BECAUSE IMAGE IS EVERYTHING

Those among us striving to portray hunting and hunters in an ethical, responsible and moderate light, know how quickly even the most rational and persuasive arguments can be unravelled by arrogance, naivety or just plain run-of-the-mill stupidity. 

If we continue to whine about what ‘should be’ but isn’t; if we complain about rights we’re being denied that we never actually enjoyed, while arrogantly refusing to acknowledge the impact of negative community perceptions, our own shortsightedness will be our undoing.

The way I see it, we have two primary enemies – their ignorance and our arrogance – only one of which we are prepared to address.  Guess which?

It is negative public perceptions that are doing us the most damage and they can be addressed, but not for so long as we choose to live in the state of resolute denial that has served us so very poorly to date.

Approximately 70% of Australians live in cities. Their experience of ‘wildlife’ extends to dogs, cats, budgies, pony-club on the weekends and perhaps the odd possum, all of which they would happily accommodate at the foot of their beds at night. 

While we often hear reports of the growing tree/sea-change movement, this phenomenon affects a tiny fraction of urbanites. The vast majority are more than happy to live in one-another’s pockets under lights so bright they need a weatherman to tell them the phases of the moon, and it’s likely this will always be the case.

Furthermore, the idea that more city-folk moving to the ‘bush’ equates to a gradual increase in general appreciation for rural living and associated pursuits, is a forlorn hope at best.  

As those of us who have lived in the migratory zones can attest, city-folk may relish abandoning the hustle and bustle of urban congestion with its heartless anonymity, but they do so only to spend the next 20 years lobbying rural councils to turn their quiet retreats into carbon copies of the urban nightmares they fled.

In short, they rarely integrate per se, but rather demand rural folk adopt their measures of necessity, morals, ethics and ‘civilisation’ in general.

With metropolitan mindsets dominating, it’s time to reassess our approach to re-normalising the hunters’ activities and the rural ethos in general. To do so successfully, some strategic sacrifices will need to be made over years to come, despite the inevitable resentment that will accompany the process.

Hunting has been an ‘Australian’ tradition for between 50,000 and 200 years, depending on the hunter’s cultural heritage. Yet it wasn’t so much as a blip on the collective Australian consciousness until around 10 years ago.

Sure, it may have been cause for concern among certain hardline animal rights/welfare activists, but in terms of broad public concern, a hunter divulging his weekend exploits in ‘mixed company’ was liable to be greeted with strains of “Oh, how could you!” and that’s about it.

This all changed about 10 years ago, before which time, people who didn’t like hunting, demonstrated their disapproval in a very traditional and appropriate manner – by not engaging in it and by not discussing it with those who did.

This begs the question, what happened a decade ago to make hunting a social and political issue worthy of the unprecedented media attention it ‘enjoys’ today?

• Facebook was launched on February 4, 2004 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States)

• Mobile-phone cameras of some quality and general affordability became readily available in 2005.

• Twitter was launched on March 21, 2006 (San Francisco, California, United States)

• Youtube was launched on February 14, 2005 (San Mateo, California, United States) 

And almost immediately, hunters began populating the above with literally millions of graphic accounts of the hunters’ trade, in full colour via totally unsecured media. 

Farewell the days when the anti-hunter was forced to infiltrate a hunting group, spy with a long lens from afar or trawl the hunting journals for a suspect shot that slipped past a dozy sub-editor. 

Welcome an era where millions of tasteless shots appear on social media every day, complete with a handy share or forward button. 

And let’s not forget Youtube where, thanks to GoPro and its ilk, tasteless moving images abound, replete with the sorts of moronic commentaries that add weight to inbred hillbilly stereotypes.  

Yes-yes, none of that should matter. After all, what we do is legal! But hunting would not be the first previously legal activity to be banned as a result of community outrage and associated opportunist political pressure. 

Just the other day, an email turned up in my inbox – again! It was from the kind folks at Twitter, eager to introduce me to new people they thought I might like. Among the examples of political aspirants, craft enthusiasts and media commentators’ there was a post from a fox hunter’s feed. 

Proud of his efficiency with firearms, he quite reasonable boasted he had just taken-out a fox with a single shot to the brain, occasioning instantaneous and therefore desirably humane death. All good! 

What was not so good was the photo that accompanied his prideful note - said dead fox, eyes bulging out of their sockets onto its muzzle resulting from the explosive expansion of brain-matter within. It is true the fox did appear to be smiling, but one doubts that had anything to do with gratitude for a swift ascendancy to the ethereal choir.  

