by Glen Blackwood, RGS & AWS Director of Regional Development – Lower Peninsula/Eastern U.P. of Michigan & Indiana
“Hunting: A Cultural History”
By Jan E. Dizard and Mary Zeiss Stange
ISBN: 978-0262543293
mitpress.mit.edu
Humans have recorded stories of the hunt for centuries. First, it was through symbolism, with cave drawings in Lascaux, France and Altamira, Spain. While these images seem crude when compared to modern photo-realistic sporting art, they express amazing detail, demonstrating the importance of hunters understanding their quarry. While a variety of artistic mediums have continued to describe the hunt, both verbal and written histories have taken the forefront in more modern times.
These homespun yarns of a first bird, favorite covert or stellar dog work become core to the hunter’s story. We hear them at camps, gun clubs and RGS & AWS events. We read them in magazines like Covers or in books both new and old. While these yarns allow our community to embellish, enjoy and remember days afield, there’s more to the history of hunting.
In the newly-published book “Hunting: A Cultural History,” authors Jan E. Dizard and Mary Zeiss Stange discuss the culture of hunting, from the world of hunter-foragers and cave-painted petrographs to current times. The authors are highly respected scholars, as is shown both by their curricula vitae and the quality of the research and writing in this small but impactful volume. The book looks at hunting in a thought-provoking manner.
While the pages are presented in an academic fashion – including footnotes – the text’s written in such a voice that a layman such as myself can comprehend.
As the book unfolds, the reader experiences hunting from sustenance to sport. Conservation is addressed in the words and insights of John James Audubon, George Bird Grinnell, Aldo Leopold, George Reiger and a variety of conservation organizations. RGS is cited twice. Organizations opposed to hunting are also cited.
Hunting and conservation, especially young forest management, certainly have their fair share of naysayers. RGS & AWS members and conservationists understand the results of healthy, well-managed forests, not only during hunting season but 365 days a year. The habitat created benefits hunters, not only when we’re afield with our dogs, but when pollinators are flitting among the blooming wildflowers and when snowshoes, cottontails, whitetails and moose are foraging in the short days of February, when grouse are snow roosting and woodcock are basking in the warmth of their Southern range. The images of hunting, whether scrawled in caves or painted on canvas, form a historic register of our sport, as are the stories retold around camp stoves and printed on paper – a consumable product of the forest management industry, by the way, with benefits to society and wildlife, both game and nongame. “Hunting: A Cultural History” is a book that should be read by both hunters and nonhunters, to better understand the culture of hunting and its meaningful impacts on society.
