Considering Whether The Inhumane Act Of Hunting Should Be Banned

Many people see hunting as an inhumane sport with little or no benefits to the economy or environment. Now ask any hunter in America, whether it be for food, money or just recreation, hunting is a passion that promotes environmentally friendly behavior. People that hunt and fish are some of the most environmentally aware people around. According to a paper written at the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, “people who hunt and fish contributed immensely to the national economy, spending more than $70 billion in 2001. Expenditures included licenses, guns, fishing equipment, and the costs of lodging, travel, and other goods and services. Wildlife watchers, meanwhile, spent $38 billion” (Why Is Hunting Good For The Environment). All this money is paid to the state or federal government to pay for things like Environmental research, managing and maintaining national parks and wildlife refuges, even enhancing the habitat in which many game and nongame wildlife reside.

Of course, there are always going to be those unhappy few that ruin the “sport” for everyone else with things like poaching, canned hunts, and non-native species hunts: Poaching is the hunting or catching of an animal that is under official protection, canned hunts are paid-for hunts that increases the hunters ability to successfully take an animal (generally involving the animal being in a confined or fenced-in area), while non-native species hunts involve, as stated, a species that is non-native to the given area to be raised and socialized by humans and just before hunting season they are released into the wild; Those that are not killed by hunters will eventually die because they are unable to survive in an environment not their own (Last Chance for Animals).

Now neither of these tidbits of information solve the overall question, “Is hunting good or bad for the environment?” but first we must define what “good for the environment” exactly means. It is widely accepted by most environmentalists that “good” or “environmentally friendly” means a law, guideline, or services that either reduces, does minimal, or does no harm to ecosystems or the general environment. In such a case, hunting would, in fact, be great for the environment. The general hunting population must ensure that wildlife populations of both game and nongame animals can be sustained from generation to generation. That means natural habitats must be diverse and kept intact, unpolluted and undisturbed. These are all efforts that the hunting community support.

Now on to just how exactly hunting affects the environment. For starters hunting helps control overpopulation and ecological balance. For example let's use a forest ecosystem; In an ecosystem there exists producers like plants, first level consumers like deer or elk and secondary consumers which are predators to first level consumers such as wolves or cougars. When the number of first level consumers increases, the secondary consumers get more food opportunity which balances the population. Hunting comes in when there’s an abnormality in population. If the number of deer or elk rapidly increased, it would greatly impact the plant population in a given area due to overgrazing. With a shortage of producers the first level consumers would ultimately begin to starve and a huge influx of the population would die off. Even more so, the lack of producers would decrease the amount of oxygen and energy for other organisms in the ecosystem.

Apart from keeping balance in ecosystems, hunting helps prevent diseases from being spread and it helps in retaining biomass. Most hunts open in early autumn season which is when food supply begins to decline for many animals. Due to this lack of food, many animals in any given region become weak and are prone to disease, this is because their immune shield is lowered from the lack of sustenance. These diseases are then spread from animal to animal if not contained. Hunting is a useful tool in stopping such diseases by removing the weaker animals from the overall ecosystem.

But there can, in fact, be downsides to hunting.

Despite generally being an environmentally positive activity, hunting can cause damage to the environment. Often in the form of endangering wildlife and the habitat inhabited. If a species is overhunted the drastic outcome is a cascade of damaging organisms. As stated before, if one species is overpopulated it causes many problems for the rest of the ecosystem. If overhunting caused secondary consumers numbers to decline, for example, the first level consumer’s numbers would increase to disastrous amounts. This damage can also lead to further damage such as the extinction of particular species. Every country has its own set of rules and regulations for hunting and related activities but many of those laws are violated. Many of these violations have caused animals to go extinct in just the last two centuries. A few examples include West African Black Rhinoceros, Passenger Pigeons, Carolina Parakeets, Tasmanian and Caspian Tigers, and the Pyrenean Ibex. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed almost 100 species that are being considered the most threatened species’. All of which have been due to hunting. (Hunting Benefits and Disadvantages)

Another downside to hunting is the amount of pollution irresponsible hunters produce while hunting. When looking for an area to hunt, hunters must travel long distances. These long trips commonly cause carbon dioxide emissions because of vehicles. More often than not, hunters have to make a camp around a hunting spot and stay for a few days or even weeks. Campfires and other warming devices also cause Carbon emissions. Many hunters travel in groups and irresponsible hunting parties can leave garbage at campsites or even on hunting trails. The journey hunters make into the environment while hunting can damage plants and the. surrounding area. Ammunition from guns can cause air pollution, soil pollution and can cause respiratory problems for surrounding organisms.

Put in short, hunting can be a very environmentally friendly activity, or it can be the exact opposite. When asking the question of how hunting affects the environment and whether or not it is positive or negative, it can depend on who you ask because it requires an open mind and the ability to take cold hard facts. On the one hand, most people involved in hunting are biased, while on the other hand many of those who are against hunting only know small amounts about, it as a whole and when someone confronts them, they often ignore facts and continue a poor argument. It is possible, hunting is just one of those topics where no consensus can be met.