|
Books > Sport & Leisure > Sports & outdoor recreation > Field sports: fishing, hunting, shooting > Hunting or shooting animals & game
A fascinating look at how a commercial market for birds in the late
nineteenth century set the stage for conservation and its
legislation. Between the end of the Civil War and the 1920s, the
United States witnessed the creation, rapid expansion, and then
disappearance of a commercial market for hunted wild animals. The
bulk of commercial wildlife sales in the last part of the
nineteenth century were of wildfowl, who were prized not only for
their eggs and meat but also for their beautiful feathers. Wild
birds were brought to cities in those years to be sold as food for
customers' tables, decorations for ladies' hats, treasured pets,
and specimens for collectors' cabinets. Though relatively
short-lived, this market in birds was broadly influential, its rise
and fall coinciding with the birth of the Progressive Era
conservation movement. In The Market in Birds, historian Andrea L.
Smalley and wildlife biologist Henry M. Reeves illuminate this
crucial chapter in American environmental history. Touching on
ecology, economics, law, and culture, the authors reveal how
commercial hunting set the terms for wildlife conservation and the
first federal wildlife legislation at the turn of the twentieth
century. Smalley and Reeves delve into the ground-level
interactions among market hunters, game dealers, consumers,
sportsmen, conservationists, and the wild birds they all wanted.
Ultimately, they argue, wildfowl commercialization represented a
revolutionary shift in wildlife use, turning what had been a mostly
limited, local, and seasonal trade into an interstate
industrial-capitalist enterprise. In the process, it provoked a
critical public debate over the value of wildlife in a modern
consumer culture. By the turn of the twentieth century, the authors
reveal, it was clear that wild bird populations were declining
precipitously all over North America. The looming possibility of a
future without birds sparked intense debate nationwide and
eventually culminated in the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
Scholars, environmentalists, wildlife professionals, and anyone
concerned about wildlife will find this new perspective on
conservation history enlightening reading.
A step-by-step guide to modern shooting etiquette stuffed full of
amusing quotes and anecdotes, which will instruct the Gun on how to
be the perfect guest out shooting - and hence, how to be asked
again. Inspired by the fact that so many more people are taking up
shooting as adults and may have missed out on the vital
apprenticeship in the field as a child, it encapsulates everything
you need to know but no one will ever tell you out shooting as 'you
are expected to know'. The book covers in a logical way what
happens, or should happen: from the moment you receive a shooting
invitation to arriving at the shoot, shooting safely and
courteously, how to hold your own, how to mark up your birds, what
never to say and how to tip the keeper. Much of this information
comes from almost a hundred interviews with beaters, keepers,
flankers, pickers up, shoot organisers, shoot owners, and grouse
moor owning earls and dukes. Hilarious cartoons by Oliver Preston
make this a very entertaining book on shooting, the perfect gift
for any shooting man or woman, either novice shot or experienced
Gun.
Between the 17th and 19th centuries, the sport of hunting was
transformed: the principal prey changed from deer to fox, and the
methods of pursuit were revolutionized. Questioning the traditional
explanation of the hunting transition-namely that change in the
landscape led to a decline of the deer population-this book
explores the terrain of Northamptonshire during that time period
and seeks alternative justifications. Arguing that the many changes
that hunting underwent in England were directly related to the
transformation of the hunting horse, this in-depth account
demonstrates how the near-thoroughbred horse became the mount of
choice for those who hunted in the shires. This book shows how,
quite literally, the thrill of the chase drove the hunting
transition.
|
|