The Art of Manliness - #409： The Epic Story of Sport Hunting in America

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast hunting is one of

00:00:19.240 america's deeply held national traditions some of our biggest folk heroes happen to be hunters men

00:00:23.160 like daniel boone davy crockett and theodore roosevelt but how did hunting become a tradition

00:00:27.000 america in the first place and how did that tradition influence american culture including

00:00:30.600 its arts and conservation laws my guest today tackled the history of american hunting especially

00:00:34.720 its sporting form in his latest book his name is philip dray and his book is the fair chase the

00:00:38.800 epic story of hunting in america today on the show philip and i discussed the start of sport

00:00:42.480 hunting in this country during colonial times and how european hunting norms influenced the past time

00:00:46.600 in america we then dig into how americans developed a new and democratic form of hunting and then philip

00:00:50.760 shares how magazine writers and artists in the 19th century helped create the archetype of the

00:00:54.480 noble sportsmen that we have today and how hunting changed as americans moved west we then dig into

00:00:59.040 how the decimation of the american bison after the civil war led to hunters starting the conservation

00:01:03.140 movement in america and theodore roosevelt's role in that movement we enter a conversation discussing

00:01:07.340 the state of hunting in america today after the show's over check out the show notes at awim.is

00:01:11.980 philip dray

00:01:25.980 philip dray welcome to the show ah thanks for having me so you wrote a just come out of a book called the fair chase

00:01:31.740 the epic story of hunting in america i think i told you in the email this is definitely an epic

00:01:37.780 story because it covers hunting the sort of the history of the outdoors and camping the conservation

00:01:44.400 movement you've got you've managed to fit in the the native the indian wars in there i'm curious what

00:01:50.620 got you into writing the history of hunting was this something you did as a young man you want to

00:01:54.980 explore it further you know it's funny because actually sort of the opposite i grew up in minneapolis

00:01:59.860 and i was sort of like the jewish tom sawyer or something in a way i i always loved that about

00:02:07.520 minnesota the kind of the great outdoors the fact they called it the land of sky blue waters there was

00:02:12.780 a lot of hunting and fishing and nature was it was very much a theme sort of uh you know outdoor sports

00:02:19.500 i did little of it myself mostly just fishing in the city lakes of which there are many but i always

00:02:25.980 remembered when i grew up i always kind of remembered i had a fondness for that whole

00:02:30.080 atmosphere and so i always kind of wanted to write about it and i think partly it was that as a historian

00:02:35.960 i had written several books of history and i looked at hunting as something that had never really been

00:02:40.680 written about that much as a part of american history with a long trajectory partly because it's

00:02:46.220 been a divisive issue for many years like about a century really and i think it deserved to have kind

00:02:52.180 of a sort of a holistic approach someone look at it in a sort of ecumenical way like not judging it

00:02:58.500 necessarily but just looking at it reporting what was there so just to you know for our listeners this

00:03:04.620 is a history of the not hunting for subsistence but hunting for sport well that does sort of come

00:03:10.280 into it of course a little bit because those two overlap quite a bit but yes you're right it's about

00:03:15.580 sport hunting how how yes as as like as sport as a pastime became popular right and that's interesting

00:03:24.560 so you know we all you know there's that you talk about in the book the the hunting hypothesis like

00:03:29.320 hunt there's this argument that hunting is what made us humans and of course tribes around the world

00:03:34.320 you know cavemen that's how we that's how they got their food is they hunted when did hunting

00:03:40.320 transition from there's something you did to feed yourself to a thing that you did just for the

00:03:45.400 thrill and excitement of the activity itself you know that's one of those it's a very good question

00:03:50.680 and one that we'll probably never really know the answer to the only thing we can surmise is from

00:03:56.540 looking at old you know prehistoric cave drawings of as we know the hunt was something or at least

00:04:04.280 you know large animals were things that fascinated early man and we don't know exactly when that

00:04:12.180 transition took place but my guess is that the aspect of sport was probably entered into it entered

00:04:18.020 into it very early on we know that definitely in antiquity i think it's plato you know writes about

00:04:24.600 the difference between the sportsman and the subsistence hunter you know and sort of giving

00:04:30.740 larger cred to the sport hunter someone who brings a kind of gentlemanly attitude toward the hunt and

00:04:37.740 respects the animals they're hunting this sort of thing so that exists even in the pre-christian era

00:04:43.940 so basically the answer is it probably goes back a very long way so hunting in america we have to

00:04:51.360 understand that we have to understand hunting in europe so how did what was european sport hunting like

