Email this article

Stalking Wildness

Hunters and anglers unite to protect animals and the land

By Ken Wright

Solitude. Tradition. Challenge. Freedom. Health. Family.

Now there's a list, eh? And how do you come by those good things?

By hunting and fishing in big, wild, open spaces, according to the vision of a new sort of environmental group. Or a new sort of hunting organization. Or a new kind of fishing advocacy club. Or whatever it is, for unlike any other kind of pro-wilderness coalition out there, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers is all those things.

"Backcountry Hunters and Anglers is dedicated to quality and ethical hunting and fishing opportunities in the wildlands of North America, and the aggressive protection of wilderness and other backcountry habitat for fish and wildlife, upon which these great traditions depend," states the group's proclamation.

Their statement continues: "We are dedicated hunters and anglers who cherish the peace, solitude and challenge of the backcountry experience. As hunters and anglers, we know that our continued enjoyment of these traditions is dependent upon the protection and enhancement of a healthy environment."

"At no other time in history have our traditions been threatened like they are today," the message concludes.

To counter those threats, BHA supports wilderness and roadless area protection, the reintroduction of predators such as wolves where viable, off-road vehicle restrictions, and minimizing technology for hunting and fishing - all stances that stand in direct opposition to the messages conveyed in most modern mainstream hunting and fishing media, where wilderness "locks up" the land, roadless areas prohibit access to backcountry, predators steal "our" game, and ORVs and technology give you the edge up on those wily animals (while providing big advertising dollars in those glossy sportsman magazines).

It's a radical approach, then, promoting the protection of wild country and healthy ecosystems, and renouncing motors and gadgets in favor of muscle and mind in pursuit of game. But it's not a new philosophy, argues BCA co-founder and chairman Mike Beagle.

"It's the freedom to hunt and fish in solitude, without urban excesses, and with challenge," he explains. "It's an old-fashioned way of doing things, that says it's demeaning to wildlife to use technology to show our mastery over wildlife."

Beagle, a former army officer, high school teacher, and football coach living in Oregon, refers back to Teddy Roosevelt when he talks about "the doctrine of the strenuous life" - getting yourself in and out of the backcountry by your own power, and meeting your prey on their turf and level. All it requires is leaving the land alone, and leaving the toys at home. Which, of course, would also keep many of the motor-and-technology-dependent so-called hunters and fishermen at home, too. Like it used to be.

So that's the solitude, tradition, challenge and freedom parts. From that, the health and family benefits of low-tech adventuring in motor-free backcountry are gravy, says Beagle. "There's also the added value of it being great for families. Real 'family values.' And it doesn't cost like a theme park. All we have to do to get into it is sweat. We have to earn it. And even at a young age, kids understand the idea of earning it."

"We just have to protect the solitude and challenging environments, by educating hunters and anglers about wild habitat," he says, summarizing BHA's approach. "We're not against anything - we're for things."

If bridging the big gaps between hunters and fishermen, family values and wilderness protection seems like a stretch, then consider that the BHA was conceived at a Republican gathering in Albuquerque in the fall of 2003.

At a meeting of Republicans for Environmental Protection, Beagle and a group of fellow hunters were discussing the works of hunting writer and ethicist (and Durango resident) David Petersen, when the idea of a new kind of sportsmen's group espousing Petersen-like ideas and ideals was hatched. Backcountry Hunters and Anglers was born six months later, at a meeting in Beagle's backyard in the spring of 2004.

"I'm ecstatic," Petersen says about the arrival of an organization aligned to his own sense of hunting ethics and love of wild country - and one sharing his sense of the need to defend those places and qualities. Petersen is so ecstatic, in fact, that this summer he became Colorado Chapter Chair and a member of the BHA board of directors.

"This group reflects the same values I have come to champion," says Petersen. "First and foremost, it's a pro-muscle-powered wilderness adventure AND CONSERVATION organization."

Petersen has authored seven books of natural history, including Elkheart, a memoir of his love of elk and elk hunting, and Heartsblood, an inspiring treatise and deeply personal narrative on the spiritual rewards and moral responsibilities of hunting and the wild country it requires. He also edited A Hunter's Heart, a controversial anthology on the ethics of hunting that earned him national recognition as a "hunting ethicist."

Given that body of work, Petersen sees the arrival of BHA as "an antidote to most of the hunting groups you see today," he says. "Seems like every time something important comes up, too many hunting groups come down on the wrong side. They're ideological and self-serving rather than about protecting public land. They're predator-phobic. They're anti-wilderness. And they're spreading ignorance and disinformation, arguing that no motorized access to the backcountry means no access at all.

"My background writing about hunting ethics is about trying to expand the idea of what hunting and wilderness are all about in the minds of hunters and the public," he explains. "We should all be hunting-ethicists and wilderness activists. It's what we owe nature.

"Today, too many hunters are becoming technologists," Petersen continues. "It seems like they're looking for the easy way now. I'm not disparaging them. I feel sorry for them - there's so much more to be gained by challenging yourself. Traditional hunters like to do things the hard way, to deliberately challenge themselves in the woods. They invite that challenge and want to hunt hard.

"And if you seek and do that," Petersen concludes, "then you can't help but become a conservationist."

The problem is, he speculates, that many would-be conservationist-hunters (and he means anglers, too, for Petersen refers to fishing as "hydraulic hunting") "don't get involved because there's no good organizations to side with. Until BHA came along."

Holly Endersby agrees.

"I joined because there wasn't another organization out there that shared my values," says Endersby, an Idaho-based outdoors writer, horsewoman, hunter, and angler. "All the rest were us-against-them groups."

BHA, she says, appealed to her because of its "unique stress on protecting wild public country" and "a value that has lost its hold in the last few years - that killing should not be easy."

"It's important to me to get my own food," explains Endersby, who says that she and her husband live on wild game, including elk, deer, bear, upland birds and fish. "It's a privilege to hunt and take animals," she says, "and when you work hard for something, you value it more."

Endersby - who also has become a member of the BHA board of directors - also defines that "killing should not be easy" edict as non-technological hunting and angling. She and her husband frequently practice their traditional-style stalking in the nearby Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, in Idaho.

It is this place that also taught her that "our public lands are every citizen's gift," she says, adding that she considers it "a civic duty to take care of them." That also means, she argues, that "healthy ecosystems need a full range of species, including large predators."

"Most other hunting groups don't address that, or defend that," she complains.

And it's those senses - a consideration of the needs and honor of the animals and the land - that puts BHA in a category all by itself, summarizes Petersen.

"You've got extremists on both sides - hunters' rights and anti-hunters," Petersen elaborates. "So here comes a group embodying the best of the middle ground of common sense, decency, intelligence and respect. A group that's not just about rights, but also is promoting respect, responsibility and resource protection."

"Backcountry Hunters and Anglers embodies all the things hunters and anglers should become," he says. He then adds pointedly, "And all the things we must become in order to continue doing what we love."

For more information, visit backcountryhunters.org. Ken Wright is a contributing editor to Inside/Outside Southwest.