Brown. 1985. Human dimensions
information in wildlife management, policy, and planning. Leisure Sciences 7:(3) 269-279.
Kellert, S. R., and T. W. Clark. 1990. A framework for
wildlife policy and understanding analysis. Policy Studies Journal 17:(fall).
Kellert, S. R., and T. W. Clark. 1991. The theory and
application of a wildlife policy framework. in: W. R. Mangun (ed). 1991. Public policy issues in wildlife management. Greenwood Press.
Lyster, S. 1985. International wildlife law. Crotius
Publ., Ltd.
Phase V.
Contemporary Issues in Wildlife Policy continued.
This will wrap up the course and discuss issues facing wildlife policy in the next several decades. This will include discussion of animal rights, radical environmentalism, sustainable development and environmental ethics
Suggested Reading: Part 2 in Czech.
Suggested Collateral Readings:
Amory, C. 1974. Man kind? Our incredible war on
wildlife. Harper & Row, Publishers.
Anderson, T. L., and D. R. Leal. 1991. Free market
environmentalism. Westview Press.
Baker, R. 1985. The American hunting myth. Vantage
Press.
Bartlett, R. V. 1986. Ecological rationality: Reason
and environmental policy. Environmental Ethics 8:(fall) 221-239.
Bookchin, M. 1990. The philosophy of social ecology:
Essays on dialectical naturalism. Black Rose Books.
Brewer, G. D., and P. deLeon. 1983. The foundations of
policy analysis. The Dorsey Press.
Callicott, J. B. 1980. Animal liberation: A triangular
affair.Environmental Ethics 2(winter):311-338.
Causey, A. S. 1989. On the morality of hunting.
Environmental Ethics 11(winter):327-343.
Causey, A. S. 1992. On sport hunting as instinct.
Environmental Ethics 14(4):377-378.
Devall, B., and G. Sessions. 1985. Deep ecology: Living
as if nature mattered. Peregrine Smith Books.
Dowie, M. 1992. American environmentalism: A movement
courting irrelevance. World Policy Journal 9(1):67-93.
Gore, A. 1992. Earth in the balance: Ecology and the
human spirit. Houghton Mifflin Co.
Hargrove, E. C. (ed). 1992. The animal
rights/environmental ethics debate: The environmental perspective. State University of New York Press.
Hooper, J. K. 1992. Animal welfarists and rightists:
Insights into an expanding constituency for wildlife interpreters. Legacy November/December.
Howard, W. E. 1990. Animal rights vs. nature. Walter E.
Howard.
Jasper, J. M., and D. Nelkin. 1992. The animal rights
crusade: The growth of a moral protest. The Free Press.
Keller, E. F. 1985. Reflections on gender and science.
Yale University Press.
Lovelock, J. E. 1979. Gaia, a new look at life on
Earth. Oxford University Press.
Milbrath, L. W. 1984. Environmentalists: Vanguard for a
new society. State University of New York Press.
Miller, A. S. 1991. Gaia connections: An introduction
to ecology, ecoethics, and economics. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Naess, A. 1989. Ecology, community and lifestyle.
(trans. D. Rothenberg) Cambridge University Press.
Soule, M. E., and B. R. Wilcox (eds) 1980. Conservation
Biology: An evolutionary-ecological perspective. Sinauer Assoc.
Soule, M. E. (ed) 1986. Conservation biology: The
Science of scarcity and diversity. Sinauer Assoc.
Wilson, E. O. (ed). 1988. Biodiversity. National
Academy Press.
Wilson, E. O. 1992. The diversity of life. The Belknap
Press.
HISTORICAL REVIEW OF WILDLIFE POLICY
Steven J. Bissell
© 1993
INTRODUCTION
The Contemporary Perspective
Environmental policy includes environmental health policy, e.g., air and water waste management pollution control, water policy, land use law, and natural resource management. The environmental era has taught us that all aspects of environmental science and management are inextricably interrelated within the context of our cultural and political lives. Moreover, much of environmental policy is in a state of confusion. Environmental policy in the United States became a bit muddled in the 80's and has drifted since then. Some policy authorities hold that the problem of environmental management merely needs fine-tuning, but others believe that environmental policy is deeply and profoundly misdirected in terms of conflicts with the democratic process and in terms of how well policy deals with actual environmental problems. There is even the view that environmental policy is, with the apparent death of communism, a major threat to individual liberty and democratic process.
These inherent conflicts concerning environmental policy occur on several levels. A completely safe environment with adequate and sufficient protection for all ecological values may be a utopian ideal, which could be restrictive for individual liberties. Also many, if not most, environmental problems are largely technical in nature, amenable to a positivist mind‑set. Thus consideration of ethical issues such as fairness, equity and individual liberties is seemingly not required or at least are minimized.
