I recently attended a town hall held by my newly elected member of Congress, Dean Phillips. It was pretty nice getting to go to a town hall held by my representative in Washington, because the previous representative, displaced last election by Representative Phillips, went for years and years without having any actual town halls. He’d have an occasional fake town hall we’d hear about after the fact, but no actual town halls. Phillips is holding town halls on a regular basis.

Many topics were covered during the event, including guns, and Phillips gave an OK response to an early question on the issue. He runs politically in the middle of the road but definitely in favor of more regulation, which is probably good for the district where a significant number of citizens hunt, and we have not suffered any local mass killings of children. (Though this district does include a school suicide hot spot.)

But then something happened at the end of the town hall. The last questioner said something shocking. He told Representative Phillips and the audience that he had researched which kind of weapon would do best to kill “his deer.” (“His deer” or more us ally “my deer” might be a Minnesota expression referring to the deer you expect to get during hunting season.) He had determined that what he called an “AK-47” rifle, his AK, was the best weapon with which to kill a deer. It was the most effective at killing, and thus, best for the deer. For this reason, we should not really be regulating guns like people want us to.

The audience sat and listened, then waited for Representative Phillips to say something, and he did. He said something assuaging the person who asked the question, and I think Phillips and most of the audience were quietly embarrassed by this hunter’s remarks. Most people just glanced away and were glad to have this not develop into a fight. That, by the way, is a key component of the widely known “Minnesota nice.” No matter how bone-headed a remark or behavior made in public might be, just let it go. Not worth it. Give it a stern look and move on.

Now, before I tell you why the hunter was wrong, the audience was wrong, and Representative Phillips was wrong, in what they all said and did and did not do an did not say, a brief digression. This is advice I’ve since passed on to a few different elected officials, and now I’m giving it to you.

Always have a last question of your own, in case the actual last question is a real bummer like this one was. Don’t have a person ready with an ideal last question that you turn to at the end. That is smarmy and dishonest. But much less smarmy and reasonably less dishonest is to have a question in your head. A question someone once asked you, that you have a kick-ass excellent answer to, the kind of answer you want your public appearance to end on.

Then, if the last question you actually get at the actual event is a great one, and you don’t blow the answer, you are good. Be done. But if that last question is like this guy’s question, so that the public event will end with a squirm and a whimper instead of an inspiring exposition and a tear in the eye, pull out your emergency question. “Thanks for that. By the way, something someone said earlier reminded me of a question I got the other day, but no one touched on here. It is about kittens and how much I love them, and how I saved some baby bunnies from a snake the other day…” or whatever.

Anyway, yes, the deer hunter was wrong because he made the case that a tactical rifle, sometimes called an “assault weapon,” was the best way to kill a deer. This is not true. Tactical rifles trade off effectiveness of accurate killing of a large mammal at a modest distance for lightness, shortness, ability to point around and blast scary things that are near you as you prance through a dangerous situation wearing armor going “hut hut hut” like this:

Meanwhile, to kill a deer, you use the following elements.

1) You hide in a tree overlooking a place deer are expected.

2) The deer pass into the zone of expectation, walking slowly, frequently stopping to browse or listen and smell the surrounding environment.

3) You point a large, long barreled, highly accurate, high caliber rifle with good sights at the deer and when ready pull the trigger.

Like this (fear not, no deer are harmed in this video):

The guy at the Town Hall was wrong.

The audience was wrong. Why? Because — wait for it — no one gasped. Well, I did, and I got a stern look or two, but nobody else did. What should have happened is that everyone should have done that thing they do in the British Parliament. Like this:

Or words to that effect.

What should Representative Phillips have done? I’m not sure. I wanted him to walk up to the guy and slap him, but that is exactly the opposite of what the mild mannered and friendly Phillips would ever do.

Maybe he could have sung a song, like this:

Ok, that was all very fun but I do want to get very serious for a moment. I have a specific suggestion I’d like to give my fellow Town Hall goers and activists interested in gun violence.

