Thirty years after Home on the Range was written, only 500 buffalo remained in the United States. In Kansas — Higley’s home state — deer were gone and antelope practically non-existent. Their habitats largely destroyed by human development, these iconic game animals were hunted out of existence.
In an era where ‘eco-friendly’ is the hip phrase of the day, new hunters and the hunting curious are more frequently asking if hunting is sustainable. Could I take up hunting, they wonder, as an environmentally-conscious means to eat? Is hunting better for the earth than buying meat at the grocery store? Should we all just revert back to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to ‘save the planet’?
The phrase ‘sustainability’ conjures myriad associations, from serious environmentalism to half-hearted greenwashing. We often label things as sustainable when they’re simply better than the environmentally destructive status quo. But in the strictest sense, sustainability refers to the ability to be continued indefinitely without detriment to environmental integrity.
Can Hunting Sustain Itself?
Hunting is a practice that relies on the health of the wild. When I consider the sustainability of hunting, I ask — can hunting persist into the foreseeable future without harming the very wild upon which it depends?
In his book Bloodties, Ted Kerasote writes, “As a farmer you reap what you have sown; as a hunter-gatherer you reap what the land provides from her pagan solicitude.” The essence of Kerasote’s point is well taken, but what wild land provides boils down to much more than pagan solicitude. While hunters don’t usually reap what we individually sow, hunters do reap what we collectively sow. The degree to which we, as a group, conserve and harvest now helps determine the populations of wild plants and animals in the future.
My ability to find and kill wild animals for food depends on natural cycles far greater and richer than I am able to enumerate. With reproduction, growth, death, and decay the earth recycles itself. When I take a mule deer buck or a pair of jackrabbits from my local desert, I influence that cycle.
Left unmanaged, hunting would be — and was — unsustainable. In the 1800s, wild animals seemed like a limitless resource to many hunters. But by the early 1900s, before the advent of hunting regulations, things had changed. Habitat loss, mostly from clearing forest to create farms, and over-hunting had left most game populations in a sorry state. Wild turkeys were nearly wiped out. Duck numbers plummeted. Whitetail deer were uncommon in places like Connecticut and extirpated in Kansas. As Mark Schlegel writes, “We were plucking America bare.”
Thankfully — after pushing many species to or over the brink of extinction — hunters lobbied for restrictions on hunting. Eventually federal Wildlife Restoration acts, new state fish and game agencies, and taxes on weapons and ammunition helped protect remaining wild animals. With regulations, money, and political willpower, many states went to great lengths to restore decimated animal populations. Turkey in Missouri, sage grouse in North Dakota, and elk in Tennessee tell the American restoration and conservation success story. Many hunters have cherished sustainability and practiced ecological stewardship for decades.
Hunting, fishing, and trapping are now professionally managed. Wildlife biologists monitor populations and set quotas for the number of animals to be harvested in a given season. The money paid for hunting licenses, tags, and stamps is fed back into the conservation system. Taxes on firearms and ammunition provide hundreds of millions of dollars for wild lands each year. And while illegal hunting (poaching) still exists, by and large the regulatory system seems to be working. Hunting can sustain itself. And assuming the number of hunters remains stable and current trends of land protection, habitat restoration, and population management continue, hunting will be sustainable into the future.
Hunting for Sustainable Food
Is hunted venison more environmentally friendly than beef from the supermarket? Is wild quail a more ecologically responsible culinary choice than factory-farmed chicken? Almost certainly. Industrial meat production is riddled with environmental ills, from high levels of carbon emissions to air and water pollution.
By contrast, no extra energy is used to raise wild animals. We don’t have to grow grains with pesticides to feed and fatten them. Forests and sagebrush do not need to be cleared. Their waste nourishes, rather than taints, the earth and water. Wild game isn’t treated with antibiotics and comes fully unprocessed. As long as wild animals haven’t been eating from a contaminated environment, they are truly ‘organic’ meat. Compared to their industrially raised counterparts, elk and quail have a relatively small environmental footprint.
Does that mean hunting is the future of sustainable meat? Should everyone start hunting?
The simple truth about responsible wildlife management is that not everyone can hunt and harvest animals. In the United States we have too many people and not nearly enough wild animals to feed everyone. If all Americans tried to replace their current industrial meat consumption with wild game, they would quickly realize the impossibility of their quest. Demand would far overwhelm supply. Most people would not be able to acquire big game tags due to limits set by biologists. Daily bag limits would need to be cut. Season lengths would need to be reduced.