William Ruckelshaus, twice Environmental Protection Agency Director, attempted to resolve some of these conflicts with an economic cost-benefit approach to environmental policy a full decade before it was mandated by the Reagan Administration. This approach seems, at least on the surface, to be a technical approach to environmental policy, but assumes a utilitarian ethical orientation. Cost-benefit analysis may hamper the development of adequate policy because those who develop environmental policy may share utopian perspectives. Cost-benefit analysts can become moralists by the selective inclusion and exclusion of costs and benefits, which suit their particular ideologies. In practice, it has been observed that environmental policy personnel are so imbued with technical views that they largely ignore individual values and ethical issues.
Environmental policy, like any public policy is set an arena of politics. Human action not only contributes to environmental issues, but environmental policy influences the lives of citizens in ways which have long been questioned as a proper role of government. Economic methods, such as cost-benefit analysis, have also been roundly criticized as misdirected in environmental policy. There is a growing body of literature that suggests that ethical considerations in environmental policy are at least as important as technical issues.
Environmental policy may be different from other forms of public policy in that it incorporates the idea of "ecological rationality." In this scheme, the normative reasoning that applies to other public policy cannot be applied to environmental policy. Rather, only consideration of all ecological consequences in the sense of a holistic approach is appropriate for environmental policy. However, it is necessary to discuss these issues separately until they are well defined enough for comprehensive analysis.
While I recognized that all of the aspects of environmental policy to one degree or another influence others, I separate natural resource management in this review for the sake of discussion. This review is further restricted to the area of natural resource policy concerned with state wildlife policy as, except for specific topics, that level of natural resource policy has not been fully developed as a separate policy field.
For example, it appears from the literature that hunting has not been well developed as a policy topic although it is an important wildlife policy issue. Hunting is the primary method of financing wildlife management in the United States at the level of individual state agencies. Hunting has historically occupied the center ring in the development of wildlife law at both the state and Federal level. The use of hunting for some species of wildlife is a fully developed management technique and it is a widely used source of recreation. Hunting within the context of moral philosophy has been examined in the literature by various authors and found either morally acceptable or unacceptable. There is no ethical consensus about hunting as an individual activity or, more importantly, as public policy.
Hunting, as such, is not a single recreational or cultural activity. The range of policy considerations in the United States must include legal and illegal subsistence hunting, illegal hunting or poaching, and general regulated recreational hunting. While I will look at all types of hunting as the issues arise, for the most part this study will examine the traditional types of legal hunting done by the general population for the purposes of recreation. This type of hunting is generally called "sport" hunting.
There is currently a robust, vocal, and perhaps general, public attitude that views some types of hunting as morally wrong. There is vocal, but minority view that all hunting is morally wrong. Although there is wide disagreement about the general morality of hunting, there is only a minority opinion in the United States which holds that hunting as a wildlife management tool and as a recreational activity should be eliminated. Advocates of hunting and wildlife management agencies have reacted to some anti-hunting views by aggressively defending hunting as a policy and as a valid recreational activity. Hunting is thus an important policy issue as it involves conflicting values and attitudes. Hunting has also been used as an example of both a worthwhile and an improper environmental ethic. Hunting is a focal point for many issues in public wildlife policy and the development of normative elements of environmental policy.
So as to understand the unusually tight connection of the science of ecology (as opposed to the popular perceptions of ecology as a social movement) to natural resource policy, it is necessary to look at some historical views. It is this historical view that ties in the elements of natural resource management and wildlife policy to the bigger picture. This historical view includes the people and social movements, which influenced modern wildlife policy as well as the evolution of the science of ecology. If there is, as I believe, an agony of conflicting interests in modern wildlife policy, when it is of some value to investigate the historical precedents for that agony.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
The Origins of Ecology and Wildlife Management
Wildlife management is essentially a subset of natural resource management. These management disciplines find technical roots in the science of ecology especially as it deals with biological relationships. The technical aspects of public policies that direct wildlife and natural resource management are also related to ecology. And, the "laws" of ecology tell us that everything is interconnected and going somewhere. The extended metaphor is to think of a tree or bush as seen through time-lapse photography; constantly branching and growing, with some branches becoming main trunks, some major branches, some minor and some leading to quick terminations. It is possible, but probably not worthwhile to follow all parts back to the main trunk and hence to the roots where a different level of branching begins to occur. In this case it is most profitable to look at some, a few of the major trends in ecology, natural resource management and wildlife management, especially those producing contrasting views of science and policy.
These major bifurcations, in the sense that I am employing the term, are sometimes the paradigm shifts that seem to occur in science and at other times are political or social shifts. Because my topic is wildlife management policy as viewed within the field of natural resource management, it is most useful to discuss the changes in scientific thought as they pertain to the field of ecology. The social and political changes are those in natural resource management and wildlife policy. I attempt, from my own perspective, to follow the several issues as they lead to the modern condition of wildlife policy and environmental ethics in the United States.
