Culture and Resource Conflict: Why Meanings Matter

Chapter Twelve. Hunting and Forest Ecology

Chapter Twelve Hunting and Forest Ecology “Hunters shouldn’t be thinking that the more deer the better when it comes to surviving a severe winter. Look at it this way—if a farmer has forty cows but only has enough feed for twenty, he doesn’t put twenty more in, hoping that forty will survive; he takes twenty out so that at least twenty will survive.” —Bruce Bacon, a WDNR wildlife manager OUR STUDIES OF hunting very much parallel our research on fish and fishing . As with fishing, cultural differences in hunting orientation lead to misperceptions and intergroup conflict. Would we continue to find that majority-culture sportsmen misperceive Menominee values when we looked at hunting? Our informal observations suggested that we would, but there are two reasons for thinking that we might not observe stereotyping . One is that when it comes to hunting there is no clear counterpart to Native American off-reservation fishing rights and the surrounding publicity and controversy. The other reason for thinking we might not see stereotyping is the international and local reputation the Menominee have for sustainable forestry. It is well known that the Menominee “take care of their forest” and if taking care implies managing the forest as an ecosystem, then one would expect that Menominee also successfully manage the components of this system, such as deer, bear, and other game and one would expect others to expect this. There is, however, controversy over practices. When it comes to hunting , the “shining” deer may be the analogue of spearfishing walleyes. Shining involves going out on country roads at night and shining a bright spotlight into the woods and clearings where deer may be found. 132 Hunting and Forest Ecology 133 Deer often freeze when the spotlight blinds them and hunters then have time to shoot them. Hunting deer at night and shining is illegal in Wisconsin , and majority-culture hunters also consider shining immoral and unsporting. It may also provide an unfair opportunity to shoot an older buck with large antlers. European-American hunters also resent the fact that tribes are allowed to establish their own hunting regulations. When we started our research, in 1997, the Menominee tribe had a shining season. But even then, the practice of shining was controversial on the reservation. Some Menominee hunters expressed the concern that deer were being wounded and since the current generation of hunters was not good at tracking deer at night, they were unable to track the wounded deer and consequently deer were being wasted. Others noted that dragging a deer across a clearing full of tree stumps at night was very difficult, and they wondered out loud whether people always took out the deer that they shot or whether they just left the carcasses where they fell. These arguments ultimately proved to be compelling when Don Reiter, the Menominee fish and wildlife biologist and the assistant director of the tribal Conservation Commission, reported on the number of carcasses found. Finally, population estimates suggested that the deer population, six to nine per square mile, was a bit below the carrying capacity . For all these reasons shining deer was banned on the Menominee reservation in 2000. The deer populations in counties surrounding the Menominee reservation are much higher than in Menominee County itself. This is because the neighboring counties tend to have forty- to eighty-acre patches of forest surrounded by cornfields, where the deer can feed, whereas the Menominee reservation is pretty much pure forest. The carrying capacity for the reservation forest is roughly eight to twelve deer per square mile, though some have suggested that it could go as high as fifteen deer per square mile.1 Forest patches and cornfields in surrounding counties can support a population density several times greater. Some majority-culture hunters mistake this difference in carrying capacity for a difference in successfully managing deer populations. CURRENT POPULATIONS The estimated deer population per square mile on the Menominee reservation for the years 2003, 2004, and 2005 was 10.2, 9.2, and 12.0, respectively . These figures are solidly in the range of the estimated carrying capacity . In contrast, most of the other counties in Wisconsin are burdened with 134 Culture and Resource Conflict an overpopulation of deer, and many counties have overwintering populations almost twice the level that wildlife biologists think is proper. Shawano County is among the many counties with an overpopulation of deer. Deer...