Bad movies don’t get better with the second, third or fourth viewing. Repetition of the same mistake, each time expecting a different result, has been aptly described as a symptom of ignorance, if not insanity. Those susceptible to that behavior either do not learn its lessons or choose to reject them. So once again, the regulators have decided that we should bask in the false euphoria of a “liberal framework,” despite the conditions in the marsh and the pernicious impact that such a judgment engenders in the ranks of hunters – wholly apart from the untoward pressure it places on the birds.

One aspect of the situation is particularly curious: We are told that Adaptive Harvest Management (AHM) is a scientific system, sensitive to changes in the critical inputs that affect the level of sustainable kill. But if true, why does the system always flash “liberal?” Specifically, why has the black box throbbed, groaned and belched out a liberal framework eleven out of the last eleven years, despite dramatic fluctuations in population numbers and marsh conditions? If the inputs vary but the results do not, does one commit heresy by the mere act of suggesting the presence of rat odor in the evening breeze?

In ancient times, priests at pagan temples often presided over oracles, mysterious objects or devices that when handled or queried in a certain way supposedly foretold coming events, separated unknown truth from falsehood, conferred good fortune on certain planned endeavors and warned against treachery or calamity. In most cases, these oracles had an uncanny knack of telling their interlocutors what they wanted to hear, without regard to the number of virgins sacrificed, the gallons of goat’s blood poured on the altar or the number of owls whose entrails were consulted for guidance in reading the portents. History records that this occurred with especially dramatic consistency when the party seeking guidance was in a position to inflict grave punishment upon the priests if their insights proved distasteful – or lavish gifts upon them when the readings were more propitious.

Contemporary chroniclers report that Alexander the Great trekked for six weeks in the Sahara in order to ask the High Priest of the god Adun in the great temple at the Oasis of Siwah if he, Alexander, was in fact a god (as he believed) and not a mere mortal. He made the trip with forty armed companions. Perhaps that had no impact on the unarmed priests when they consulted their goatskin bag filled with oracular emblems in a cloud of smoke from the sacrificial fires, pungent with its freight of charred flesh. In any case, the priests gave Alexander the answer he sought. He left satisfied, after bestowing gold and jewels on those who had so gratified his curiosity.

I confess to the offense of crude analogy – but do we witness a recrudescence of such events today? How, for example, does the AHM black box differ from the goatskin bag at the Oasis of Siwah? Although no virgins are burned alive as part of the annual exercise of regulation setting (so far as we are informed at any rate), a substantial segment of the waterfowl population is certainly sacrificed. Who can prove that the inputs have any greater empirical validity when the output never varies – and when said output always serves the interests of the commercial contingent, those with the power to bring pressure to bear on the priests through their paymasters – and the killer contingent, those whose unquenchable lust for killing projects a loud voice of its own while fertilizing the field for harvest by the guys in the business for the bucks?

I submit that if we could rip away the curtain, we would find that something akin to the Great and Terrible Oz lies behind it – a little old white haired guy, slope shouldered and slack bellied, with a bullhorn, a projector, a smoke machine and little else. Not truth but illusion. Yet, we swallow it – or have it jammed down our throats – every year.

And even when the regulators can justify “liberal” in terms of population numbers (the condition that may exist in California this season due to our superb hatch), what higher purpose do we serve by allowing a season 105 days long (112 if you count the “youth hunt” days) with a seven bird daily bag?¹ Our state commissioners tell us that the long season allows greater opportunity for those with constrained schedules. In other words, a guy who can’t make time to go afield during a 75 day season obtains cherished “opportunity” with that extra 30 days that he would not otherwise have had.

How many total hunters need that extra month to get a “reasonable” opportunity – and what is this vested right to a “reasonable opportunity” anyway? Surprise surprise – no one has the answer to those questions. No study of any kind supports this thesis, let alone a study that could lay claim to the dubious accolade “scientific.”

Even if we knew, do we subordinate our stewardship obligations to a handful of guys who claim that they need that extra month “to have a reasonable chance?” What is this? A welfare program to accommodate the wishes of the schedule whipped – or a program to accommodate general public recreation within the primary goal of wildlife preservation and enhancement where the interest of the birds is supposed to come first? And if the argument is true, why not restrict the “opportunity” during those extra days (say the last thirty of the season) to hunters who sign a sworn affidavit that they haven’t been able to get out earlier for legitimate reasons?

In the early days of the Spinning-wind decoy debate, proponents of the devices argued that they were essential because they aided the elderly, the infirm and the young to get birds when they otherwise would not. That argument faded from view as soon as someone suggested that SWD use should be restricted to hunters who could prove that they were too young, too old or too impaired to get birds without them. The “reasonable opportunity” argument is just another codpiece for greed at the expense of the wildlife.

Anyone who pays attention to the words that pass for the mission statement of the state fish and game commissions and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – not to mention the North American Waterfowl Management Plan – would know how these questions should be addressed, if those supposedly guiding pronouncements are anything more than eyewash. Somehow, those in charge, and allegedly endowed with superior wisdom in these matters, cannot come up with the answers, blindingly obvious though they may be.