Go get hypnotized. Get a post-hypnotic suggestion that has the following effect. Next time you are in a public space and someone takes the floor and belittles any project or suggestion to reduce gun violence by limiting access to tactical assault weapons, high capacity magazines, or similar, or to reduce suicide and accidental discharge of weapons in homes by requiring that guns be firmly secured, or anything along those lines, you will suddenly believe that you are in a room where the entire audience is made up of the loved ones and survivors of Sandy Hook massacre, the Red Lake massacre, the Virginia Tech massacre, the Fort Hood massacre, the Aurora theater massacre, the Columbine massacre, the Parkland massacre, and all the other massacres.

You would imagine, through this post hypnotic suggestion, that there are thousands of people in the room with you, all of whom had lost a child, a parent, a sibling, a student, a teacher, a co-worker, a neighbor, or some other loved one or close acquaintance, to a shooter who would never have been a shooter if this country had an entirely different gun culture and entirely different gun laws.

Imagine the person making the case about his choice of deer hunting weapon in a room full of those people.

And in the balconies, the vast balconies that surround this room that has now come indelibly into your head, are the loved ones of the gun suicide victims, which accumulate at the rate of thousands of years, and the victims of accidental shootings, which happen at about the rate of one a day, and the victims of crimes carried out with guns, which are frequent only in societies where there is a strong and vibrant gun culture like the US. There are millions and millions of people in these balconies that extend far beyond your ability to see.

And that person, who is comparing his deer hunting needs to the sorrow of all those millions, is in front of the room making his case.

Imagine this unthinking hunter explaining how it is important to him to have his choice of hunting rifle, even if that meant decreased lack of safety for others.

No, let me try that again. Imagine this asshole yammering on and on about how he needs a fucking assault rifle to get “his deer” even if that means that we continue to live in a society in which babies and college students and everyone in between are occasionally gunned down in a massacre, and tens of thousands of others die annually through gun violence, including suicide, in order to allow let that piece of shit have is goddamn toy.

Yeah, like that. Imagine it that way. I want all of you, in the actual audience when the actual deer hunter stands up to make his case, to imagine being in that room full of those people.

Then, react.

Because, you know what? They are in that room with you, in spirit. They need you to assume you are with them, watching, listening, waiting, for you do do the right thing. And the right thing is not a stern look, or to look away, or to sit quietly.

The right thing to do is to gasp, then take a breath, then let it out. Shout that person down. End that conversation. Make that conversation highly unlikely to happen again in that room with those people. This is not a matter of respecting someone’s voice. It is a matter of insisting that a misguided believe that a the needs of a hobby are equal to the lives of thousands and thousands of victims of our out of control gun culture.

React.

The real story is much worse than I remember. The dentist and his Zimbabwean hunting guide used a dead elephant to attract Cecil out of the park, where the dentist shot the lion with an arrow. It took about a half a day for the lion to die, and apparently it was pretty nasty. The hunt itself was illegal.

There is a special circumstance in which one can possibly excuse a hunt. There are times when close quarter game management requires putting an animal down. One case I remember from South Africa involved an older and very large white rhino. The animal was actually attacking other rhinos because it had gotten its limbic functions messed up with dementia, and probably was nearly blind.

When grandpa is really old, nearly blind, and very confused with dementia, he may do inconvenient things, and may even hurt himself, but he does not careen across the landscape ramming his giant nose horn into endangered animals. So, that particular rhino needed to be put down.

The people who ran the preserve where this rhino lived did not run a hunting camp, but rather, they were trying to save the rhinos. Given the circumstance, they got a legal hunting permit, and sold it to an American for $10,000, which they then used for helping to save more rhinos.

The American came out. They pretended to track the big old rhino for a few days, then let the guy shoot it. When the game keepers who managed this told me the story less than a year after it happened, they were literally in tears over the death of their rhino, and felt horrible about their role in it, but they knew it would have been them shooting it themselves under the circumstances, and this way they helped to fill in the enormous funding gap that occurs because outrage over hunting rare animals is massive but the dollars that spring from the outraged are rare.

Anyway, the killing of Cecil the lion was not that. Not even close.

And, it is now memorialized and described in the book Lion Hearted: The Life and Death of Cecil & the Future of Africa’s Iconic Cats.

“Until the lion has its own storyteller, tales of the lion hunt will always glorify the hunter.” —Zimbabwean proverb

In 2015, an American hunter named Walter Palmer shot and killed a lion named Cecil. The lion was one of dozens slain each year in Zimbabwe, which legally licenses the hunting of big cats. But Cecil’s death sparked unprecedented global outrage, igniting thousands of media reports about the peculiar circumstances surrounding this hunt. At the center of the controversy was Dr. Andrew Loveridge, the zoologist who had studied Cecil for eight years. In Lion Hearted, Loveridge pieces together, for the first time, the fascinating life and murky details of this beloved lion’s slaying.

