does wildlife need our management?
One of our community members Jenny Sue Hane has been following the recent wolf hunting developments closely, and even organized an exemplary rally in opposition to them. This is the first part of a thoughtful post she wrote for us on taking a genuinely Christian approach to wildlife management ...
Here in the US, where I live, state game agencies are in the business of managing wildlife. This includes issuing a number of permits to hunters every year, even for creatures that are not typically eaten and bear many similarities to domestic companion animals. Some of the arguments for the hunting of non-food animals focus on their supposed conflicts with people and their livestock, which may be greatly overstated. But once those are out of the way, there is another argument that the trophy hunters fall back on: the “animals need to be managed” argument.
I have seen that statement repeated over and over, like a refrain. It is so thoroughly ingrained in our culture that even non-hunters may take it up. In this case, “manage” is usually a sanitary code word for “hunt,” “trap,” or “kill,” although it also implies some sort of careful planning – a civilized “harvest” rather than an unrestrained killing spree. Hunters use wildlife management to reframe the debate surrounding sport or trophy hunting and fur trapping. Rather than being in it for the fun, they are just removing animals that need to die for the good of nature as a whole … or so they claim. They may even go so far as to say that they are the true animal lovers or true conservationists, and anyone who opposes the hunts is just overly sentimental (or worse, is just using a supposed concern for animals to promote some hidden and sinister agenda).
The hunting of large predators, such as wolves, cougars, coyotes, and bears, is especially contentious. Some management proponents say that predators will breed beyond the carrying capacity of their habitat and eat excessive numbers of their prey (perhaps even driving their prey extinct, then starving en masse). We are obligated to kill surplus members of the population to ensure that we don’t have “too many” carnivores and we have “enough” herbivores, the reasoning goes. I am often told that, because I think wolves shouldn’t be hunted, I must not care about elk, deer, and moose, which the wolves are expected to eat into oblivion.
From a purely scientific standpoint, I don’t think this makes a lot of sense. Based on my (admittedly basic) understanding of ecology, predator-prey relationships just don’t work that way most of the time. There are natural regulatory mechanisms, such as a change in the breeding rate, that help prevent predators from outgrowing their food supply. When severe animal overpopulation problems happen, it is often because a vital piece of the system is missing – for instance, rabbits may have a population boom if their natural predators are absent. Furthermore, I know of a few places where protected wolves have been able to maintain a better population balance than some hunt proponents would have us believe is possible. But rather than focusing on these details, I would like to examine the core belief behind the “animals need to be managed” argument. I would say that it boils down to the following:
Ecosystems are dysfunctional unless Man takes a hand in them.
How does this belief stand up when considered from a Biblical perspective? First of all, the Bible definitely does not support the opposite extreme, i.e. the idea that man is some kind of disease or aberrant creature. God placed humanity on the earth and told us to fill it; therefore, I trust that earth’s ecosystems are designed to accommodate us as well as all the other species. We belong in nature every bit as much as a fish, a deer, or a wolf does, and our activities need not harm the earth, so long as we’re responsible. Furthermore, man’s first home was a garden, and the first human job description consisted of “cultivating and keeping” that garden, and “ruling” over its animal inhabitants. This lends some credence to the idea that humans are meant to be active caretakers of the earth.
However, there is something else we can learn from scripture – namely, that the God who created the natural world is far wiser and more loving than any man could hope to be. “The LORD by wisdom founded the earth, By understanding He established the heavens.” (Proverbs 3:19, all passages New American Standard) “O LORD, how many are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all; The earth is full of Your possessions [or creatures].” (Psalm 104:24) The Bible repeatedly tells people to consult nature, including the animal kingdom, for evidence of God’s wisdom and creative power. Which would better testify to the wisdom of God – an environment that is self-balancing, or an environment that is broken at its core, and needs constant human input to remain functional?
The Bible also mandates caution about thinking more highly of our own knowledge and abilities than we ought to. Consider God’s many sarcastic questions to Job. “Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars, Stretching his wings toward the south? Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up And makes his nest on high?” (Job 39:26-27) Everywhere we look, we can see the beauty, intricacy, and practicality of God’s designs – in the mutual dependency between creatures, in the way each kind is specialized to fulfill its role, and in the balancing mechanisms that keep the whole system running and help it recover after catastrophes. Scientists are still learning about these things and making new discoveries about just how different species interact. In the face of our limited knowledge, I find the idea that we can determine and enforce the right pattern for nature rather presumptuous. The medical doctrine “first, do no harm” seems applicable here. If we are uncertain that killing animals will serve the greater good, it is better to take no action.
to be continued ...
(sketch by Theodore Roosevelt of himself hunting a wolf (1907) via Wikimedia Commons; "Paradise" painting by Lucas Cranach (1536) via The Yorck Project/Wikimedia Commons)
November 30, 2011
Reader Comments (2)
Thank you for this post! It's incredibly timely for me, since I just finished reading the section of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma wherein he hunts a hog and speaks extensively about the justification of hunting because of the need for regulation of the species as a whole (and not of any one individual). He had me thinking for a moment that perhaps God did design all to be regulated by death via hunting..
Kristen, thanks very much for your note, and I'll be sure to pass it on to the post's author, Jenny. I too started Pollan's book a couple of years ago, but didn't get that far into it. Thanks for sharing your impressions of it, and I'm very glad that Jenny's post offered another perspective to consider. best wishes, Ben