Unless we want to overturn massive portions of developed land back to the wilderness, only some people will be able to hunt for their food. If we want to preserve wild animals for perpetuity and feed all of America, universal hunting is not the answer.1 Hunting as a sustainable practice is simply not scalable.
There are other do-it-yourself sustainable alternatives to the industrial meat industry that are much more feasible. For example, everyone in America with a backyard could raise chickens or ducks. Sure, some cities and homeowners associations would have to change their rules, but it would be fairly easy to implement and scale. Realistically, small-scale conscientious local farming and ranching will play the biggest role in the quest for widely available sustainable meat.
This doesn’t mean hunting can’t be a part of the sustainable food movement. And it doesn’t mean there’s no room for new hunters. For every newcomer who learns to hunt, dollars are fed into the U.S. wildlife conservation system. Each new hunter can contribute another voice to groups of sportsmen and women advocating for our wild lands.2 How much hunting can grow will ultimately be determined by the health and productivity of our forests, plains, and streams. I don’t think hunting has reached the limit of its growth yet.
The Eco-Friendly Hunter
For new hunters looking to minimize negative impact on the environment, take heed. There are more and less eco-friendly ways to go about harvesting wild animals.
In line with the locavore food movement, one way to reduce your environmental impact is to hunt close to home. Long distance car travel requires burning fossil fuel. Plane travel requires burning far more of it. Unfortunately, for many hunters, pursuing local animals is difficult or impossible. Private land and city regulations can close off nearby opportunities. If you’re new to hunting, I recommend spending some time researching huntable land in your county or state. Our article, Where Can I Go Hunting may be of some assistance.
Hunting can also be fairly gear-intensive. From an environmental standpoint, the production of that gear requires a lot of energy and other natural resources. If you’d like to go a more sustainable route, take a more minimalist perspective to hunting gear. Buy good quality to start, buy only what you need, and resist the urge to always have the latest-and-greatest. Used gear is a great option, too. Many online outdoor and hunting forums have ‘classifieds’ where users can buy or sell gear. Nick and I have acquired a fair chunk of our gear this way, which has saved us a lot of money over the years.
Lead bullets are a contentious topic, but the truth is that excess amounts of lead are not great for ecosystem health. There are non-lead options that are less toxic, but even those aren’t perfect. Check out Nick’s review of non-lead bullet options, if you’re interested.
Finally, you may consider choosing your quarry based upon local environmental needs. Do you live in an area where over-abundant deer are eating too much of the local plant life? You could prioritize hunting deer. With natural predators wiped out in the eastern and Midwestern U.S., hunting is a very important and cost effective method to keep whitetail deer under control. Does your state have a serious wild pig problem? Maybe now is a good time to learn to hunt pigs. The more your hunting goals align with game management plans, the better for environmental health and sustainability.
So is hunting sustainable? It is in some, but not all ways. As a source of food, wild game has a relatively low environmental footprint compared to industrial meat production. But unfortunately, universal hunting and gathering as a primary means to eat in modern America is simply not feasible. Hunting will likely be only a small part of America’s local and sustainable food movement.
The wild is a precious and limited resource. Animal populations can be maintained for future generations thanks to decades of regulatory and conservation efforts from sportsmen and women. As a new hunter, you can be a part of this important stewardship. Hunting can sustain itself through our continued efforts.
As a closing note, Karl Malcolm, a member of Backcounty Hunters & Anglers, recently wrote an incredibly poignant and thoughtful piece on hunting and environmentalism. It’s called An Admirable Identity: Helping the Hunters’ Legacy Resonate in an Era of Change. If you haven’t read it already, I urge you to do so now.
What are you thoughts on the sustainability of hunting? Let us know with a comment below.
- This is particularly the case in light of America’s love for meat. The average American — including babies and children — consumes about 135 pounds of beef, poultry, and pork per year. If the U.S. population is about 319 million, then as a nation we consume roughly 43 billion pounds of meat each year. Just to put that in perspective… if you get about 50 pounds of meat off an average sized deer, Americans eat the equivalent of 860 million deer per year. There’s an estimated 30 million deer in total residing the U.S. right now. Approximately 6 million are harvested by hunters each year, totaling only 300 million pounds of meat. ↩
- There are numerous conservation and hunter advocacy organizations in the U.S. that do excellent work. Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, the Teddy Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP), Pheasants Forever, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF), the Mule Deer Foundation, and Ducks Unlimited are examples. If you haven’t already, I recommend becoming a member of one of these organizations. ↩