In the tradition of Born Free and Gorillas in the Mist, Lion Hearted chronicles Loveridge’s long acquaintance with a host of charismatic lions that his team has tracked, often from birth to death. Born and raised in Zimbabwe, Loveridge learned to love predators at the knee of his father, an eminent herpetologist who stored baby crocodiles in the family bathtub. After earning his doctorate at Oxford, he seized an invitation to study the lions of Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park. There he meets Stumpy Tail, who, despite her name, has the dignity of the Queen of the Animal Kingdom; Dynamite, a venerable coalition leader who, muscled out by younger males, sets off on an incredible thirty-seven-day, 137-mile journey to find a new home; and Kataza, who escapes another lion’s claws, and whom Loveridge twice saves from death at the hands of humans. And, of course, there is Cecil. Dethroned in an epic battle, he forms an alliance with a former rival. He also becomes a favorite of photographers and tourists—until the fateful night when a Minnesota dentist and his hunting guide entice the trusting cat with a free meal.

Loveridge unravels the complexities of lion society and the dangers the cats face both within their ranks and from the outside world. Despite their ruthless reputation, lions can form deep emotional bonds—females live in prides, a sisterhood of mothers, daughters, sisters, and aunts that can exhibit military precision when hunting in formation; males band together in coalitions to vie for control of territory and the female prides. They also display a wide range of emotional behavior, including mourning the loss of their mates, partners, and cubs.

Africa’s lion population is estimated to have shrunk by 43 percent in the last twenty years. There may now be as few as 20,000 wild lions across the entire continent—far fewer than the number of elephants. While deploring the killing of lions for sport, Loveridge does not believe that banning trophy hunting, by itself, will halt the decline of Africa’s lion populations. He sees greater threats in human population growth, the loss of habitat to agriculture, and the illegal trade in lion body parts for use in traditional medicines. And he offers concrete proposals for averting the lion’s extinction.

More than a gripping detective story, Lion Hearted is an exploration of humanity’s relationship with the natural world and an attempt to keep this majestic species from disappearing. “Lions are one of the most beloved animals on the planet,” Loveridge observes. “They are the national symbol of no fewer than fifteen countries. . . . Surely, we can think of a better way to save the wild animals we love besides killing them.”

Check out Lion Hearted: The Life and Death of Cecil & the Future of Africa’s Iconic Cats.

A Texan who won an auction to shoot an endangered black rhino in Namibia has been given a US permit to import the trophy if he kills one.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service said hunting an old rhino bull helps to increase the population.
There was an outcry when Corey Knowlton won the auction last year, with animal rights activists decrying it. It’s not yet clear when the hunt will happen.

Namibia is home to some 1,500 black rhino, a third of the world’s total.

The US agency issuing the permit said that importing the carcass from Namibia would be allowed because it met criteria under the Endangered Species Act of benefiting conservation.

Since first considering whether to issue the permit in November, the agency has received petitions with around 152,000 signatures demanding that it be denied.

UPDATE: The identity of the hunter has been revealed over social media.

Dallas (CNN) — Corey Knowlton is on edge sitting inside a Las Vegas hotel room, surrounded by a private security detail, explaining why he spent $350,000 for the chance to hunt a black rhinoceros in the southern African nation of Namibia.
“If I sound emotional, it’s because I have people threatening my kids,” Knowlton told CNN. “It’s because I have people threatening to kill me right now [that] I’m having to talk to the FBI and have private security to keep my children from being skinned alive and shot at.”

Knowlton was outed over social media as the winner of the Dallas Safari Club’s auction for a black rhino hunting permit from the Namibian government last weekend. It didn’t take long for the threats and vitriol to start pouring in.

“You are a BARBARIAN. People like you need to be the innocent that are hunted,” posted one woman on Knowlton’s Facebook page.
Some sounded even more sinister. “I find you and I will KILL you,” read another threat. “I have friends who live in the area and will have you in there sights also,” wrote another commenter.

here is a black rhino in Namibia that will be shot by a sports hunter who won an auction for the privilege. The permit to kill the rhino was won in competitive bidding for the sum of $350,000. All proceeds will be donated to support the rhino conservation efforts in Namibia.

