Conservation Conversation: Wildlife as “Resources” under the North American Model

Unregulated hunting in the early history of the United States resulted in the total decimation of wildlife populations, and even entire species. The overexploitation of game was a tragedy of the commons, for which conservation policy was the only means of mitigation. At this time, few thought of animals as sentient beings worthy of protection, an arguably valid philosophy given the dependency on animals for basic sustenance. As a result, early conservation policy sought to regulate the taking of animals in a way similar to other renewable resources: via best management practices that would produce a steady supply of harvestable goods/resources.

In the time since, however, both human infrastructure and values have changed, yet the guiding principles surrounding wildlife policy have not. This approach, summarized in the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, claims to prioritize objectivity and public input. In reality, however, consumptive users of wildlife continue to receive preferential treatment, despite only accounting for a small percentage of the population. As the Model continues to be taught in educational[1] and management settings, the following is what is conveniently left out of the conservation conversation.

Principle 1: Wildlife is a Resource Held in the Public Trust

            Immediately, in the Model’s first principle, wildlife is objectified, turned into just another product for human consumption. The term “resource” is defined as “something…that someone has and can use when it is needed”, or alternatively, “a place or thing that provides something useful.”[2] Defining the status of wildlife only by its value to humans ensures the model of commodification continues, and that those who prioritize animal welfare over economic profit can be left out of the conversation entirely.[3]

            Long hailed as a democratic, sustainable means of allocating a collective resource, the entire point of a trust is to maximize the equal distribution to shareholders.[4] When this economic approach to assets is applied to wildlife, conservation is not about saving animals at an individual level. Rather, the goal is to save species at levels that are “sustainable” for continued hunting,[5] with sustainability exclusively defined along this line of human consumption. While hunters are free to take as many animals as is legally permitted, non-hunters have no means of exercising this same dominion in attempt to preserve life. Therefore, these non-hunting shareholders never receive any real benefit from the Trust.

            Furthermore, when people do speak against consumptive use in an attempt to save the individual animals, they are dismissed by the vocal hunting minority,[6] accused of not caring about larger ecosystems, having no personal interaction with wildlife,[7] being part of the urban elite,[8] or disregarding science for moral principles.[9] Many states also require that wildlife management personnel represent consumptive interests.[10] Though inclusivity may be a purported goal,[11] little effort has been made to make it a reality.

Principle 2: Private Markets for Wildlife are Prohibited

At least, sometimes...

Canned hunting facilities and “captive farms” are legal in many states, with legalization having occurred solely for economic gain by facility owners, breeders, meat producers, and the sporting goods industry.[12] Deer (or Cervidae, more generally) are a commonly “farmed” game species, despite the concern of zoological disease resulting from a high population density.[13]

Even amongst hunters, the practice remains controversial, as the deer live on enclosed reserves, preventing their escape, and their more domestic demeanor makes the prey animals less skittish around humans.[14] Scholars active in the field of conservation acknowledge how the existence of captive farms undermines every principle of the North American Model.[15] By allowing a private market in game, Principle 2 is directly contradicted by those responsible for ensuring that private ownership of wildlife remains a thing of the past.

The issue of canned hunting facilities as an instance of private ownership over wildlife has been handled differently by different jurisdictions. While Missouri has held that even farmed cervids are under the domain of the Department of Conservation,[16] Indiana has reclassified farmed cervids as privately owned animals, thereby outside the Public Trust Doctrine and the jurisdiction of the Department of Natural Resources.[17] Other states have chosen to transfer jurisdiction of farmed cervids from the conservation department to the local department of agriculture.[18] Regardless of the regulatory scheme devised, millions of federal dollars are channeled to the states for purposes of cervid farming.[19] Eligible use of funds include establishing captive cervid facilities, developing Chronic Wasting Disease mitigation plans, and/or indemnifying owners for the destruction and disposal of sick cervids.[20]

Principle 3: Allocation of Wildlife is by Law

            Colonial British and European law reserved the hunting of certain game animals only for the elite. The United States, however, never followed this model, having shifted from a completely unregulated allowance of hunting to today’s system of bag limits, seasons, equipment limitations, and other measures unrelated to socioeconomic status.[21] These regulations are the products of administrative law, meaning that the public is to have say in their creation. Because of the privileging of consumptive use discussed in Principle 1, allocation can be read to require that the animals be dead before being divided amongst the beneficiaries. Even on a species-level, this allocation is therefore disproportionate. On an individual level, this is ironic, considering that non-hunters enjoy wildlife by leaving it where it is, for other beneficiaries to use in the same peaceful manner. It is only consumptive users that permanently remove the resource from the commons, ensuring that no one can ever derive enjoyment from that animal again.

Principle 4: Wildlife May Only be Killed for Legitimate Purposes

Yet, nowhere is the word “legitimate” defined. An inherently subjective term, “legitimate” justification to take a life would include protection of one’s ornamental plants to some,[22] but to others, would not even encompass killing animals for food. Based on the Model’s principles and their implementation, however, it is clear that recreational killing is to be blindly accepted as a legitimate purpose. 