One of the starting points for my discussion is the bifurcation of ecology. This point is subjective in that it does not consider to any great degree the issue that led up to the bifurcation, nor does it trace out all of the various branches and stems that resulted from the bifurcation. Ecology had dual origins and the first bifurcation took in the mid-eighteenth century. The traditions of biological science had, for the most part, been in what could be termed the "naturalist" style of science. This tradition found contentment and reverence in nature as well as evidence for a creator in the complexity and interrelatedness.
The leading proponent then was the vitalist, Gilbert White. Vitalism was a philosophy, common in the sciences at that time, which placed some mysterious "vital" force in animate objects, which gave them life, but was not detectable by normal scientific means. The vital force impelled the organism to higher perfection and was the explanation for observed evolution of species. Vitalism more or less required the existence of a higher organizing force, a creator of life. This line of reasoning would lead to Thoreau and Muir in the late nineteenth century and perhaps Barry Commoner, Arne Naess and other environmentalists of today. It is one of the origins of the idea that ecological relationships are moral because nature has intrinsic value in the form of a vital force, independent of human valuing systems.
One modern branch of the vitalist tradition may be the "Gaia Hypothesis." This view holds that the planet Earth is a single living organism and that biotic life on and in the planet has a certain level of consciousness (or vitality) down to the level of individual cells. Whether this hypothesis is to be taken merely as a metaphor or factual is problematic. However, the idea has captured the imagination of philosophers and environmental managers. The view holds environmental contamination or loses of biological diversity as always global problems with inescapable consequences.
The other great tradition in ecology in the eighteenth century was that of Carl von Linne, also known as Linneaus, the great organizer of biology. This tradition directly placed the creation species in the hands of the Christian God and organized nature into artificial categories to explain what appeared to be chaos. Linneaus used the metaphor of economics to explain the interrelationships of nature and attributed them to "oeconomia," the will or dispensation of God. This line of reasoning places a moral imperative on humans to act as stewards of nature.
Linneaus originally used the word “Habitat” as a verb with his binomial system to describe an organism. In other words, along with the artificial system that placed organisms in relation to one another, Linneaus introduced the idea of describing animals in relation to their environment. While some historians of science might quibble about the contribution of Linneaus, I think that the great tradition of descriptive science as used by Linneaus is still a major force in biology and the idea that organisms are best understood within the context of their environment is as viable today as then. This contrasts sharply with at least one modern view of biology that places the whole organism as secondary to the sum of its parts, especially its inter-cellular parts. The view that organisms are independent of their environment except in a loosely arranged fashion diminishes the moral elements of any such relationship.
This modern view of biology is best seen as beginning with the publication of "The Origin of Species" in 1859 by Charles Darwin. While there is no doubt that one result of Darwin's work was the development of modern ecology, the less obvious result was the elimination of the necessity for God's hand or for a vital force in nature. At one stroke, Darwin more or less crippled the two main branches of biology and ecology at that time. His theory paved the way for the development of ecology as a distinct science based, for the most part, on evolutionary principles.
Darwin struggled with his dilemma for 20 years. He was aware that his theory of natural selection did away with the need to resort to higher power to explain the existence of species or the apparent "plan" of nature. At least some of Darwin's biographers feel that his internal struggle with religious beliefs was responsible for the delay in publication of his theory.
At any rate, by the middle of the nineteenth century, two main traditions in ecology were established in Europe and both affected the development of the science in America. The one tradition was the romantic, naturalist tradition and the other was the more utilitarian, "hard" science of ecology. Both schools contributed to the development of wildlife policy and the tension between them is, in part, responsible for the modern dilemma in wildlife policy. However, this tension also contributed to an approach through environmental ethics to resolve the conflict.
The Origins of American Land Use Policy
The history of wildlife policy runs parallel to land use in the sense that they were going on simultaneously. The convergence of the issues began in the early part of this century and is going on yet.
From earliest times, wildlife was not considered property in any real sense. They were as the air or sunshine, free to whoever wanted or needed them. However, there is biblical evidence for the systematic management of wild animals for recreational use and subsistence. It is possible to trace formal wildlife policy issues from the seventh century through modern wildlife management. Most of these management programs, if they can properly be called such, dealt with the ownership of wild animals. For most of human history, the idea of ownership of land and ownership of wild animals was connected. Land was simply there to be used and held by whoever could do so and wild animals could be taken by anyone under only the most casual constraints. Most of these constraints were restrictions placed on common folk by the monarch. Wild animals were considered to belong to the gods and the monarch, as the agent for the gods, could restrict their taking.
The signing of Magna Carta recognized the concept of land as property and the adjunct Charter of the Forest placed wild animals in the ownership of the state as it represented the rights of all citizens. The Magna Carta also restricted the King from issuing any more permits to take fish from the waterways using traps or "weirs," this was to aid navigation, not to protect the fish.
However, the ownership of land dominated the issue of access to natural resources, especially as it pertains to the development of natural resource policy in the United States. The early immigrants to the Americas were the proletariat of Europe. They were the landless and one of the major reasons for coming to America was to be able to natural resources, especially the land. Wildlife policy followed land policy at least until the early part of this century.
