Since my youth, I have been fascinated with the physiological and psychological elements that underlie the thrill of the hunt. Peering down the barrel of my shotgun at a winging duck has always sparked in me a racing heart and trembling hand (“buck fever” as some call it). Assuming a clean opportunity for a kill is present, the trigger is pulled, the pellets are sent on their way and, if a duck falls to the water, a cloud of euphoria envelopes me. A creature of nature has exhaled its last breath and I am grateful. Its death allows me to become intricately woven into the complex web of nature.

This emotional journey from anxiety to euphoria is rooted in our psyche. Imagine the implications for our ancestors who failed to kill an animal. It often meant the difference between life and death. The gravity of the hunt inflamed anxiety to extraordinarily high levels, resulting in a trembling hand and racing heart. These reactions still live with us today. We are ancestrally programmed for the hunt.

The implications of a modern hunter’s failure to hit the mark (assuming he is humble enough to admit his failure) are far less – a few pointed quips from companions around the campfire and slice of humble pie for desert. Life goes on. Yet, despite our knowledge of such nominal implications from failure, most hunters in the field are still prone to the anxiety and euphoria of the kill. Our ancestors’ legacy is rarely closer to us than during such moments in the amphitheater of nature.

The hunting community would be well served to recall its ancestral perspective when establishing hunting practices and creating wildlife management plans. The creatures that nourished our ancestors and enabled our evolution were revered, respected and understood in many thriving hunter-gatherer societies. The cultures that lacked respect and understanding of their natural prey were doomed to collapse.

I am not suggesting that today’s wildlife management practices (particularly U.S. waterfowl management) would bring about a collapse of all wildlife resources. Rather, a continued tolerance by the hunting community of less than ethical hunting practices (i.e., fair-chase) and imprudent wildlife management will ensure a collapse of our modern waterfowl hunting culture. It is the hunter – not the hunted – who faces oblivion.

We are programmed for the hunt, but we are a not entitled to the right. It is a privilege that must be nurtured. Our hunting heritage will not be sustainable in the new “green” world if the broad public perception of hunting is set by the “antis”. We must not arm the anti-hunting crowd with sabers of rhetoric to rattle on the public pulpit. Yet, we in fact do just that: Internet hunting, robotic decoys, “high fence” hunting reserves, abusive season lengths and the dubious list continues. We are slowly dying a death by a thousand cuts by tolerating such practices. Unfortunately, glacial erosion is oft not noticed until the glacier is no more.

These practices are validated by the vexing concept of “hunter opportunity.” We spout mindless jargon that ignores the resource, shuns the implications of public perception and creates self-serving policies that promote an ever increasing kill to justify our actions. Without a vocal voice for change in our community, we are all but enabling the antis to sever our heritage from the public body.

Hunter numbers are declining. Since the Neolithic period, when one can assume that hunter participation was 100 percent, we have since become an urban culture largely disconnected from nature. Only 1.3 million Americans hunt ducks – less than one-half of one percent of the population. We face a growing and far larger “green” movement that is largely disconnected from the dynamics of the hunt. Its proponents will deny us the right to hunt if changes are not made to our current practices. It is disheartening to say, but there are few places where abuse of privilege is more apparent than in my own beloved waterfowl hunting community. Too often we confuse passion with perversion.

Passion is defined as a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for something. Perversion is the transforming of good into bad.

Too often today the “passionate” hunter is revered in hunting circles for his dedication to early morning journeys to satiate his daily bloodlust. What is frequently not mentioned in these circles are the hundreds of ducks felled from the sky over the course of a season by such an individual. I hear many a waterfowler in my community boast about shooting three, four, five and even six hundred birds in the season. All, mind you, in keeping with the law. Many of these ducks are taken robotically with the aid of spinning-wing decoys – so-called robo ducks. What a field day the “antis” and “greenies” would have with these individuals in a public forum. These are not passionate hunters (at least in any terms I would want to be associated with), but perverts.

This perversion is endemic to today’s waterfowling community. A recent quote from a National Geographic article summarizes this issue, “When you’re hunting,” said Grayson Chesser, a Virginia waterfowl guide and decoy carver, “you have to be ethical. You have to come to terms with the impact you have on other creatures.But I’m afraid we’re seeing a new generation of hunters who are disconnected from tradition. Half the time, they don’t even know what they’re shooting – they’re so obsessed with the latest gun, the latest camo pattern. And they think you’re some kind of sissy if you don’t get your limit.” (Emphases mine.)

An awareness of the impact we have on waterfowl is necessary to allow a hunter to formulate a healthy and necessary sense of guilt. Guilt is the crucial governor between the conservation-minded hunter who treads lightly and the pervert who stomps our values into the mud.

It is imperative in today’s “green” world that hunters be viewed as conservationists and responsible stewards (which many of us are) of our migrant flocks.

Fortunately, many folks within the hunting community are taking the necessary conservation and stewardship means to protect ducks. Hopefully, this will create a more favorable level of public support for our legacy. There are few areas, if any, in the country where the conservation and stewardship of wetlands (by the efforts of private individuals) are taking place on a grander scale than in California’s Sacramento Valley. Tens of thousands of acres of previously farmed land have been and continue to be converted to wetland and upland habitat through the sale of conservation easements to various agencies. The benefits to the environment from these benevolent feats are innumerable: improved water quality, decreased aquifer depletion, air quality improvement (carbon sequestration), increased nesting and foraging habitat for numerous avian species, creation of critical habitat for endangered species. Every element is additive. This must be the framework from which we extol the virtues of our legacy to the public.

Unfortunately, the noise created from our own hubris and ignorance washes out this message that needs to resonate with the public. Hunters should be lobbying for lower limits, shorter seasons and fair-chase. The vocal hunter community (the California Waterfowl Association and Ducks Unlimited included) does exactly the opposite. These abusers of privilege do not trust the government’s judgment on most matters, but they blindly support perverse management policies that seek to maximize the kill. Bubba with a beer can, shotgun and pile of dead birds will not survive in today’s rapidly changing world. We are the minority. The onus is on us to change or face oblivion.

A judicious kill should be sustainable. Waterfowl management plans should not only be sustainable, but additive. The goal should be clouds of birds in the sky, not piles of dead ducks at our feet. The sight of hundreds of thousands of waterfowl synchronized in a harmonious dance in the sky is a performance unmatched by any modern theatre. This is a legacy worth fighting for, not hunter opportunity and a bigger pile of dead ducks.

I raise these concerns because I want our hunting legacy to survive. More importantly, I want our flocks to thrive. But survival requires adaptive change to environments. Environments are dynamic in nature. This is the Darwinian creed. Unfortunately, we may be the next award winner of an annual Darwin Award asHunteri waterfowlus is rendered extinct through stupidity and an unwillingness to adapt to current and future conditions.