00:04:58.400 before like since the middle ages and then you know from there like how did that influence american

00:05:04.220 sport hunting customs and norms you're right that it really was it it was during the middle ages that

00:05:10.200 hunting became sort of codified if you will as a gentlemanly pursuit throughout europe the french

00:05:17.100 were very much into hunting and i think the first book about hunting was published in french and

00:05:23.800 largely illustrated book during after the um norman invasion of course it came to england as well this

00:05:31.940 idea of the gentlemanly hunt and that's where of course we're all familiar with the sort of british

00:05:37.400 approach the history of hunting in britain you know the royal deer robin hood and his merry men

00:05:43.540 falconry eventually development of fox hunting and of course britain has a very very rich history of

00:05:50.880 sport of the sport of hunting and even a extensive nomenclature as you know of it's almost sort of

00:05:57.880 comical of different names for parts of the hunt the you know queen elizabeth wasn't was an ardent 0.69

00:06:04.160 hunter as was her father henry the eighth and and so on so it was a really like a kind of an obsession

00:06:09.920 the only trouble in england of course was that there was always a debate about the use of the land

00:06:15.620 and of course that's where you always hear about the king's deer and you know forbidden food that was

00:06:21.360 forbidden to the common people who were not supposed to be killing deer and this kind of thing

00:06:26.020 and that's one reason why of course you find so many british hunters were very eager to come to

00:06:32.180 america because america was a place with no it was the complete opposite instead of these landed gentry 1.00

00:06:39.780 with their portioned off lands that you were not supposed to trot on we had the wide open spaces here

00:06:46.820 and buffalo and all you know in other words the vast range of the great plains for instance or even

00:06:53.200 the adirondacks those were very very appealing to british hunters what were some of the norms of

00:06:59.880 this sort of gentleman hunter like and this is kind of this kind of goes into the idea of fair chase

00:07:04.000 right like did they have rules where you just couldn't just go slaughter a fox right there was a

00:07:09.940 certain code you had to follow for the in order for the hunt to be honorable right exactly they called

00:07:14.920 it in britain they used to call it true sportsmanship uh in america became known as fair chase it basically

00:07:21.620 was uh over the years of course it changes depending on what the what the sort of uh infringements on it

00:07:28.840 are and those change with technology a little bit but basically just as you would imagine it was an

00:07:34.100 ethos that suggested that the hunt was a more admirable sport if due respect was paid to the prey

00:07:43.120 animals in other words that they were given a chance to flee they weren't unfairly now of course people

00:07:49.520 are that people often scoff at that because obviously a hunter with a high-powered rifle

00:07:53.660 is always going to have a huge advantage over an animal prey animal but the idea being that for

00:08:00.660 instance you did not like game birds you could only shoot them in the air or you would not necessarily

00:08:06.900 bait animals with food or whatever it might be or you would not imitate the sound of a of a of a

00:08:14.940 infant animal or a bleeding animal to lure an adult and so on and so on there were just a certain code

00:08:21.860 and again it changed over time nowadays it might refer to not using trail cameras or drones or

00:08:28.700 something like that in the 19th century for instance in the adirondacks it was a huge dispute for many

00:08:35.080 years about whether you could chase deer into bodies of water where they of course were easily killed

00:08:40.660 because they don't swim very fast and this was a very common way to bag a deer for a visiting tourist

00:08:47.040 hunter the guides would chase the deer into the lake the boat would catch up with the deer that was

00:08:52.100 struggling to get away and of course it could be easily killed and that was very much just came to be

00:08:58.400 very much disputed as an ungentlemanly or unsportsmanlike form of hunting it was just a kind of

00:09:03.740 way to distinguish the sport of hunting from other more crude pastimes so hunting in europe was

00:09:11.520 something that the gentry did the aristocracy did that carry over here in the united states or did it

00:09:17.780 eventually democratize where it was something that just every average joe blow could hunt for sport

00:09:22.780 didn't matter if you're a part of the landed gentry yeah no it did of course here much more quickly it

00:09:28.040 it became something that was accessible to all and for one thing the land was available to to to all

00:09:35.300 basically i mean it's it was it's only been really in the last generation or two in fact that a lot of

00:09:41.280 private property owners forbid hunters coming on their land it used to be that even if a property was

00:09:46.720 property owned private privately owned rather it was fine for hunters to to come there but no to answer

00:09:54.540 your question it was much quicker of course there always was there always were elite hunters here

00:09:59.520 because they were the ones who could afford the equipment the guns and to maybe travel someplace