The idea of land as property was adopted with a vengeance in the United States; so much so that until the adoption of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act in 1976, the statutory land use policy of the federal government was to place the unreserved lands into private or state ownership or to use it for short-term economic benefits. The idea of permanent retention and conservation of public lands had been practiced since the 1890s in the National Park system and some wilderness areas, but the idea did not reach full development until recent times.
The stages of land policy at the federal level, were: the acquisition of lands into the United States; the disposition of public lands to the states and private individuals; the reservation and withdrawal of some public lands for management for the benefit of all of the citizenry, and; the modern era of permanent retention and management of federal lands.
The period of acquisition was from the time from the founding of the original 13 colonies up to and slightly after the Civil War. The federal government actively sought to acquire land by treaty, purchase and force of arms. The major actions before the Civil War were: the Louisiana Purchase, the Florida Acquisition, the acquisition of Texas, the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo and the Gadsen purchase in the Southwest United States, and the Oregon Compromise. Following the Civil War came the Alaskan Purchase. These actions, with some minor details omitted here, created the modern shape of the United States.
Proceeding at somewhat the same time, but reaching its zenith following the Civil war was the era of deposition of the public domain. The earliest dispositions were to settlers and farmers. These programs primarily recognized the legal rights of squatters to take and hold land, especially in the west, which was not otherwise being used by Europeans. Native Americans were not, for various reasons, considered to have property rights in the land. Following disposition to settlers, there were grants to new states in the form of the so-called "school" lands. This idea is more or less intact today; with about 4% or 5% of land in each state belong to the state for the purpose of raising funds for public schooling.
In the western United States other programs of disposition of public lands greatly impacted the development of the country. These were primarily the expansion of grants to encourage settlement of the west, mineral and mining grants and grants to railroads to promote transportation over the vast new country.
The early stages of land use in the United States came to a head following the Civil War. The Civil War was a national venting of conflicts in American society. Somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000 Americans lost their lives; there was hardly a home in America that did not have a father, brother, uncle or friend dead or crippled from the war. The wild expansion into the west following the war looms large in our collective memories, but in reality it was a very short period. While we think of the expansion of the west in rural, agrarian terms, it is probably more accurate to think of the expansion of the west in terms of the growing urban areas in the east and mid-west. The catharsis of the Civil War and the expansion of the cities caused a collective reevaluation of our relationship with the land. As a nation we saw that the era of expansion and acquisition was over, the time had come for a wiser use of the land than converting it to private and state ownership. This movement became collectively known as conservation, which was one of the first great populist movements in America. The political and moral climate was ready for the progressive era and for the re-emergence of the moral consideration of our relationship with natural resources and specifically with wildlife.
Wildlife Policy in the United States Before the Civil War
There appear to be several stages of wildlife management in the United States. The first two are control of hunting and predator control. Until the Civil War these were the primary concerns with wild animal management in America. The ownership of wildlife was an issue mostly of whoever could reduce it to possession. The federal government had some interest in interstate commerce and the individual states had some interest in protection of some species, but for the most part there is little in the way of significant activity in wildlife management. Control of predators was generally accepted as a proper function of government and there was little or no control on the killing of wolves, coyotes, fox and other "vermin."
At the federal level, the most significant action was the establishment of a Department of the Interior in 1849. This was an organizational action that placed several federal functions in one cabinet level department. In 1839 the first National Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas was established. There is no real indication that this was done with wildlife in mind, but it was a significant action in natural resource management as it presaged the era of natural resource management.
The first Supreme Court action involving wildlife was in 1842. In Martin v. Waddell[1] the court evoked Magna Carta in holding that citizens did not have unlimited rights to wildlife, but that the states were actual owners of wild animals. This decision was to set the stage for the major developments in wildlife policy in the first half of the century.
Most of the state activities before the Civil War were in the closure of hunting seasons or restrictions on the methods used in taking wildlife. However, several states had begun to establish game warden systems, and the beginnings of state wildlife commissions could be seen in such states as Missouri and Massachusetts.
Wildlife Management from the Civil War to the Progressive Era
What is cause and what is effect is far from clear during this period. However, clearly the Civil War marked a profound change in the American approach to natural resource management, including wildlife policy. I believe the horror toward the Civil War was acted out in the chaotic expansion into the west from 1865 and culminated in the progressive era around 1890. The United States had reshaped itself from a loose federation into a unified republic. The idea of the union became the permanent ideology of America.
In 1885 the federal government established the Bureau of Biological Survey. The Biological Survey was responsible for several major surveys of the west and the beginnings of natural resource management are to be found here. The Biological Survey became the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service within the Department of Interior in 1940.
It was during this time that individual states began to require hunting licenses and to regulate hunting in ways other than simple closures. By 1880, all of the states had game laws of one sort or another. These included bag limits, prohibitions on taking certain types of wildlife (hence the idea of "nongame"), seasonal closure on hunting and the beginnings of the end for market or commercial hunting.
