Owing to the difficulty of writing enough to keep the Rational Hunter in new material, I am going to develop it as a group blog with some other like-minded folks.
Toward that end, I would like to welcome two new authors.
First, my friend and colleague, Jeff Lockwood. Jeff is an entemologist by training, but a philosopher by disposition. His book Grasshopper Dreaming, is a fascinating mediation on the complex issues surrounding human-nature interaction as seen through the lens of his experience as a field entemologist. Other books of note include: Locust and Prairie Soul. Although Jeff is not a hunter himself, he noted over lunch today that there is more than a passing resemblance between pest control and hunting as both involve the taking of lives for the sake of food procurement (a point also made to good effect by Ted Kerasote in his excellent book Bloodties).
I would also like to welcome Mark Kingwell. Mark is a philosopher by training, but a flyfisher by disposition. Along with a host of scholarly work in philosophy, Mark has penned a fine work on fishing, Catch and Release: Trout Fishing and the Meaning of Life. The book, by Mark's own reckoning, is not about fishing--but I have personally gleaned some fishing insights from it nonetheless.
Welcome aboard, guys!
Just a quick hello to everyone. I am rather humbled to be in such learned circles and look forward to sharing viewpoints and learning new things as well.
I've likely got differing views on the ethics and morality of catch-and-release fishing/hunting, so I hope to become better informed on that from Mark K. It's become a big issue on certain popular Alaska streams which have shifted to C&R fisheries somewhat because mortality of king salmon and other species was too high and certain user-groups demanded more opportunity to fish. So there has been a paradigm shift of sorts toward C&R sport fisheries, and slot limits, which has many Alaskans a bit alarmed, as we are behind the lower-48 in many ways and we're just now seeing some of the problems of overuse and allocation dilemmas in our fisheries that have prevailed in Eastern Canada and the lower 48 for some time now.
Not judging...but interested in engaging in rational discourse on that issue. For many, it's 'playing with food.' Which is a hard pill to swallow.
-32 here this morning; I'm about a half-degree below the Arctic Circle and it's been one of the coldest March months on record.
Best to all,
Mark
Posted by: Mark R. | March 20, 2007 at 10:54 AM