As is often the case, conversations on the topic of technology in hunting often circle back to the concept of “Fair Chase.” The earliest recorded usage of the term “Fair Chase” is in the fifth article of the Boone and Crockett Club’s constitution, adopted in February of 1888. At this time in history there were few laws governing the taking of game for food or for sport. Boone and Crockett Club members knew that in an era of overexploitation and market hunting and facing public cries for preservation, if hunting was to continue the conduct of the hunter mattered. The concept of fair chase is subjective and because of that subjectivity, the definition is both deeply personal and highly variable among individuals. However, the Boone and Crockett Club continues to maintain focus on the concept with numerous resources and related content on Fair Chase, Technology and Hunting, and Long Range Shooting.

Clearly and consistently defining fair chase in a way that results in broad general agreement is difficult if not impossible but there are some elements that generally garner broad agreement. Organizations with record books like the Boone and Crockett Club and Pope and Young both have articulated a set of standards and principles that their organizations feel must be met for an animal to be eligible for admission to their records programs. Key elements of their positions include emphasis on hunter skill and the use of legal technology only to the extent it does not take an unfair advantage over the animal. Both organizations address specific technologies and scenarios and both also emphasize hunter skill through concepts like “stretching the stalk not the shot,” and animals having a reasonable chance at escape and use of their senses of sight, sound, and smell in the endeavor to escape. At face value, these concepts typically generate consensus. There is also broad acknowledgement of the uniquely personal aspect of defining fair chase.

Equally subjective and difficult to define is the broader notion of hunting ethics. Fair chase is in and of itself a hunting ethic and as we think about advanced technologies in hunting and how they impact our notion of fair chase, we are essentially discussing our individual and deeply personal hunting ethics. Via a google search regarding hunting technologies, I had the good fortune of stumbling across a webpage called “Landscapes and Letters” by Paul McCarney. McCarney wrote an essay on hunting technology titled, “Where do you Draw the Line?” In his essay, McCarney artfully distilled the issue of hunting technology down to the basic problem of enhancing ethical hunting in a way that doesn’t undermine the ethic of fair chase. The author defined ethical hunting as anything that enhances the hunter’s ability to make a quick, clean, and reliable kill and not those technologies that provide the hunter a disproportionate advantage over the animal in a way that eliminates or reduces the need for practiced skill and ultimately undermines fair chase. This distillation resonated with me.

The individual and deeply personal aspect of hunting ethics contributes to the reluctance of many to articulate standards. However, given the rapid proliferation of technology in hunting, not articulating or reaffirming a set of standards isn’t without some risk. The risk is rooted in the concept of technology creep or shifting baseline. The term Shifting Baseline Syndrome was first coined by marine biologist doctor Daniel Pauly in 1995 and is a human psychological quirk that occurs when people gradually change their accepted norms for the condition of the natural environment. Although not intended as a term to describe the phenomenon of shifting social norms, it seems an accurate application in this case. Social scientists would probably successfully argue for using more appropriate terms like “norm diffusion,” “normative shift,” or “dynamic norms.” Regardless, both the risk and the shift are real and happen with rapid change and particularly when people lack experience, memory, or knowledge of the past condition. Change is ever-present. There will always be a continuum of hunting technology acceptability, both within the hunting community as well as beyond it. What feels unique now is the rate and magnitude of change in hunting technology and our increasingly fragile dependence on the approval of a disproportionately large and growing non-hunting public.

Is this baseline shifting for hunters? If so, is it also shifting for non-hunters? In 2019, Mark Duda at Responsive Management and others reported in Americans’ Attitudes Toward Hunting, Fishing, Sport Shooting, and Trapping, that 80% of non-hunting Americans approved of “legal” hunting. The public’s approval of hunting was highly variable, and geography, hunter motivations, and targeted species were factors that caused significant variability in the public’s attitudes about hunting. If the non-hunting public were fully aware of the technology employed in the pursuit of animals, would there still be 80% approval? In 1887 it was the fair chase ethic of Theodore Roosevelt and the Boone and Crockett Club that resulted in the successful promotion of regulated hunting as the foundation of conservation instead of the end of hunting in favor of protection and preservation. Even 137 years ago, the public’s perceptions of the character and conduct of the hunter were key to successfully achieving the then new system of conservation. As technology continues to expand and innovate more and more novel ways that affect our hunting experiences and the public’s perspectives on it, it is critically important for us as a community to be aware of our collective baseline relative to our own ethics, know whether our baseline is moving, and contemplate the potential consequences of a shifting baseline.

As a result of a request to provide a 15-minute talk, I now have clearer ideas and definitions in my mind for both my ethics and what I feel constitutes fair chase for me. On the continuum of animal hunter to animal shooter, I desire to remain clearly and firmly on the side of hunter. Any discussion about technology and hunting needs to include the fairness of the chase because after all, can it truly be fair if there is no chase?