Whether a practice is “legitimate” hinges on public opinion for determining acceptable behavior.[23] It is then up to the public to determine what purposes are sufficiently “legitimate” to justify killing. A narrowing construction may be found in the principle’s alternative phrasing, “the non-frivolous taking of wildlife.” The term “frivolous” means needless, unnecessary. The question then for the public to ask when defining legitimacy is whether killing for recreation is necessary. Due to the monopoly hunters have over the conservation industry, however, the public never gets a chance to give its input, thereby allowing the cycle to continue.

Principle 5: Wildlife as an International Resource

Wild animals are unaware and indifferent to land boundaries. The range of population can straddle the border of two nations, certain species routinely migrate across entire continents, and the international community now has an interest in protecting endangered species throughout the globe. As such, wildlife management frequently requires international cooperation.

Currently, international wildlife governance is no better at accounting for animal welfare than domestic conservation policies,[24] with more countries adopting a model of commodification very similar to the North American Model. Even species that are threatened at the global level can be hunted provided the local population can sustain itself following the loss.[25] This is seen with trophy hunting, in which affluent foreigners from the Global North travel to developing countries for the sole purpose of killing native endangered species. Likely in part to ensure the continuance of such practice, CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, one of the most widely ratified agreements in the field of international conservation, explicitly recognizes the legitimacy of consumptive use due to the resulting economic benefits.[26] As such, protected species can still be hunted and farmed in accordance with the agreement, so long as it is done in a “sustainable” manner.[27]

Principle 6: Science is the Governing Tool of Wildlife Policy

Traditional conservationists shield themselves from moral inquiry by claiming to base policy decisions on science concerning ecology, habitat, and population changes. Though at first glance, this proposed “objectivity” seems a fair way to craft policy, it ignores the fact that prioritizing science as the governing tool is itself a moral judgement.[28] It is also misleading.

The lens through which the data is collected and reviewed is anything but objective. The science involved directly focuses on what types of animals can be hunted to sustain hunting as an industry. Traditionally, this has focused on monitoring certain game populations—those most frequently hunted, such as deer and duck—while largely ignoring those less conducive to consumptive use.[29] The population data is specifically focused on sex demographics within the population and how many animals can be killed in a given season to maximize reproduction rates, thereby stocking the forest for hunting in subsequent years.[30] Never is there a concern for welfare standards, individual protection, quality of life, or the valuation of these animals alive.

While research is performed to maximize hunting opportunities, few management systems actively provide measurable objectives for what precisely it is the data in question is attempting to quantify.[31] Only about 11% of systems explain the techniques for setting hunting quotas,[32] with fewer still subjecting management plans to independent review.[33]

Principle 7: Democracy of Hunting

            Everyone, regardless of land ownership or other privileged status, can hunt as long as they follow the state administrative guidelines.[34] As such, this principle ensures only that democracy of access to hunting is protected, not necessarily democracy over hunting policy. The result is a solidification of the grim realities explored thus far: that wildlife is managed only to be taken by hunters. To further codify this privilege, nearly half of states in the country have enacted constitutional rights to hunt, fish, and/or trap,[35] and Wisconsin is currently defending its ban on the videotaping, photographing, and “monitoring” of hunters, in attempt to shield the increasingly unpopular industry from public scrutiny and accountability.[36]

…..

While early proponents of the North American Model of Conservation emphasized that it is meant only to be a description of the past approach to conservation,[37] the imperative and cyclic nature has long indicated that it too is meant to be a prescription for future conservation policy.[38] Wildlife’s only value is as something to be killed, and such valuation is entirely intentional. As is noted by Peterson and Nelson, “it is time for the wildlife conservation community…[to develop] a narrative unrestricted by allegiances to hunting and game species. It is time for the narrative to be rewritten to include the movement’s increasingly diverse constituency and complex history.”[39]

[1] See Michigan State University College of Law’s Wildlife Law (LAW 565B) course description, “…[T]his course's primary focus will be on the authority of the state fish and wildlife agencies to manage wildlife and the relationship of the federal and state governments as managers of the public’s wildlife. It will review wildlife related laws from a variety of perspectives, including those that recognize sustainable use as a valid conservation tool, and regulated hunting as a component of conservation and sound wildlife management.” The following book published by the Boone & Crockett Foundation was the required textbook for the Fall 2021 term: Bruce D. Leopold et. al., North American Wildlife Policy and Law (2018) (Published by the Boone and Crockett Club).

[2] Resource, Merriam-Webster Dictionary (last accessed Jan. 2, 2022), https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/resource?utm_campaign=sd&utm_medium=serp&utm_source=jsonld.

[3] Andrea M. Feldpausch-Parker, et al., Privileging Consumptive Use: A Critique of Ideology, Power, and Discourse in the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, 15 Conservation & Soc’y 33, 34 (2017).