Taken as a whole, the primary issue of wildlife policy in the nineteenth century was the ownership of the wildlife. The debate involved hunters, dealers in game-meat and hides and landowners. At the beginning of the century, wildlife was property held in common and the issue of ownership was settled by whoever was able to reduce the wildlife to possession. Land use at the beginning of the century was virtually unregulated and excepting use on public lands, this did not change much during the century. By the end of the century however, wildlife was viewed as belonging to the states and taking was only done at the permission of the state. The federal government had begun to exert an influence, but the major era of federal involvement in wildlife policy was yet to come.
The primary beneficiaries and advocates for public ownership of wildlife were organized hunters; those who hunted for recreation and were intensely concerned in the continuation of wildlife for hunting and the conservation of natural resources. The importance of the role of non-governmental organizations in wildlife policy remains of major influence today. If it had not been for these groups, many of our present wildlife policies would not have been implemented. And, it should be remembered; these early conservation efforts were headed by groups whose primary interest was hunting, not environmental protection. America at this time was still firmly in the era of utilization of wildlife.
However, much abuse of wildlife remained and by the 1890s it became obvious that many species of animals, especially game animals were in decline. With the beginning of the progressive era, state and federal governments began to take a hard look at natural resource management, including wildlife policy.
Aldo Leopold and the Progressive Era
The progressive era as far as natural resource management is concerned came when the Forest Reserve Act became law in 1891. This essentially ended the great era of disposition of public lands and ushered in the era of reservation and withdrawal. The doctrine of efficiency in government began to prevail. Natural resources that had been seen as something to be exploited at the beginning of the century were now viewed as something the government should manage for the greatest good for the greatest number over the longest period of time. This political dogma, which is directly traceable to the utilitarian philosophy of Bentham, became known as "conservation," or at least as conservation was understood to be at the turn of the century.
Although Aldo Leopold came late in this period, the impact of the progressive era on wildlife policy can best be seen in terms of the professional development of Leopold. Aldo Leopold was from the progressive era, but he was not of it. Leopold is rightly seen as the seminal thinker, writer, scientist and administrator in wildlife management. Leopold's training and early career was firmly in the age of progressive politics and efficiency in natural resource conservation. However, Leopold was not a central figure in public policy at the height of the progressive era, and although he was clearly an advocate of mainstream progressive thinking early on, he just as clearly was rejecting the idea of efficiency as the central measure of governmental management as the progressive era came to a close. Consequently, although the science and policy of wildlife management has populism and progressive politics at its origin, neither populism nor progressive politics fully explains the development or history of wildlife management.
The populist movements collectively known as the progressive era in American politics ran from about 1890 until about 1914. This period overlaps Aldo Leopold's education and early career exactly. Leopold was raised in a firmly middle class family and given an above average education for the period. There is no evidence that either Aldo or his family was particularly liberal or conservative, using ordinary terminology. There is little in the early writings of Leopold to suggest an interest in politics per se. He was active in politics only as far as they influenced wildlife management on the National Forests. He did not ignore politics in his early writing so much as to skirt the issue. When mentioned, Leopold discussed political arrangements in light of equal access to natural resources, but not directly as political issues. Early in his career, Leopold was concerned with making wildlife resources available to all citizens instead of being subject to market economics. However, by the end of his tenure with the U.S. Forest Service in the southwest, he became openly hostile to economic development as the measure of success. His final publication as a Forest Service employee questioned, "Whether we too have forgotten that economic prosperity is a means, not an end."
Leopold's attitude was not to improve. By the time his full statement of wildlife management was to come out in 1933, he barely hid his contempt for political issues. In his book on wildlife management, he devoted only six pages to administration, organization and political issues. He listed criteria to judge administrative effectiveness and labeled all of them "the antithesis . . . of partisan politics." He also held at this time that the type of organizational structure of wildlife management agencies was immaterial as long as personnel were dedicated and the science was strong.
What then, is the connection between Leopold and the progressive era as it pertains to the origins of wildlife policy? The progressive era marks a transition from agrarian to industrial economy, and from elitist to populist politics. Conservation and natural resource management changed from exploitative to scientific management during the progressive era. This latter, scientific view is clearly the role of Leopold. As far as conservation and progressive politics is concerned, the major political battle had been fought well before Leopold's entrance. Leopold's own interest in politics and active involvement was low key through the 1920s, resurfaced in the 1930s especially at the national level and was most evident at the state level in the 1940s when he served as state Wildlife Commissioner. From the 1920s on, Leopold's overwhelming interest was in the science of wildlife management, but this should not be taken as unimportant in the development of the political nature of contemporary wildlife policy. The inordinate emphasis on the scientific end of wildlife management and the relative unimportance on the administrative forms of wildlife management can be said to haunt us today.
There were three broad themes coming to a nexus around the turn of the century in American wildlife management. The first was the transition from private to public ownership of wildlife and the emergence of the federal government as a player in wildlife policy. The second was the increased emphasis on professional natural resource management through scientific training and the emerging discipline of ecology that influenced professional scientific non-governmental organizations. The third was increased demand for public participation in policy decisions.
