Listen Now > > I sensed it was about time to hear from Ross Peck of Fort St. John, British Columbia, about a hunt for Stone’s sheep. We had invited him into the Taylor Ranch in the central Idaho wilderness last winter to show him a bighorn, but time and weather prevented his visit.
If you’re still wondering where hunting ethics come from and why they have been passed from one generation to the next, the man’s name is Theodore Roosevelt.
Of all the things we take into the field, the most important is our own attitude. That’s because fair chase is defined by values we believe in and are committed to uphold.
As hunters, we all will inevitably be put in a position to explain, either in person or online, why we hunt. Sometimes this will be in response to someone who is simply curious. Other times we could be confronted by someone who has already made up his or her mind that they oppose hunting in general, or some form of it, and is just interested in winning an argument.
“Personal choice” is mentioned many times throughout this website. There is no escaping the fact that hunting itself is a personal experience, preceded by personal choices. The issue of legal versus ethical raises another very important personal choice question.
“A peculiar virtue in wildlife ethics is that the hunter ordinarily has no gallery to applaud or disapprove of his conduct. Whatever his acts, they are dictated by his own conscience, rather than by a mob of onlookers. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this fact.”―Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac
This vocal minority never seems to let the facts get in the way of a good argument, which is frustrating to watch.