[4] John F. Organ, et al., Public Trust Principles and Trust Administration Functions in the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation: Contributions of Human Dimensions Research, 19 Hum. Dimensions of Wildlife 407, 409 (2014).

[5] James R. Heffelfinger, Valerius Geist, and William Wishart, The Role of Hunting in North American Wildlife Conservation, 70 Int’l J. of Env’t Studs. 399, 401-02 (2013).

[6] Andrew Moore, Decline in Hunting Threatens Conservation Funding, NC State Univ. (Jan. 27, 2021) https://cnr.ncsu.edu/news/2021/01/decline-in-hunting-threatens-conservation-funding/.

[7] See Organ, et al., supra note 4, at 411.

[8] See, e.g., Shane P. Mahoney, et al., Challenges for Conservation and Sustainable Use in North America, 72 Int’l J. of Env’t Studs. 879, 882 (2015).

[9] See e.g., Yann Prisner-Levyne, Trophy Hunting, Canned Hunting, Tiger Farming, and the Questionable Relevance of the Conservation Narrative Grounding International Wildlife Law, 23 J. of Int’l Wildlife L. & Pol. 239, 267-68 (2020).

[10] M. Nils Peterson and Michael Paul Nelson, Why the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is Problematic for Modern Wildlife Management, 22 Hum. Dimensions of Wildlife 43, 50 (2017).

[11] Id., at 46-47, 50.

[12] Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, Management Authority over Farmed Cervids (last accessed Jan. 1, 2022), https://congressionalsportsmen.org/policies/state/management-authority-over-captive-cervids.

[13] See John F. Organ, Thomas A. Decker, and Tanya M. Lama, The North American Model and Captive Cervid Facilities—What is the Threat?, 40 Wildlife Soc’y. Bull. 10, 11 (2016).

[14] Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation, Canned Hunts (last accessed Jan. 2, 2022), https://wildlife-rescue.org/services/advocacy/canned-hunts/.

[15] See Organ, Decker, and Lama, supra note 13, at 12.

[16] Hill v. Missouri Dep’t of Conservation, 550 S.W.3d 463 (Mo. 2018).

[17] Captive cervid farming is here referred to as “high-fence hunting.” Ind. Dep’t of Nat. Res. v. Whitetail Bluff, LLC, 25 N.E.3d 218 (Ind. Ct. App. 2015).

[18] See Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, supra note 12.

[19] See e.g., Marquita Bady, APHIS provides $5.7 Million in Funding to Control and Prevent Chronic Wasting Disease (Sep. 30, 2021), https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/newsroom/stakeholder-info/sa_by_date/sa-2021/sa-10/cwd-funding.; N.J. Dep’t of Ag., Farmland Stewardship Deer Fencing Grants (Dec. 2, 2019).; and Farm News Media, MDARD, Michigan DNR Receive Grants to Combat Chronic Wasting Disease, Michigan Farm News (Oct. 20, 2021), https://www.michiganfarmnews.com/mdard-michigan-dnr-receive-grants-to-combat-chronic-wasting-disease.

[20] USDA, Chronic Wasting Disease Program Standards, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (May 2019).

[21] See Heffelfinger, Geist, and Wishart, supra note 5.

[22] See State v. Ball, 260 Conn. 275, 293 (Conn. 2002)

[23] Legitimate, Merriam-Webster Dictionary (last accessed Jan. 6, 2022), https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/legitimate (definition number 4, “conforming to recognized principles or accepted rules and standards”).

[24] See Prisner-Levyne, supra note 9, at 262.

[25] Id. at 246.

[26] Recognition of the Benefits of Trade in Wildlife, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (valid as of Jan. 6, 2022), https://cites.org/eng/res/08/08-03R13.php.

[27] Id.

[28] As the author also reminds us, some elements of wildlife policy do not concern science at all. See Peterson and Nelson, supra note 10, at 49 (example of minimum age limits to obtain a hunting license).

[29] Id. at 48. 

[30] See Heffelfinger, Geist, and Wishart, supra note 5, at 400-403.

[31] Kyle A. Artelle, et al., Hallmarks of Science Missing from North American Wildlife Management, 2018 Sci. Advances 1, 2 (2018).

[32] Id.

[33] Id.

[34] See Organ et. al., supra note 15.

[35] John McAdams, This Map Shows You Which States Have a Constitutional Right to Hunt and Fish, Wide Open Spaces (May 30, 2017), https://www.wideopenspaces.com/heres-a-map-that-shows-you-which-states-have-a-constitutional-right-to-hunt-and-fish/.

[36] See Brown v. Kemp, 506 F. Supp. 3d 649, 652 (W.D. Wis. 2020) (currently pending appeal before the 7th Circuit (Brief and Short Appendix of Plaintiffs-Appellants, Brown v. Kemp, No. 21-1042 (7th Cir. filed Feb. 26, 2021).)).

[37] Bruce D. Leopold et. al., North American Wildlife Policy and Law 132 (2018).

[38] See, generally, Peterson and Nelson, supra note 10.

[39] Id., at 51.