00:10:04.980 remote far away you know new york was a big epicenter of hunting interest and you know for a gentleman hunter

00:10:12.240 from new york or westchester to take himself out to the adirondacks or even out to minnesota wisconsin

00:10:18.720 you know it was expensive but to answer your question yes of course you suddenly had

00:10:23.860 people right on the living very close to hunting grounds and they saw huntable animals all around

00:10:30.480 them and so yes of course it was a much more democratized process and again that's why a lot

00:10:35.640 of british and european hunters of means lost no time coming over here because they thought why should

00:10:42.020 we poke around here looking for a deer we can hunt in england when out here in america there's all

00:10:47.440 kinds of you know elk bison coyote you know it was it was a wonderful opportunity for them and they

00:10:54.260 didn't hesitate to seize it so you mentioned in our introduction that hunting has had there's been

00:10:59.700 controversy sport hunting you know for a long time did what did you did we see this sort of the

00:11:04.520 founding of the republic or maybe even in the 19th century did what did the american public think of

00:11:09.860 sport hunters where did they admire them were they they sort of ambivalent towards them what was the

00:11:14.700 status of the hunter then well it's actually kind of interesting because of course in colonial times

00:11:20.400 hunters were not often looked upon very favorably they were considered either sport or subsistence

00:11:27.080 hunters really because in the old sort of conservative days say in new england the idea that was the much

00:11:33.480 of the focus was on creating civilized spaces and so those people who chose to live far out in the woods

00:11:39.760 hunting were looked on a little bit askance in other words they weren't they weren't church going

00:11:45.380 people they were living you know as somebody said at the time like they're sort of half animals

00:11:50.020 themselves they're living out there traipsing around in the woods and and what have you that

00:11:55.580 changed over time one thing that was helped reform their image quite a bit was the american revolution

00:12:01.420 in which you suddenly had the buckskin frontiersman emerge as a hero you know the sharp 0.95

00:12:07.880 shooting american who with his with his musket coming out of the woods to help to defeat the

00:12:13.780 british and so ever after that then you sort of had the sort of the kind of daniel boone type image

00:12:19.780 davy crockett the the backwoodsman in his buckskin you know yes he might be skulking around the woods but

00:12:26.680 he's basically he's on our side he's a good guy and of course what they did they used to call them the

00:12:31.700 long hunters people like boone what they were doing was help to settle areas like kentucky

00:12:37.320 and missouri places like that so they were beneficial to society so yeah i mean eventually

00:12:44.040 the image changed and you began to have hunting overall seen as much more as something a much more

00:12:50.760 acceptable pursuit one thing i should mention of course it's interesting is that a lot of other

00:12:55.880 sport at the time was looked down upon especially that involving animals for instance like ratting

00:13:01.780 was something which most people today would never even know of but you know had to do with competitions

00:13:08.000 to see how quickly or how many rats could be killed by dogs in a pit these were popular urban pastimes

00:13:16.680 other you know cockfighting those kind of sports came to be looked down upon and by comparison something

00:13:24.080 like hunting which involved going out into nature challenging oneself by the with the elements

00:13:29.640 and the challenge of actually finding being able to track prey animals was seen as a much more

00:13:36.220 valiant and and noble thing to do and part of what helped that create that aura of you know

00:13:43.280 valent gallantry and hunting is there at this time like the early 19th century or yeah early 19th

00:13:49.500 century all these like you know hunting writers or outdoor writers started popping up and even magazines

00:13:55.280 talk talk about that how did that influence how americans thought of hunters yeah that was a very

00:14:00.240 interesting phenomenon is that in the early days the republic initially it was horse racing was sort of

00:14:06.440 the main sport for the elite and it did continue to be so until about the time of the civil war say

00:14:13.360 but it was those same magazines that also began to report on what they called field sports namely hunting

00:14:20.020 and fishing and they very quickly found that among other things hunting unlike i mean a horse race is

00:14:26.460 exciting too and believe me they there were some large stake horse races in those days but hunting was

00:14:33.340 something that they found had a kind of built-in narrative that hunting stories they make for great

00:14:38.280 journalism really because there's always an incredible story involved or can be whether it's some

00:14:44.520 overwhelming facet of nature one has to conquer a hike a mountain or whatever or actual contact with

00:14:52.280 ferocious beasts whether the beasts get away or not in other words as you can imagine it's all it makes

00:14:58.560 for an intriguing yarn and what they began to see is that this was a very rich vein of writing that they

