The author of an anthropological study on recreational hunting in Wellington County is calling for more dialogue throughout the community on the value of hunting to local rural heritage.
Between June and December 2012, Christine Porterfield, a graduate of the University of Guelph’s public issues anthropology MA program, conducted over a dozen extensive interviews with local hunters and their peers.
The study examined the value of hunting to rural heritage, and the state of land access in Wellington. Porterfield says the findings of the study, titled Recreational Hunting in Wellington County, Ontario: Land Use, Identity, and Conflict, suggest relationships in the county between hunters and landowners are overall strong, but conflict over land access does exist.
The study calls for an open dialogue between hunters and landowners in order to maintain an important cultural activity in the county, while assuring the respect of property rights in rural Wellington.
While Porterfield says the hunters she spoke to “don’t define themselves as rural residents through their hunting,” they do “feel more connected to the reality of living in a rural area by being hunters.” She concludes hunting is seen as a means of demonstrating family ties and moving characteristics across generations.
“It’s simple to me. It’s part of my heritage, and I want to keep that heritage alive,” states one of the hunters interviewed for the study. “You know, my family is getting older and realistically, they’re going to be gone before I know it. So I want to keep that family heritage, that legacy that we have as hunters and fishermen, alive.”
Rural hunters, Porterfield found, also define themselves “in opposition to urban hunters,” whom they feel don’t have the same level of respect for the owners of the land on which they hunt.
“Rural hunters are very passionate about doing the right thing by landowners,” she said.
In her study, Porterfield points out that rural hunters view themselves as more practiced, and generally identified non-rural hunters as unskilled marksmen.
“I find the urban hunters are weekend warriors,” states a hunter in the study. “The only time they pick up their gun is for deer season. And the rest of the time it’s just stored in the closet. They’re weekend warriors. And that’s a shame … I find the urban hunters totally unsafe. I don’t trust them, whereas the rural hunters, they have respect of the gun … I’m always practicing, but these guys, they don’t even practice.”
Porterfield, who grew up in Rockwood in a non-hunting family, said one of the study results she found most surprising was that, for many hunters, the sport, “is about the enjoyment of being out on the land and in the woods.
“I wouldn’t say they don’t care about getting an animal,” she said, “But I actually think taking an animal is very secondary in some cases.”
Porterfield said she would like to see the study “get some conversation going in the community,” about the value of hunting to rural heritage and lifestyle.
“I would like to see landowners who don’t allow hunters on their land to take a look at it,” she said, adding changing landowners’ practices isn’t necessarily the goal, as much as sparking discussion on the topic.
The 80-page study, which is Porterfield’s masters thesis, can be viewed online at dspace.lib.uoguelph.ca/xmlui/handle/10214/6612.