Now, if I received that post from Twitter, just on spec, how many thousands of unsuspecting non-hunters also received it?  That it was circulated by offended recipients to the sorts of people who will make use of it for anti-hunting ends is a fait accompli. 

The people they distribute it to will not see a fox that died instantly. They will only see a fox that died horribly, unlike their sweet little Sooty or Mr. Tinkles, who, after many happy years curled up snug at the foot of the bed, went peacefully to God with veterinary assistance.

How we portray what we do DOES matter. In fact, right now it matters more than just about anything else.

Yes, this snap has it all. Disrespectful objectification of "an innocent animal",
a clear view of the "instrument of torture and death" with a little blood for
added drama and, of course, "the feet of a coward". 

Hunting is not a universal public ‘right’ in this country. It is a privilege extended under licence. That licence can be revoked at the stroke of a pen and the way we’re going, it will be a pen we've provided.

We can’t put the genie back in the bottle, but we can stop rubbing the bloody bottle!

When the media needs content to illuminate a negative story, social media is their first port of call, so it stands to reason it should be our clean-up priority.

• Striving for 10,000 ‘Likes’ at any cost may serve the ego but it doesn’t serve the cause. Hunters’ Facebook accounts should have the tightest possible security settings to prevent casual browsing. The same goes for commercial pages, though it must be said, for the most part they are more discerning about the nature of posts they let through.

• Youtube footage of yobbos laughing hysterically while poorly shot animals struggle, or dogs tear pigs apart, are not just a curse, they’re pathetic and the source of much justification for the old yodel, “hunters just enjoy killing things”. Leave a reprimanding comment, identifying yourself as an ethical hunter, so the public at large can see we don’t like irresponsible idiots either.

• When editing GoPro footage of your hunt, freeze on your quarry at the instant of the riffle report. Cutting to a still shot immediately after, showing a hunter with his quarry, both of which should be in a clean and respectful pose, will convey the outcome just fine. We don’t need to see it staggering about a field or tumbling down a mountainside to know the shot was good.

• Cries of unity such as “Never-ever apologise for being a hunter” are inane and arrogant without the addition of one of two words – ethical or responsible. We should not appear to support any and all hunting activities for the same reason we wouldn't say, “Never-ever apologise for being a driver” i.e. because we do not stand united with drunks who get behind the wheel.
  
  "Never-ever apologise for being an ethical hunter” is a message I’ll wear with both pride and resolve.

• Many reading this article will want to shoot the messenger. For God’s sake, clean away some of the blood and gore before you post my picture on social media. The best hunter/quarry shots exhibit no signs of death whatsoever. It’s enough that you’re pictured sitting right next to your quarry, which should look like it’s the star attraction of a petting-zoo. We’re not stupid; we all know nothing lets you get that close unless it’s dead....or perhaps a Greens candidate.
  
  In fact, I would love to see the editors and producers of our journals and TV series etc., getting together around a table to develop a set of guidelines for publication. Given that so many people take hunting snaps with hopes of having them published, why not set guidelines and a basic standard they should all meet?

A pretty good example of how it can be done

• Finally, we need to work together to ensure the media starts calling so-called 'illegal hunting' by its proper name - poaching. The term is used world-wide, but not in Australia where the media is wedded to reporting on hunting only when it can be associated with illegality.
  
  Ergo, by exploiting this bias and with united insistence that 'poaching' is used where applicable, we can ensure that 'hunting' is never mentioned in the press at all, which is surely better than having it constantly associated with illegal activity?
  
  If those of us who are occasionally approached for interviews refuse to engage unless journalists adopt the correct language, they will soon find themselves short of respondents.  A basic rule of journalism runs along the lines of "without a talking head/respondent, there is no story". 

The sooner we begin to take some strategic ownership of our public image, the sooner the public will see, once again, that there is a place for responsible hunting practices in any society that strives for a low-impact, sustainable approach to resource management. 

Anyway, I’ll get outaya way now...

Follow the blog on Twitter @Hunters_Stand

If you'd like to share this post the link to cut & paste is http://thehunterstand.blogspot.com.au/2015/09/because-image-is-everything.html

For those wishing to leave comments either anonymously or under their own names (go-orn, I dares ya!), please select the 'Name/URL' option from the drop down menu beneath the comments section at the bottom of this page. You do not need to enter a URL.

If you would like to receive notifications when new posts are uploaded to the Hunters' Stand, send your name and email address to thehunterstand@gmail.com This service will not include notification of new comments. All information provided will be treated with the utmost confidentiality and discretion.