00:15:04.940 could mine and there was a huge audience for it as well and it also brought along a sort of hunting

00:15:10.480 literature of that era also brought along kind of a early kind of like a mark twain-esque kind of humor

00:15:17.900 out of particularly out of the southwest which was then considered like arkansas and maybe kentucky

00:15:24.260 mississippi sort of like writers who wrote in a very humorous vein again a little sort of anticipating mark

00:15:31.300 twain a little bit about local people going hunting their their many gaffes and you know shooting their feet

00:15:40.040 off or whatever it might be some ridiculous thing that we could all people could laugh at and so that

00:15:45.180 too kind of built in this idea of hunting as a kind of pastime that was both rich in humor it it brought

00:15:52.100 you in contact with nature and so on and so that's really a big change that goes on in the 1830s and

00:15:57.820 1840s and we should mention too that it has to do with kind of the romantic era in america the idea that

00:16:05.620 sort of the end of the idea that the wilderness was some place that we needed to needed to dread or

00:16:11.320 fear but rather that it held poetic and even curative aspects to it that's one thing you notice

00:16:18.860 in a lot of the early hunting journals say up in the adirondacks is that i feel you know the hunter

00:16:24.780 not you know not only am i enjoying myself out here but i feel 100 better this air is really good for me

00:16:29.820 and i was i felt terrible before and now i'm cured and whatever this type of thing is you're familiar

00:16:36.380 with like most of your listeners probably are the idea that nature and sport outdoor sports could be

00:16:42.400 a wonderful balm for the for the body and for the mind and this was very powerful in that early magazine

00:16:49.440 writing about the sport and not only did this sort of market around writing about hunting rise up

00:16:55.280 you saw this proliferation of art so the courier and ives you know lit the grass and i mean i think

00:17:01.500 everyone's if you live in america you've seen those and like you said earlier in your introduction like

00:17:07.120 there's something about that seems like timeless and nostalgic and romantic even if you've never

00:17:12.220 hunted before like you you wouldn't mind having that in your house did that feeling exist then like

00:17:19.100 did people like look at those images and think oh i that's so i feel nostalgic for that thing or is

00:17:24.900 that something that we experience now looking back well of course it's hard to say because it's hard to

00:17:30.440 put ourselves in that say the 1850s but i think you're probably right that it was something that

00:17:36.140 you know it wasn't just art decorative art on the wall it was it was wood carvings um you know it's very

00:17:42.440 common to have the sideboard in your dining room be ornately carved with a hunting scene or other

00:17:48.800 furniture and many of us have seen this but yes of course it was some of that was sort of kitschy

00:17:54.380 even at that time in other words uh obviously hunting scenes of obviously sort of depicting a

00:18:03.080 kind of the the sort of everything positive about the hunting like waking up in the morning

00:18:07.660 at the side of the lake with your your male companions and it looks like a beautiful day the

00:18:14.340 guides are busy preparing the canoe and you're having your first cup of coffee you're look you're

00:18:19.520 looking up you know up at the trees very like you're anticipating a wonderful day yeah whatever

00:18:25.420 sounds great it looks really great in other words the the art was almost like an advertisement for this

00:18:31.080 this this preoccupation basically so yeah there was a lot of that some of it got kind of kitschy

00:18:37.680 but it it persisted a very long time as you mentioned of course it had ancient origins it goes

00:18:43.340 way back to some of the first artwork we know man ever did which is to paint these things on cave walls

00:18:48.920 but it's proceeded it's all through the ages i think what i was surprised by was how i knew about it but

00:18:55.300 i was amazed at how prolific it was it was you know boys pajama design tablecloths curtains wallpaper

00:19:02.660 as i said sideboards pieces of furniture and then of course a lot of courier knives images

00:19:08.720 in up to the early 20th century there's like a wonderful genre of what they called calendar art

00:19:14.480 which is everybody has seen these things like old beautiful color hunting images what was very

00:19:20.540 popular was what they called predicament art which was a scene which we've all seen before of like

00:19:25.960 two hunters waking up their campfire with a grizzly bear kind of coming around the corner and one of the

00:19:32.040 hunters is reaching for his trusty rifle and of course it was a calendar for like a remington calendar

00:19:37.940 something or winchester but those type of themes where people never seem to get tired of them there's

00:19:44.180 just like hundreds and hundreds of these predicament art calendar images and other type of images as well

00:19:49.800 but many of them do that they kind of both sort of remind you of the necessity of having a trusty gun by

00:19:57.100 your side but also the kind of incredible excitement and sort of man challenge of being out where you know

