By FRED BEAR
Editor’s note: The late Fred Bear is known as the father of modern archery hunting. His “Archer’s Bible” and “Field Notes” are among the classic books on the subject, and Bear Archery of Gainesville, Fla., remains a leading archery products company. Bear, who would have been 100 years old in March 2002, was a prolific writer and hunter. Here are parts of a 1975 article by Bear, submitted by Robert Collins of Cape Fear Archery, Lillington, N.C.

Even before the anti-hunting wave washed over this country, I was often asked why does man hunt? And I could only say perhaps it was an urge inherited from early ancestors that takes one afield to endure meeting nature on its own terms, to match wits with creatures of the wild, going out with gun or bow, striving to bring home a trophy or meat for the table. The meat, we must admit, at a cost of at least 10 times that in the supermarket.

How can you shoot a deer with its beautiful brown eyes, my interlocutors ask. Well, cows and other domestic animals have beautiful eyes, too, and these well-meaning people would be shocked if confronted with the methods of dispatching them in the slaughterhouse. Yet most of us eat steaks and lamb chops, and to the housewife, a piece of meat neatly wrapped in plastic has no more emotional effect than a head of cabbage. But let someone say he is going hunting and her heart bleeds with sympathy for the game.

Indeed, only a vegetarian should challenge the hunter — one who doesn’t wear shoes made of leather or coats made of fur. We might ask these critics: If you were an animal and had a choice, would you prefer to be led into a slaughterhouse with no possible chance of escape or would you choose an opportunity to try to outguess the hunter in the forest where you knew every tree and bush and trail, had the advantage in speed, had superior eyesight, an amazing nose and a pair of ears keyed to the slightest sound?

Ask them also: Isn’t the hunter’s bullet or arrow more humane than death by fang or claw when feasting is often begun before the (prey) animals is dead? This is nature’s cruel way with herd reduction by predators. It would behoove us to turn our attention to another serious problem — population control.

Wildlife habitat is being destroyed at a rate of 3,500 acres a day to provide more room for more humans. With this daily loss in habitat the hunter is called upon to reduce game species before nature moves in with her cropping tools of starvation and predation. One hundred years ago our national purpose was to conquer the wilderness. The problem now is to restore it.

Thinking people are alarmed at the rate the Army Corps of Engineers is channelizing rivers and draining swamps to make more tillable soil of which there is already a surplus; adding additional acres to the soil bank to take more of our tax dollars. The time may come when there is no more room on our planet for wildlife. Overpopulation is polluting our world at a dangerous clip and has become so serious a threat in certain areas it is fast moving to the top of priority lists.

People living in overcrowded areas look to the great outdoors to give them relief from choking air and littered streets. Wildlife is a a part of this fresh-air haven they seek and, conversely, anti-hunters think it should be allowed to roam, multiply and live forever in a sort of Garden of Eden world. Just a little thought would make them realize that without game management — in which hunting plays so prominent a part — the Garden of Eden would soon be without apples to keep its inhabitants alive.

It is no secret that hunters speak chiefly to other hunters on matters of presenting their views. But some day we’re going to have to get our story across in the media of broad-based family magazines and periodicals, to say nothing of radio and television. Hunters across America must wake up to the awareness that they stand a good chance of losing their sport because of the own inaction and lassitude.

Here are some facts you should know: * Ohio was singled out in 1975 to receive to receive anti-hunting dollars after broadcast of CBS’s infamous “Guns of Autumn” program, which showed several men shooting and arrowing deer at an closed-fence game farm. Attacks on bow-hunting at the Ravenna Arsenal occurred later. * Hunters organizations banded together to fight back. * The 90-minute “Guns of Autumn” television special showed only what it’s producer wanted to show. Hunters objected because the camera didn’t show what the producer said he would show and that was “The Sport of Hunting in America Today.”