Leopold was clearly aware of the first trend when he called for joint state and Federal management of wildlife on the National Forests using scientific techniques of forestry. The second trend is pervasive in Leopold's writing and life. Leopold's development as a scientist and ecological thinker was reflected in his commitment to professional organizations and scientific management. The third trend is seen in Leopold's long-term efforts to place citizen review panels in decision process. This last trend resulted in the formation of a "game commission" in Wisconsin in 1926. However, the political seduction of the commission idea was immediate and Leopold expressed contempt for the idea through the 1930s. Leopold was to later relent and become a commissioner himself.
Leopold's predecessors were more firmly of the progressive era than he. Ernest Thompson Seton, Vernon Bailey and C. Hart Merriam all made contributions to the early science of wildlife management and ecology. While Seton was primarily an advocate of hunting and Bailey and Merriam were concerned with classification and distribution of wildlife, all shared in the efficiency approach to wildlife. The main issue at this time was predator and pest eradication, a cause that Leopold shared through the 1920s. Merriam and Bailey were government scientists in the Bureau of Biological Survey, which after several incarnations became the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Merriam split with the Bureau over the issue of predator control. Leopold remained an advocate of predator control long after many of his peers had rejected the idea, probably because of his training in Forestry and the influence of the ideas of Gifford Pinchot.
Much has been made of the schism in American conservation that occurred around the turn of the century. Gifford Pinchot had secured, by political adroitness, a permanent place for the U.S. Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture. Pinchot had made the rule utilitarian philosophy of the greatest good for the greatest number the underlying principle by which the Forest Service would operate. The idea recognized forestry as a branch of husbandry or agriculture. The values of wilderness or preservation of natural resources rather than the conservation or development of natural resources was the point upon which American environmentalism split.
John Muir was an advocate of preservation of natural resources, especially forests and wilderness. Muir was somewhat of a mystic and his views and philosophy can best be interpreted as coming out of the transcendental tradition of Ralph Waldo Emerson and then modified by fundamentalist Christianity into a theocentric view of nature. Muir and Pinchot formed an early alliance so as to influence Teddy Roosevelt in protection of the national forests; Pinchot's motives were the advancement of silviculture and Muir sought protection of wilderness.
Muir and Pinchot were to part company over the construction of a dam in Yosemite Valley. Muir fought the construction for many years but lost and, in a likely apocryphal ending, died of a broken heart.
This division can be traced to the modern development of environmental policy and relates it to the current debate between the so called "deep" and "shallow" ecologists. The work of Aldo Leopold is germane to the discussion because Leopold formed a synthesis of the utilitarian philosophies of Pinchot and the theocentric views of Muir into”reform" environmentalism or, in my view, an ecological and evolutionary philosophy of environmental ethics. One should also recognize Leopold in the reconciliation of the utilitarian views of the progressive era and the modern ideas of wilderness preservation.
Thus, Leopold went beyond his training and experience in the heyday of progressive politics in America. Leopold took the science-based principles of natural resource management and incorporated them into a more general view of the role of humans in the natural world. In essence, he reintroduced the idea of morality into our relationships with the natural world. Although his primary contribution at the time was the incorporation of ecology into wildlife policy, in the long term he is best seen as bringing together the strands of ecology as represented by Muir and Pinchot into the modern concept of reform environmentalism.
By the end of the nineteenth century and during the early part of this century, the states were viewed as "owners" of wildlife. But consecutive court decisions gradually eroded this idea and replaced it with the concept of the states having an obligation of public trust in wildlife. The Supreme Court in Missouri v. Holland[2] had held that the federal government, because of its authority to make treaties with other nations, had authority over wildlife that crossed international boundaries. This case involved the state of Missouri asserting that a federal game warden did not have the authority to enforce the Migratory Bird Treaty Act because of the state's primacy and ownership of wildlife. The court ruled that the doctrine of state ownership was not absolute and that federal jurisdiction was superior.
The idea of state ownership of other wildlife was dealt a fatal blow in Hughes v. Oklahoma. In that case, the Supreme Court held that states had little or no power to regulate wildlife from interstate commerce. The Lacey Act of 1900 had been the first actual attempt of the federal government to regulate interstate commerce of wildlife. The courts used this and other aspects of the commerce clause of the constitution to further the control of the federal government in wildlife management over the states.