Deep Throat told the Watergate reporters to “follow the money.” The answer to our conundrum may be no more difficult than that. Setting aside the pathetic BS about needing more hunter opportunity for the hunters who can’t get out during a reasonable season, the longer season favors the commercial interests that profit from more hunting days. It gratifies many of those who pay hundreds of thousands for club memberships and want to justify their investment. But the real beneficiaries are the members of the killer contingent, that unfortunate segment of our fraternity, with representatives from the entire range of the economic spectrum, whose members can never get enough killing. Combined, they have the energy, the agenda, the ear of powerful politicians – and they have co-opted the regulators. The very notion that AHM has the stated purpose of achieving sustainable kill when the North American Waterfowl Management Plan to which we are supposedly bound requires management for sustainable populations should be enough to demonstrate that something fundamental has gone terribly wrong.

And it is a wrong that may be difficult to right, given the powerful urge that causes so many of the association leaders and other self-appointed spokespersons of the waterfowl hunting crowd to treat the liberal framework as a matter of entitlement, rather than a privilege that ought to be reserved for the most extraordinary conditions of bounty. A recent example illustrates the point.

Government established the refuges in the California Central Valley primarily to provide the early migrants with wetlands that would give them an alternative to rice fields awaiting harvest. Both the ducks and the farmers benefit – the farmers because the ducks can wipe out several acres of grain in a single night – and the ducks because of the extraordinary and lethal means to which the farmers resorted to prevent those wipe outs. The public paid big bucks for the refuges, both state and federal, primarily to separate the antagonists – and continues to pay big bucks for management. The refuges were not acquired to provide “hunter opportunity,” a purpose for which the general public would presumably have been profoundly disinterested, given the cost involved and the comparative few who benefit.

At some point long ago, someone decided that “conjunctive use” would be appropriate, i.e., allowing hunting on some portion of the refuges as a means of providing recreational opportunity on public lands. We have followed the practice for so long that no one seems troubled by the oxymoron inherent in the term “refuge hunting.” After all, the word “refuge” suggests sanctuary, tranquility, non-disturbance, a condition of peace for the waterfowl, the very critters that become prey when we open up the “refuge” to hunting.

Setting aside that paradox, however, our refuges have historically been closed to hunting until after harvest time, even if harvest took place well after opening day, to serve the primary purpose of their creation in the first place, the theory being that hunting drives the birds off the refuges into the unharvested rice fields. Consistent with this practice, the refuges were routinely closed to hunting for the first two weeks of the season throughout the ‘80s and early ‘90s.

In the meantime, the research laboratories that serve the rice industry have developed strains that mature more quickly. Farmers have switched to those varieties, not to avoid the risk of waterfowl depredation, but primarily to minimize the threat posed by early winter storms that can destroy a crop still in the field. Farmers now generally get their crop in before opening day in the typical year.

The year 2006 was not typical. The wet, late spring that produced our bountiful hatch delayed the planting by two to four weeks. Delay at the start typically pushes back the harvest date. A crop that requires 140 days from planting to maturity can’t be hurried along to suit the wishes of the farmer or the hunter. Recognizing the implications, the state proposed to delay opening the refuges to hunting for one week after the season begins. Considering conditions in the field, they are cutting it close. Substantial acreage of unharvested rice will still be standing on October 28, the deferred opening date. Nonetheless, the California Waterfowl Association objected, claiming that it was “unfair” to deprive refuge hunters of their “opportunity” to hunt that first week, despite our 105 day season and the opportunity it will provide, and despite the routine acceptance of the two week delayed opening a few years back.

The farm interests urged the delay to protect the rice growers. CWA fights against the notion to serve the wishes of those who seek to kill waterfowl. Who speaks for the birds – the reason for creating the refuges in the first place? Who speaks for the concept of “refuge” within the context of our waterfowl stewardship responsibilities?

All of this underscores the problem the whole notion of a liberal framework creates. It engenders a mindset comparable to the frenzy that seized stock market investors in the late ‘90s. The market rises. It always rises. It is my personal right that it shall always rise for my benefit. And whatever it rose last year, I am entitled to the same or greater rise this year.

The truth, as we know, is less congenial. In waterfowl management as in other fields of modern human endeavor, we lack leaders who understand and are willing to tell the truth except when it conforms with what the faithful wish to hear. But the ability to tell the truth – and sell it – when the news is bad, or difficult, or requires a change in behavior, is the acid test of true leadership.

Once again, our so-called leaders have earned an “F”.

¹ A daily bag limit supposedly puts less pressure on the birds than hunter days – because the regulators perceive that few hunters hit the limit on the average day. Whether that is true of false, it misses the point. Adding two or three birds to the daily bag creates an image of plenty, a sense of vested entitlement for future years and serves no legitimate social purpose whatsoever. Why aren’t four or five enough? Guys who go afield for seven but would not do so for a mere four or five are not worth our trouble or consideration.