There has been an expected outcry on the internet over this event. There are people who hunt big game some (but not all) of them have little problem with this, and then there is everybody else, and most people find the idea of killing a black rhino, which are endangered, abhorrent.

I want to relate the story of another rhino, a white rhino, that was killed after a similar auction, elsewhere in Africa. I won’t give details of time, place, organizations involved, or individuals involved because I feel that the reaction to this sort of thing could spill over in inappropriate ways. The point of relating this story is to add some nuance to the situation.

There is a rhino conservation project with which I’m intimately familiar. It was initiated years ago by a charismatic conservationist and expert on the rhino. The project has three major components. First, there is a large area fenced off from the surrounding landscape on which both white and black rhinos roam free. You might wonder if rhinos can roam free in a fenced off area, but the area is quite large, nearly 90,000 acres. This is about the size of the city of Montreal or Detroit. Many areas in Africa in which “wild game” live have fences around them, though there is a trend to take down the fences especially where the enclosed areas are on the small side.

Second, there is a larger project that defines a biosphere, including the aforementioned reserve, of nearly 15,000 square kilometers. This is about the size of Connecticut. The biosphere includes numerous game parks, some that allow hunting, and a number of human-use areas, but with restrictions of what sorts of uses are allowed. The biosphere includes one of the more unique floral communities in the world with a high degree of endemism, and is the home of the usual range of African animals including rhinos and several antelope species, though I don’t think there are any elephants there at the moment. This is also home to an impressive avian and reptilian fauna.

Third, there are a number of tourist destinations within the biosphere that bring income to the local communities and help run the conservation projects, including one at the aforementioned rhino conservation area. Some of the tourist destinations, as mentioned, accommodate hunting. In addition to the tourist areas there are also nature-oriented schools and childrens’ programs, though I’m not very familiar with them.

The rhino reserve is big, but so are rhinos. Several years ago, a large and older white rhino took over the breeding rights of a large number of female rhinos in this reserve. White rhinos are not especially aggressive, but when it comes to mating competition they are fairly typical as male mammals go. This rhino was doing damage to other males on the reserve, and was actually starting to damage some of the females. I don’t think any rhinos had been killed but it seemed inevitable at the time.

And, as it turns out, this particular rhino was sterile. This constituted a serious threat to the otherwise very successful rhino breeding program, which had been producing rhinos for introduction into area where they were previously hunted out.

One might think that you could just pen up a rhino like this, keeping it separate from the other animals, perhaps making it an “ambassador rhino” for tourists to see up close. Unfortunately, that turns out to be more difficult than it sounds. Rhinos are large powerful animals and this one was especially large. Black rhinos are very aggressive. Once penned up it would spend considerable effort to escape, and would likely have a certain degree of success. A smaller adult male black rhino that was raised as an orphan, rescued after hunters killed its mother, was easily able to escape from a well built corral a few years ago, at this same reserve. It did considerable damage, focusing mainly on the cars in the nearby parking lot. A white rhino female, also an orphan, raised in the same facility was released at maturity, bred, and the last time I saw her was wandering the bush with her new baby and doing quite well.

The point is this: If you raise large mammals, there often comes a time when one of them has to be put down owing to any of a number of different reasons. The bush in Africa, for the most part, is highly managed. Unmanaged areas tend to have very little in the way of larger wild animals because either they are poached out or the animals die off because populations grow too large and are then affected by drought or disease. If there were fewer people, less human settlement, and no fences, these die-offs would be offset by better conditions in other regions, and animals would later migrate from high-population areas into decimated areas once the latter were ecologically restored naturally.

So, the difficult decision was made to put the large white male rhino down. A permit from the government was obtained. And then the people managing the reserve decided, legally and as per the permitting process, to allow a hunter to put the animal down, which would have the same final effect but produce several thousand dollars in funds for the conservation program. The fee in that case was, if I recall correctly, $10,000.

I spent an evening listening to the story of how that went, told to me by the ranger who was tasked with getting the hunter and the rhino in the same place. It would have been his job to put the rhino down had the decision not been made to bring in the hunter, and he did not relish the idea either way. As he told me the story of how the hunt went, he paused a few times to cry. This, the killing of the rhino in any manner, was something he did not want to do, even though he agreed that it had to be done.

