Stalking the truth in the hunting debate: in the Politically Incorrect Guide to Hunting, we learn that "no hunting" means unnecessary, wholesale suffering.(Book review)

I have to admit that the Politically Incorrect Guide to Hunting is the only book in the Politically Incorrect series that I've read. I was fairly impressed--enough to predict that if every high-school kid in America read this book, anti-hunting groups would have a difficult time recruiting new members because few people (especially kids) knowingly support outright idiocy. And the author of this book, Frank Miniter, effectively uses anti-hunters' own words, actions, and plans to show that they support idiocy. Miniter shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is almost entirely through the efforts of hunters that wildlife populations and habitats are protected, demonstrating that if hunting is curtailed, it will be the animals that surfer most--though more than a few humans will be harmed, even killed, as well.

Miniter opens the book with several encounters he has had with animal-rights activists in which he tried to get them to convincingly explain why hunting is wrong. Without fail, the activists began by trying to take the moral high road, stating, "Killing is just plain wrong," following that up with a phrase providing personal justification of their stance: "I'm a vegetarian"--all appropriately slathered with an "I'm better than that and you" attitude. Of course, Miniter was then obliged to give the activists a short course in wildlife dynamics, crop damage caused by wildfire, and farm economics. As he states it in summary, "When hunting is stopped, farmers have to give up farming."

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Eating Machines

This is especially true for organically grown foods, the favored foods of vegetarians. "To raise and sell certified organic produce," Miniter explains, "such farms cannot use pesticides that might deter insects, disease, deer, or bird damage. If you won't use chemicals to dissuade geese, deer, and other wildlife from binging on your vegetables, you need to control [the animal] population." He adds, "A cost analysis by the AFWA [Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies] found that if hunting were ended, in three years every American consumer would be paying an extra $511 annually in the produce section." Those who eat meat would get hit harder: "Overall, livestock losses attributed to predators [already] cost ranchers and producers more than $71 million" per year. This number could grow astronomically as predator numbers rise. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that wild animals often kill more than they can eat before it rots. In fact, in 1992, one mountain lion killed 102 sheep in one night.

After Miniter cogently explains that all people are responsible for and greatly benefit by animal deaths--whether they acknowledge this fact or not--he gives plenty of examples showing that without hunting, animals suffer most. His examples include overpopulated deer in suburbs with their ribs sticking out from starvation, elk in the Rocky Mountain National Park destroying their habitat, invasive species choking out native plant life "when deer are allowed to eliminate the natural understory of the forest," and snow geese populations that were so large in the 1990s that they were beginning to destroy their arctic breeding grounds.

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