CONTEMPORARY WILDLIFE POLICY
Wildlife Management from 1930 to the Present
The period of the 1930s was the high-water mark for wildlife management policy in the United States. There were 32 major actions, laws or other events that are of historical importance to wildlife management during the ten‑year period. Some of these most pertinent to this study are: Iowa State College established a game management program which became the model for Cooperative Wildlife Research Units as they are now known in nearly every state; the establishment of a Wildlife Restoration Committee to advise the federal government on wildlife policy (Aldo Leopold was to lead this committee); the Coordination Act allowed the federal and state governments to work together on a national wildlife policy; the federal government required waterfowl hunters to purchase the Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp which allowed for exclusive funding for federal wildlife programs; the federal government authorized regulation of hunting on the National Forests; the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies developed a model organizational bill for the creation of state wildlife commissions; the United States and Mexico signed a treaty for the protection of game mammals and birds; wildlife management on Indian reservations was assumed by the federal government, and, while not the last event in the decade, one which shaped wildlife policy until the present; the Pittman-Robertson Federal Aid bill was added to the Wildlife Restoration Act.
This last action tied wildlife policy to the sale of hunting licenses, taxes on firearms and ammunition and other sporting goods. While generally hailed as a landmark piece of legislation, it is also the source of the modern dilemma. Hunting policy is supposed to serve the needs of all society, but the funding of wildlife management is tied to a "user tax" and this compels the agencies to give greater consideration to the generation of revenue and giving service to "paying customers" than to general public values in wildlife.
During this era, the preeminence of state control of wildlife policy began to erode. This was due to several court decisions and the enactment of the Endangered Species Act. The court decisions have gradually but firmly established the primacy of the federal government in areas of wildlife management. While states retain most technical control, especially regarding hunting, this control must be within ever more restricting federal guidelines.
Wildlife policy in the United States had progressed from exploitation to responsible utilization, to management and conservation, and, perhaps, to restrictive preservation. This had been accompanied by a change in policy of common ownership of wildlife, to State ownership and control, to a doctrine of public trust, and finally to the emerging issue of Federal control of wildlife resources. This progressive change in wildlife policy has been marked by a shift in emphasis from the economic uses (including subsistence and predator eradication) of wild animals, to recreational uses, to broader ecological concerns and emerging ethical concerns of public trust in wildlife management.
Despite these changes, wildlife management and policy remained a minor issue in the United States until the enactment of a few international agreements and several pieces of federal legislation. The Marine Mammal Protection act of 1972, The International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, The Convention of Nature Protection and Wildlife Preservation in the Western Hemisphere, and The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora affected the federal government in several areas. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA) greatly impacted the federal wildlife management agencies and the states.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had been a minor recreation agency hidden within the bowels of the mammoth Department of Interior. However, by the early 1970s, NEPA and ESA had made the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service a major force in government. The implementation of ESA was used by several federal administrations used ESA to gain further control of all wildlife management activities in the United States. The states generally reacted to NEPA and ESA with similar, but less powerful state laws. Federal laws such as NEPA and ESA were probably seen as attacks on sovereignty by most states at that time. I personally recall a Director of a western state wildlife agency making the claim that ESA would cause more species to go extinct than it would save. The culture of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which was primarily concerned with game animal management before ESA, may have inhibited full compliance with the Act and slowed endangered species recovery.
THE MODERN DILEMMA
Wildlife Policy in Crisis
The major change in wildlife policy in recent years and central to the topic of this study is the emergence of wildlife policy from the backwater of recreation to a national issue of environmental policy. While this is precisely what Leopold had predicted, many wildlife professionals did not accept it. Other areas of public policy became under tight scrutiny during the 1970s and 1980s but wildlife policy remained an obscure area. Strangely enough, there has not been a great deal of thought given to the policy process in the profession of wildlife management either. The classic example is that of Rachael Carson writing about the impacts of unregulated industrial and agricultural pollution on wildlife. There has been some discussion of the role of nonprofit organizations in Federal wildlife policy and there has been a fair amount work on endangered species policy. However, there is not a robust literature on the subject and the lack of formal policy process consideration of wildlife issues is a major problem. Professional training in the policy process is almost lacking in wildlife science programs. This lack of policy training includes large-scale ignorance of normative issues and public values other than the economic impact of wildlife recreation.
In the United States at least, hunting has always occupied the center stage of wildlife policy. Until toward the middle of this century all of the major court decisions and policy issues centered on hunting. To some extent, the history of wildlife policy in the United States is a study in attitudes toward hunting. At the early stages, hunting was closely tied to private property rights because it was a means of subsistence. This gradually changed, as subsistence became less of an issue when the American agricultural revolution reached maturity.
Governmental policy on hunting parallels the change from subsistence hunting to hunting as a form of recreation, although it is still closely tied to personal liberties. Moreover, hunting, through taxes (directly and in fees, mandatory stamps, and licenses), became and remains the primary method of financing wildlife management at the state level. At the federal level, revenue connected to hunting indirectly contributes to many wildlife management programs. Thus, hunting is historically an integral part of wildlife policy and, as a practical issue, is difficult to dismiss from the policy process.
The development of specific wildlife policy, especially as it regards hunting, is different from state to state. The Federal policies about hunting are limited to very general issues or the Federal Wildlife Refuge system. While there is considerable variation, the model for state wildlife policy is, as discussed previously, for an appointed commission with general regulatory authority to balance the biological requirements of wildlife, as defined by a state wildlife management agency, with the needs, desires, and attitudes of the public.