Hunters know where the money comes from to help non-game and game animals survive. A record 16.4 million Americans spent $143 million on state hunting licenses in 1974. The revenue derived from these license sales form the bulk of the monies used by states to conduct their wildlife conservation and management programs. Of the 1,700 species of wildlife in America, 110 are considered game animals.

Songbirds and chipmunks benefit from sportsmen’s dollars, as well as deer and pheasants. Sportsman also provided an additional $75 million through manufacturers’ excise taxes on sporting arms, ammunition and fishing tackle. In the future, that future also will include the new 11 percent excise tax on archery equipment. America’s hunters contributed $218 million to the benefit of wildlife last year (1974). How much did the anti-hunters contribute? Another 27 million fishing licenses were sold totaling $128 million. Even that biblical sport is coming under fire from anti-fishing forces.

The Wildlife Management Institute reported that from 1923 to 1974, sportsmen and sportsmen contributed $4.6 billion to state fish and wildlife agencies for their essential work. No other segment of society has anywhere near that record of expressed concern for fish and wildlife resources.

Even though Pennsylvania annually removes 25,000 to 30,000 deer from highways following collisions with automobiles, anti-hunters want to stop hunting rather than fight road-kill and poaching problems. They’d rather go after law-abiding Americans rather than law-breakers.

The Humane Society of the United States, through its KIND program, is using teachers in your community to turn your children against hunting, strictly on an emotional appeal with no programs or thought for the welfare of our wild animals — game and non-game species. To quote from a HSUS periodical sent to schools: “People are getting tired of wars and violence. They want a world of peace and brotherly love. Killing animals just doesn’t seem to fit the picture of what many people want the world to be ... the number of Americans who now hunt is so low that, in time, they must give in to the needs of the majority ... We look forward to the dawning of a time in which animals may once again begin to trust man not to do them harm.”

From 1970-74, the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge was closed to hunting because of lawsuits by anti-hunting groups such as The Humane Society of the United States. Finally, on Dec. 10, 1974, a hunt was allowed. Pathologists found that 45 percent of the deer taken on the 3,500-acre preserve were infected with peritonitis, 12 1/2 percent had lung worms, and 22 percent had a larval form of tapeworms. The total harvest of the six-day hunt was 127 deer (a 22 percent reduction of the projected herd).

Before the hunt 40 deer were known to have perished in the spring of 1974, nine directly through starvation and 23 from secondary malnutrition effects (disease, parasites). The remainder of the 40 were too decomposed to determine cause of death.

A suit that would have banned all duck hunting in America was filed during 1974 and barely missed succeeding. Fish locator devices were under fire in Minnesota in 1975, and an anti-dove hunting bill in Ohio also carried a rider that would have outlawed all deer hunting. (Editor’s note: Since 1975, cougar hunting has been banned in California, and several joggers have been tracked, killed and eaten by the big cats; spring black bear hunting was banned in Ontario, Canada, and in one Canadian park, four visitors in one year were killed and partially eaten by black bears).

All these facts are interesting, but anti-hunting and anti-fishing people are going to the American public not with the facts but with an emotional appeal, through your television, your newspapers, radio and through your schools. If you personally don’t speak out in defense of hunting and fishing; if you don’t join a national organization such as the NRA or Fred Bear Sports Club that is working on your behalf, or a local game club that is doing the same; if you sit back and wait for someone else to do it, don’t be surprised if that “No Hunting and Fishing” sign covers America in just a few years.

Considering all this and that not all non-hunters are anti-hunting, hunters have work to do policing their ranks, promoting the ideals of good sportsmanship, working closely with law enforcement agencies and respecting the Rules of Fair Chase. Further, since hunting is a logical aid in controlling over-population of wildlife, those who hunt must strive for even more humane methods of killing and strict adherence to game limits, etc.

Hunting is man’s oldest occupation. It must have been as challenging to emerge from a murky cave with a knobbed club, wandering through the primeval forests in quest of food as it is for man today who escapes offices and factory walls to hunt in our forests and fields, matching skills of chase with the game.