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119 and responsible butchering of animals offers another great opportunity to learn about ecological connections. It is important to remember that we needn’t be experts in ecology to teach these connections; our goal is to plant the seeds of biotic perception and environmental awareness. These are the intellectual virtues one attains by gaining knowledge of the ecology and evolution of the species one hunts or fishes. It is an expansive curiosity about the natural world. This is surely not thwarted by hunter education as it is presented. But what is blocked is the natural evolution of this awareness in the direction of husbandry and activism. Conclusion Sportsman education needs to move in several new directions. Realizing that good habits are only established by long-term commitment, courses must make practice central. This will require devoting less time to firearm knowledge in class and more time to hunting skills. Environmental awareness and biotic perception must grow from knowledge about wildlife and habitat. As we shall see in the next chapter, our conception of game and the role of sportsmen in game management will need to be altered. Hunting and fishing are arts of acquisition. The material goods acquired are derived from the bodies of animals: birds, mammals, fish, and others. In addition to these material goods, participants in field sports seek the good of acquiring environmental virtue. Coinciding with the evolution of the sportsman thesis, from Plato to the present, are debates between sportsmen and others about the class of animals considered as suitable quarry for sportsmen, called “game” animals. Not all wild animals are selected for this status. For Plato, the premier quarry was probably rabbits that could be chased by men on horseback. The hierarchy of game animals has shifted according to availability and convention. Once, the noble hart was the only animal worthy of royal attention.1 Now, some say the Atlantic salmon is the “king of the game fish.” Other animals are relegated to the status of “trash fish” or “varmints” by hunters and anglers. But what should we make of such judgments by sportsmen? ChapterThirteen:AttitudesaboutGameandWildlife 120 Chapter Thirteen The issues surrounding game policies are extremely complex both legally and scientifically. Sportsmen seek to influence these policies by sometimes calling for reduced limits and shortened seasons and at other times for expanded opportunities to hunt and fish. They thus seek to influence policy decisions about stocking and season length. They may suggest and actively participate in habitat improvements. These suggestions are sometimes met with opposition from within the community of sportsmen, professionals in wildlife areas, and others interested in wildlife issues. My interest in this chapter is finding a way to frame some of these debates such that questions about environmental virtues are central. In particular, I’ve argued that if field sports are to retain their capacity to generate virtue, they must be guided by the quest for excellence, a full aesthetic experience connecting them to the land, and an ongoing curiosity about their biotic community. These goals must also come to guide debates about game animals as well. DefinitionsofGame Definitions of “game animals” have always been contested, reflecting changing perceptions of wildlife. Aristocratic ideas of social status and hierarchy have frequently been imposed by use of the concept of game. I’ve discussed the historical connection between nineteenth-century sportsmen and the reestablishment of wildlife populations.2 The term “game” as used in this country found its traditional meaning in the policies and laws developed by those gentlemen-sportsmen. These originators of the North American sportsman thesis, like their European cousins, conceptually set aside those animals they thought worthy of being hunted by people such as themselves. In contrast, some hunters and fishermen took any usable animal.3 From the vast number of wild animals that could be eaten or used in other ways, some are selected as game. The term “game” as applied to animals has a wide and deep history. The various Oxford English Dictionary entries for it run to over four pages of that tiny print only found in the OED. Game animals, as “wild animals or birds such as are pursued, caught or killed in the chase” is a usage that goes back at least to the early fourteenth century. In some cases, game animals were only those one could hunt using trained dogs. An 1862 British act proclaims game to include hares, pheasants, partridges, etc. Another definition of “game” that seems relevant to this discussion is that of...

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