00:20:04.680 ferocious animals are are right there by your side so the sort of hunting as sport really got its start in

00:20:13.420 new england the adirondacks they trickled down to like what was then the southwest right the frontier

00:20:20.140 kentucky tennessee but then the west opened up and by the west i think you know we're talking like the west

00:20:27.620 like utah colorado texas how did sport hunting change as the hunter started going west um did the

00:20:37.580 technology change did laws change tell talk walk us through that well as one thing is i i got very

00:20:43.660 caught up in the idea of the u.s army being of some of the important people in terms of establishing

00:20:49.200 hunting in the west they were of course as you know in those days the west was the frontier basically

00:20:55.740 and in addition to settlers or anyone who went out there prospectors whoever obviously hunting for

00:21:02.800 subsistence was a key thing whether you're a mountain man or wherever you might be living

00:21:07.360 but the first people to really introduce sport hunting tended to be military officers people like

00:21:12.940 george armstrong custer who i talk about quite a bit who prided himself on his hunting i was amazed of

00:21:19.460 course we all think of custer as a as an indian fighter but you know i got the impression in a way

00:21:24.860 that for him the indian fighting was a bit of a moon like moonlighting he really he was very much a

00:21:30.720 hunter and even wrote about his hunting exploits at some length so it's very interesting to me he he

00:21:36.660 took it very seriously and he was not alone many army officers stationed at places in the remote west

00:21:44.400 remember there wasn't you know it was the type the indian wars were a kind of sporadic affair and so

00:21:51.500 there was a lot of downtime as we would say uh at some stockade in wherever it might be someplace in

00:21:59.020 uh utah or eras new mexico territory this kind of thing and so this is what people did hunting of

00:22:06.880 course there was a lot of wildlife around not to mention the fact that it was a way to augment army

00:22:11.700 rations so to go hunt for meat on the hoofs so to speak so yeah hunting very much became established

00:22:18.720 out west through i think through a lot through the army officers at one point even the army

00:22:23.900 commissioned special types of hunting rifles to be distributed to the troops to basically encourage

00:22:30.040 them the idea was that well this will help improve their marksmanship and give them something to do

00:22:34.740 because one of the big concerns of the army the western army in those days was that the troops out of

00:22:40.880 boredom would become you know basically you know fall into all kinds of sinful behavior because there was

00:22:48.180 nothing else to do they would gamble god knows what else so this hunting was seen as a kind of a

00:22:53.600 more wholesome activity if we could give them these guns and ammunition for them to do it and at the same

00:22:59.560 time it would help them you know prepare you know improve their marksmanship or what have you

00:23:04.820 so one other thing i'll mention of course with this is that the again back to our wealthy european and

00:23:11.080 english friends a very popular thing to do was to come into the american west and hook up with a u.s

00:23:18.360 army officer and go on a hunting expedition in other words a wealthy say a wealthy english earl or duke

00:23:25.400 with his entourage coming into the west hooking up with a custer or various other leading officers

00:23:33.140 often these were arranged by washington because of for sort of like diplomatic reasons and then they would

00:23:39.460 kind of go hunting together so this had this effect of both generating the idea of hunting in the army

00:23:44.740 but also sort of universalizing american hunting and the american west as a place of very exciting

00:23:53.280 hunting with animals that were to be seen nowhere else of course one funny thing is i'll mention i found

00:23:59.920 hilarious was that the brits they would get off their boat in new york and think that there were buffalo

00:24:06.480 right there and they would be they would be surprised to hear that oh no for the buffalo you

00:24:12.280 have to go out to nebraska and you know where's that well that's like you know 1400 miles west of

00:24:18.440 here whatever it was but they were disappointed they thought westchester new jersey wherever might

00:24:23.380 might have some buffalo yeah you highlight one of these you know sort of rich british barons that

00:24:28.100 came and like he basically just unleashed a bloodbath in the west and people were really happy when he

00:24:34.120 left because he was like flaunting all american hunting norms at the time i know and of course

00:24:39.260 of course it's it's odd that his his last name was gore of all things sir i think sir george gore

00:24:46.860 yes he was infamous he came in the 1840s with like you know really basically like his own army in terms

00:24:55.060 of the entourage he had the wagons he brought every type of thing you know one thing about these early

00:25:00.720 hunting expeditions is one thing about sport hunting you have to realize in the early 19th century is

00:25:05.260 it it attached itself very early to natural science in other words hunters were always curious because