This process is not dealt with explicitly in most wildlife policy literature. However, as early as the 1920's there was considerable debate about how well this system functioned. Special interest groups were seen to have "captured" the hunting policy process and the desires of the public, and more specifically, hunters, were not being considered in the development of policy. This has interesting parallels with contemporary issues examined in this study. Aldo Leopold was an early advocate of the commission system, but later came to feel that "no particular form of organization has any inherent merit in and of itself."
There is, to my knowledge, no single consideration of the general policy implications of hunting. Even contemporary texts, which are almost radical in their inclusion of the political nature of wildlife management, simply assume that hunting is a valid recreational activity and a major component of wildlife management policy. Probably the other major policy level discussions about hunting have occurred in connection with endangered species policy. An important aspect of this discussion has been the reluctance of state wildlife personnel to set up endangered species policy because of the perceived necessity to curtail traditional hunting and fishing activities. Aldo Leopold developed a general philosophical attitude toward hunting as a component of management. However I am unaware of any other writings on wildlife management that comes as close to explicit policy level discussions on hunting as such.
The Re-emergence of Ethics in Wildlife Policy
The latest issue to arise that affects wildlife policy and is important is the emergence of environmental ethics as a distinct school of thought in modern philosophy, with its attendant impacts on public environmental policy. Aldo Leopold has cast wildlife management and other issues of natural resource management in terms of ethical relationships with the land. This is a radical departure from traditional ethical philosophy and has been labeled as misdirected by some but is widely accepted today.
While wildlife policy is of interest to most people dealing with environmental ethics, the consideration of specific issues ranges from wildlife being a central point to being only tangential to the main normative concerns. Early on Leopold was aware that wildlife policy was becoming heavily technical, perhaps to the exclusion of ethical issues. However, this view has not been mainstream and remains a problematic issue today.
The ethical aspects of hunting in terms of individual morality have been given much consideration in serious literature and in various popular media. Jose Ortega y Gasset makes the most sustained treatment as a serious philosophical statement. Gasset's view is that hunting is an affirmative action for humans; it ties them to their cultural and evolutionary history. In this view, it is the total hunting experience, not the killing of animals that is relevant. This is similar to the view that hunting is an affirmation of human heritage. Hunting is generally not morally wrong given the caveat that it does not cause gratuitous suffering to individual animals. Some make the case that hunting may be an inherent trait in humans and as such is outside the consideration of normal ethics. This view has been attacked on evolutionary grounds, but remains problematic.
At the level of policy, there has been a lively debate in environmental ethics not only as to the place of animal welfare and animal rights in the general field, but whether they rightly are environmental issues at all. The argument centers on issues of ethical consideration of individuals and consideration of systems or processes. Advocates of the animal rights view argue that moral consideration of nonhuman sentient beings is basic to valuing the environment as a whole. The rebuttal is that individuals are morally irrelevant outside their ecological context. Most environmental ethicists do not object to hunting per se, but to certain aspects of hunting. Animal rightists, on the other hand, nearly always object to hunting other than subsistence hunting.
The actual origins of the animal rights movements in Europe can be found in the last century. However, as a political force, animal rights is only now beginning to be felt in the United States. Perhaps the most important policy issue of the animal rights movement in the United States is an objection to the control of wildlife management policy by a small, but politically powerful minority, i.e. hunters.
It is worth noting that not all animal rights proponents include hunting as an important issue. Those concerned with animal welfare are not particularly concerned with hunting per se, but with the aspect of cruelty.
Even within strict animal rights view there is some variation. For example, subsistence hunting by aboriginal peoples is generally considered acceptable, but only within very prescribed limits. While there is wide spread disapproval of some types of hunting among the general population, hunting for food is not considered morally wrong.
Anti-hunting literature abounds these days and while there are many valid criticisms of hunting therein, the central argument is usually circular. If you agree to begin with that hunting is morally wrong, no normative defense of hunting policy can be possible. Popular literature defending hunting also begs' the question because if you agree that hunting is morally acceptable, no criticism of hunting is rationally adequate.
Environmental ethics is then another factor influencing the development of wildlife policy in the modern era. I have observed that environmental issue go from esoteric concerns of an elite minority to major issues in national political campaigns. While some writers continue to treat environmental issues as fads, for the most part environmental policy is thought to be a major influence on the quality of life in America.
SUMMARY
What this historical review has demonstrated is environmental policy is full of normative issues and theoretical underpinnings; wildlife policy seems to be lacking in serious consideration at the policy level and the issue of hunting is a point at which differing normative views can be sharply illustrated. All in all, a fertile field.
Hunting is then a target to aim at to investigate some normative issues in environmental policy. These value components are diverse and not entirely known. While elements of public attitudes about wildlife have been explored and provide a good theoretical basis, there is, to my knowledge, no serious consideration of the normative aspects of hunting at the level of policy.
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[1]U.S. (16 Pet.)
367, (1842)