From a Family of Poachers

 I'm a retired wildlife biologist and an ethical hunter, but I descended from a family of poachers.

I presented this information to the 15th Annual Ozarks Studies Symposium on September 24, 2022. 

I confess that my paternal grandfather, Grandpa Ed (1882-1976) told me that he thought hunting wild turkeys was easy. He said he shot six on a pond bank with a rifle while on horseback. "Nothing to it", he said. That was probably in the 1920's. Grandpa Ed had a hunting license only because Uncle Al bought him one every Christmas. 

My maternal grandfather, Grandpa Frank (1901-1976) was a law-abiding sportsman. He was one of the lucky 400 Missouri hunters who legally killed a deer in 1937, the last year the season was open for deer until 1945. He shot it with a borrowed rifle that his in-laws had used for market hunting many years before. He told me it had 70 notches in the stock representing the number of deer killed with it. 

Grandpa Frank's in-laws were from Carter County where he shot that 1937 buck. News about his Carter County in-laws hit the newspapers in 1996 when two of them were arrested for poaching, including taking game in a national park (Southeast Missourian 1996). 

With that heritage, I'm glad my own father was an ethical hunter who passed on his values to me. It is often common for the poaching tradition to be transmitted within a family from generation to generation. 

Charles Callison wrote about this phenomenon: 

"...there is a segment of the public, becoming a majority in some Ozark counties that for reasons explicable only in sociology, opposed any regulations of hunting and fishing. Some of the hill people had depended for generation upon wildlife a source of food." (Callison, C. 1953. Man and Wildlife in Missouri)

For our family to make the transition to law-abiding ethical hunters may possibly be a rare exception.

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I grew up hunting. Before I was allowed to carry a gun, I followed my dad and my uncles hunting quail and rabbits. I shot my first rabbit at about age 10 with a borrowed shotgun as it was being chased by a borrowed beagle. Hunting with my dad and uncles was a rite of passage as a young boy. I learned about firearm safety, license requirements, daily and season bag limits, hunting season dates, and legal methods. I had my own 20 gauge shotgun at age 14. Pictured above are me, Uncle Robert, my dad, and English Setters Lady, and Sam.

So... what is poaching? What is ethical hunting?

According to Aldo Leopold in A Sand County Almanac, "Ethical behavior is doing the right thing when no one else is watching - even when doing the wrong thing is legal."

From the International Hunter Safety curriculum these are some elements of a Hunter's Ethical Code:

- Respect other hunters; handle firearms safely.

- Respect landowners; ask for permission.

- Abide by game laws and regulations.

- Adhere to fair chase principles.

- Know you personal limitations as a marksman.

- Do not waste meat or usable parts of game.

- Report game violations.

Personal ethics are very personal, so this list may be longer for some. 

Pictured above are my two primary hunting mentors, Uncle Al and my dad. They were both avid quail hunters during the 1950s and 1960s. But both took up wild turkey hunting in the 1970s. Here they enjoyed an Illinois goose hunting trip.

So why? Why did our family "advance" from poachers to ethical hunters? Why didn't all nine of my dad's siblings follow in their father's poaching footsteps? I hunted quail with almost all of my uncles. Dad always had good bird dogs and his brothers and brothers-in-law were attracted to him and his hunts. Of course, I don't know the answer for certain, but I think it had a lot to do with my grandmother's honesty and her Christian faith. I know that influenced my father and he certainly influenced me. There may have been other factors. I realize the world in Grandpa Ed's day was different. He wasn't the only poacher in the community. All his neighbors probably were also. Many Ozarkers lived off the land and survived on wild game.  

Whatever the reasons for that ethical conversion, I'm very glad for it. I benefited from that change. It led me to a satisfying career in wildlife management. 

(In 2013 I posted about "Poaching and the Ten Commandments". I will repost that blog as a companion to this post.)