00:25:12.060 they had to be to be a good hunter you have to kind of you have to pay attention to wildlife to the

00:25:17.600 forest to to learn how to track and so on and so an interest in natural science was always featured in

00:25:24.300 the hunting literature of the time and these expeditions often had actual scientists attached which

00:25:30.020 was of course a wonderful thing for for science because you had this became a vehicle basically

00:25:35.800 for a lot of western exploration but the gore expedition was infamous because he just he was

00:25:42.140 not a fair chase hunter he basically hunted he came to america he wanted to get as many trophy heads as

00:25:47.800 he could he just you know it was like it literally was like an invading army and he came cut through

00:25:53.720 a swath of like i think colorado montana wyoming maybe nebraska he was here for about 18 months i

00:26:01.420 believe and so finally the local indian tribes began complaining like who is this character you let him

00:26:07.760 out here and he's you know he's he's taking our our our pantry basically and he was eventually

00:26:14.420 nobody nobody shed a tear when he finally packed up and left and after that of course people would

00:26:20.120 always harken back sort of cite him as an example of this type of excess and sort of guard against it

00:26:26.960 if they could so another thing you you go into detail about hunting in the west you know you talk

00:26:31.900 about bison hunting right the brits thought that the bison would just be in new york but you know

00:26:35.960 they're out west and i think yeah some we if you grew up in america you probably heard about this in

00:26:41.200 american history one point there were millions of bison roaming the plains and then just decimated

00:26:48.040 during the 19th century you've probably heard the story people shooting them from trains

00:26:52.260 how did that change hunting when people saw that oh my gosh we can actually like hunt a species to

00:27:01.200 extinction did that sound some alarms for hunters themselves oh absolutely it was i mean as you say

00:27:08.260 it was it was one of these things where people couldn't believe what they were seeing and of course it

00:27:12.260 was the hunters who saw this happening first because they were the ones who were out there what

00:27:17.160 happened was of course that the you know a huge with the railroads after the civil war in particular

00:27:23.040 railroads extending into the west there was it was much easier to ship buffalo hides back east and it was

00:27:31.000 also easier for hunters both scrupulous and not so scrupulous to get to the west and many people began

00:27:38.280 what they became what they called market hunters basically they weren't hunting for subsistence they

00:27:43.760 weren't hunting for sport they were hunting for the hides of the bison and you know the bison are

00:27:50.120 if you they can be challenging to hunt but they also can be very easy to hunt because they're a herd animal

00:27:56.180 basically and one aspect one feature of this was that the the eastern rifle manufacturers had built

00:28:04.080 ever more powerful guns for being able to shoot accurately at long distances and so those two things

00:28:10.260 together the the demand for buffalo hides the improved weaponry and just obviously the opportunity to make

00:28:19.560 money for those who wanted to go west being a buffalo hunter became a lucrative occupation but you're right

00:28:25.940 the speed at which these huge herds of buffalo were decimated was was incredible really terrible tragedy

00:28:35.160 again because they could be killed easily enough that the numbers just became sort of staggering like

00:28:41.840 what a team of market hunters could accomplish in one day or one week and so on and we've all maybe seen

00:28:48.420 these images of a western railhead with like literally a mountain of buffalo hides stacked up awaiting

00:28:54.540 shipment back east so so yes you're right it happened very within really perhaps maybe 20 or 30 years from the

00:29:03.220 1860s by the late 1880s people like william hornaday who was a well-known naturalist and taxidermist

00:29:10.880 george bird grinnell who was the editor of forest and stream magazine these people began to see that

00:29:17.780 what was happening was the species could actually be made driven extinct and you know extinction was a

00:29:24.520 very just as now it was a very heavy concept but it was one that people were much less familiar with at

00:29:30.000 that time and it it frankly was was something that brought a lot of people up you know to to a point

00:29:38.680 where they realized that this even those who had been ambitious hunters themselves began to realize

00:29:44.820 that this could not go on that something had to change in order to preserve the species so at this

00:29:50.240 point in american history were there game laws on the book or were what did hunters govern themselves

00:29:55.320 sort of this you know informal code um a little of both there were game laws very game laws came into

00:30:03.260 effect fairly early it's just as you can imagine they were kind of just because of the sprawling

00:30:08.960 geography of america they were either you know they could differ from state to state and also they

00:30:16.740 were often difficult to enforce because of the law the the great the great sort of distances between

00:30:25.060 places and you know one thing about hunting and this is where fair chase ethos is so important

00:30:29.360 is that what hunters do mostly they do on their own out in the woods the whole idea is you don't go

00:30:36.940 hunting with a large group of people you hunt the whole idea is to get out alone somewhere or maybe

00:30:41.600 with just one other person so it's on you to do right basically and that's why it's actually kind of

00:30:49.120 incredible that we have the existing today the sort of system of game laws that are very strictly

00:30:55.920 enforced that we have but yes you're right to go back to that period the game laws were kind of hobbled

00:31:01.080 together piece by piece it like i said it wasn't a consistent thing a lot of it really fell into

00:31:07.120 place to me it seems more late in the 19th century around the time these concerns you're alluding to

00:31:13.280 first came to people's notice it wasn't only the buffalo but it was also of course the passenger

00:31:18.340 pigeon and various other even white-tailed deer people began to worry that their numbers were also

00:31:25.080 being diminished as well so there were a number of species where there was either they did become

00:31:30.160 extinct like the passenger pigeon or others that were so diminished that they alarmed what you would

00:31:36.520 call i guess hunter conservationists right and one of these hunter conservationists was president

00:31:42.100 theodore roosevelt exactly tell us about his role in sort of the conservation movement in america

00:31:47.520 well roosevelt's of course fascinating guy in terms of hunting in this period because he is both

00:31:53.960 a sort of very much part of this cohort of the early hunter conservationists these were men who

00:32:02.880 had they were largely from the east but they had lived in the west as as of course roosevelt did he

00:32:09.080 had a ranch in north dakota they loved hunting but they also again were the first ones to see

00:32:15.820 that there was a danger in over hunting in excessive hunting and they had often been the kind of true

00:32:21.820 sportsmanship type hunters to begin with so they founded a group called the boone and crockett club

00:32:29.100 named for two of america's most legendary hunters and the idea was originally it was all about more about the

00:32:37.040 hunting but within a few years they saw that they actually had to change their track a little bit

00:32:42.120 and actually get more into conservation and so yeah they were involved with trying to diminish trying

00:32:48.020 to put down poaching for instance in yellowstone park this was a huge problem in areas this was a battle

00:32:55.200 that this has been written about extensively but this idea this battle had to be fought basically between

00:33:00.940 sports hunting that was guided by game laws and just poaching which of course a lot of local people

00:33:07.740 didn't like the term poaching they just felt like well we've lived here for years why can't we hunt

00:33:13.020 as how we please who are you to come in here and tell us what to do so this was a set up this kind of

00:33:19.720 a very fierce struggle that took a couple of generations really to kind of work itself out

00:33:25.760 until the kind of game management system basically won out and so that's where someone like roosevelt

00:33:32.380 is really pivotal because he was right there in the front lines of that battle fighting to make sure

00:33:38.260 that game laws would be observed at the same time of course roosevelt had a whole nother side which was

00:33:43.900 or maybe it's sort of the same but you know roosevelt was a big kind of like hunting is who we are as

00:33:49.780 americans it's what makes us it makes us strong and you know it was very popular at that time in

00:33:55.840 the late 19th century to point to the british and say look at them they're they rule the world and

00:34:01.400 why is that because they're a nation of hunters and other societies that don't have a big hunting

00:34:06.580 culture they don't seem to get it and so if we want to be like the brit we have to emulate them and

00:34:13.240 and so roosevelt was very much as you know that's he believed that this was important that young boys

00:34:21.200 should learn how to shoot and track and that hunting was a type of activity among other physical

00:34:28.000 challenges that would help american men become more vigorous and you know better soldiers and uh

00:34:36.180 you know conquerors of other lands this type of thing yeah so you hunters played a big role in

00:34:42.220 kickstarting the conservation conservation movement in america what's their role in it today are they

00:34:47.680 still actively involved i think they've actually always been involved you know what in the it's

00:34:53.160 interesting in the during the 1930s laws were put a federal laws were put in place there i'll refer

00:34:59.820 to them as they call them the pitman robertson laws and basically what they are is that it's a

00:35:05.100 11 percent tax on hunting equipment guns ammo anything to do with hunting and so hunters all

00:35:14.340 along have paid in all this money goes to local conservation efforts across the country and it's

00:35:22.620 been a kind of undisputed success in that it creates this huge endowment for conservation works

00:35:28.580 and helps kind of imbue the hunting community with this this responsibility and to this day a lot of

00:35:35.640 hunting groups say out west they take conservation very seriously they see it as sort of the other side

00:35:41.280 of the sport that they love to their credit and you'll find that a lot of conservation boards and

00:35:49.760 organizations are actually very much under the influence of hunters who sit on in in positions of

00:35:57.920 decision making and i mean by and large they've done a very good job over the over time because

00:36:03.720 they've had this interest at heart and they still will you know hunters will volunteer a saturday

00:36:09.580 morning to go out and dig a tunnel underneath a road so that deer don't have to cross the road

00:36:15.560 this type of thing so i mean it's that type of dedication that is admirable the only thing about

00:36:23.400 that though of course is that in more recent say the last 20 or 30 years their control of the

00:36:29.160 conservation movement has come under fire from people who are say like who look at a little

00:36:34.600 differently and are more concerned about animal rights the rate at which certain predator animals

00:36:40.120 are targeted for hunting so there are differences of opinion about it and there is some effort to push

00:36:47.060 back sometimes the people who challenge the hunters on conservation issues will do so through

00:36:52.840 referendums in western states where those are allowed say for instance about whether mountain lions

00:36:58.740 should be hunted that type of thing so there is some pushback against the hunters what seems to be

00:37:04.880 their kind of large influence in the conservation movement on the other hand you have to kind of tip

00:37:09.840 your hat to them because they have been at it a very long time and have in terms of habitat protection

00:37:15.440 wildlife protection keeping species alive and and viable they have done a lot of good work

00:37:22.120 so i mean what's the state of hunting today i mean it used to be this you know i mean what what's the

00:37:27.040 state of what was the state of hunting in say the 19th century did like pretty much every man hunt or

00:37:31.060 was it pretty much it was it like a small percentage and what's that like today well i don't it's hard i

00:37:38.320 don't think it's ever been like a huge percentage but it was a very substantial percentage of people

00:37:42.880 were involved in hunting and fishing as we know part of the problem is just the urbanization of

00:37:47.660 america today it's not as easy to get to areas where one can hunt as it used to be for obvious

00:37:53.940 reasons there's just everything is more built up you don't find as many young people maybe because of

00:38:00.460 this urbanization young people are not taken up with hunting like they used to be there's a saying in

00:38:07.000 the hunting hunting world that if you if you don't start hunting by the time you're 16 for instance

00:38:12.820 if you're not introduced to it by an older relative you're probably not going to ever do it and so of

00:38:18.340 course that's of concern to hunters because they'd like to kind of they obviously they'd like to keep

00:38:23.920 their sport vibrant and there's a big effort in among hunters and hunting organizations and companies

00:38:31.180 to nurture young young people but of course they have demographics kind of working against them

00:38:36.940 young people nowadays you know they're on their smartphones they're they're they're hooked to the

00:38:41.660 internet again it's it's not as if you can just grab dad's shotgun and go up the hill and and do some

00:38:48.440 shooting necessarily it's much harder than it was say 100 years ago so for all these reasons hunting has

00:38:54.700 it's it's diminished as as an activity that said those who are engaged in hunting are very ardent

00:39:02.360 about it and if you go to like a hunting conference out west you'll be just amazed at the enthusiasm

00:39:08.860 and the technical proficiency of the hunters how they talk about their sport and the great the great

00:39:16.040 love they have for it is you is you could really see it and there's there's new people coming into it

00:39:21.100 all the time who you wouldn't expect women are the fastest growing demographic in hunting there's also 0.99

00:39:26.340 what some people call diy hunters people who never hunted in their lives but decide to take it up as

00:39:33.140 adults they get a hunting license they buy a shotgun they you know it's like they see it as a challenge

00:39:39.340 some of them are interested for food politics uh reasons of of you know what what am i going to eat

00:39:46.440 am i going to do if i like to eat meat do i want to be part of the industrial meat system or would i

00:39:52.960 rather feel like i i know where my you know i'm i'm going to go out and and try to harvest my own

00:39:59.340 meat so there's that aspect as well so hunting the face of hunting is changing a bit even while it

00:40:05.720 diminishes it is diminishing it still has a certain it has life to it and i think it it will will always be

00:40:13.140 around well hey philip dre this is thank you so much for your time it's been an absolute pleasure

00:40:17.620 thanks a lot i've loved it take care now my guest today was philip dre he's the author of the book

00:40:22.200 the fair chase the epic story of hunting in america it's available on amazon.com and bookstores

00:40:26.500 everywhere you check out our show notes at aom.is hunting where you find links to resources

00:40:30.740 we can delve deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness

00:40:46.700 podcast for more manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at

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00:40:57.660 next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

The Art of Manliness - May 30, 2018

#409： The Epic Story of Sport Hunting in America

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