It would be irresponsible for me to relate the details of what happened, but I’ll tell you in private if you buy me a beer. I can say a little about it. After several days of tracking the rhino, stopping several times for meals and other refreshment, the hunter was finally brought to a point where his quarry was visible and in range. He took a couple of shots but missed. The ranger was ready the whole time to dispatch the animal with a good shot in the event that the hunter merely wounded it. In the end, the ranger shot the rhino, and photographs were taken. If I recall correctly, there was no trophy; I’m pretty sure that would have been illegal.

The $10,000 was employed usefully and made a difference.

I’ve spent considerable time on rhino reserves in this area, and with the people who run them. I have never been to a rhino reserve in Namibia but I have met people who worked in that country on conservation, and I’ve worked in a reserve on the Namibian border. I can promise you that there is not a single person involved in rhino conservation in the region who wants to see any rhino put down for any reason, but sometimes, apparently, it has to happen.

Some of the responses people have had to the Namibian black rhino killing seem to lack a sufficient understanding of the situation. This is perceived as a bad thing to do primarily for two reasons. First, it is wrong to kill an endangered animal. This is a bit naive because a given rhino is not endangered; all of them are. Being endangered is something that happens to a species, not an individual. A given animal may be of great value to the perpetuation of the species, while another may be a detriment to conservation efforts. The second common response is that the rhino should just be left alone. In the case of the white rhino mentioned above, that was not an option. The idea that leaving the rhinos alone is untenable given the current situation of human-animal conflict, ecology and climate, and habitat loss. The only places where there are rhinos at all in Africa are places where management is intensive. Sometimes intensive management means taking down an animal.

Namibia puts down a small number of black rhinos every year, about three. These are usually hunted but the permits are not issued outside the country. This particular case is the first time that has happened, and the amount of money being raised is considerably more for that reason. The black rhino being hunted is a “geriatric male” who would normally be earmarked for being killed as part of the conservation program. Not all of the people involved in Namibian conservation think things should be done this way, but generally, those that do not agree are hard pressed to propose alternatives.

It is certainly reasonable to question whether or not sports hunting should be allowed at all, or if specific highly publicized hunts like that of the Namibian black rhino should happen. Even if animals need to be hunted out of a given area for population management, this can be done as part of wild game harvesting, for the most part. Having said that, there is a counter-argument. You can’t really incorporate large older sterile and ornery rhinos in the meat trade very easily. And, of course, there is the money. I think one of the things that troubles people the most, and that troubles me and the ranger who told me the story of the white rhino, is the strong contrast between a big game hunting mentality and a conservation mentality. Even if it can be argued that a great deal of effective conservation occurs in the context of maintaining hunting as a sport, the point of view of big game hunters and conservationists is often dramatically different.

My opinion on the matter is that the rhino should not be put down, but probably has to be even if I don’t like the idea. I’m happy to see $350,000 put into Namibian rhino conservation … that will go a long way … but I think there is a bigger problem here. $350,000 is nothing at the international level for conservation of rhinos. It simply should not be the case that creating this sort of spectacle is necessary to fund black rhino conservation at this level. It is not OK that $350,000 is small change for some lucky hunter, but a huge sum for conservation. That is the problem.

There has been a discussion about the idea of developing a federal wildlife stamp that bird watchers or other nature enthusiasts could buy, either voluntarily or as a requirement for access to certain wildlife areas, to supplement wildlife protection projects. Such a stamp would also bring non-hunters to the table and secure a position for them as stakeholders in conservation policy making. While hunters clearly contribute to wildlife protection (up to the point that they pull the trigger and shoot a wild thing, that is!) it is also true that non-hunters both benefit from wildlife protection and would like to do more to make a contribution. The current situation in many states seems to be that hunters have more of an influence in conservation policy than perhaps they should given that they are only one part of the equation. But licensing fees for hunting, including duck stamp sales, may give hunters more of a voice in the process than one would expect in considering the diverse range of individuals who support and benefit from conservation. A wildlife stamp would help increase available funds for these projects and result in a more even distribution of influence.

Again, go read the post for more details.

But I went anyway. Curiosity.

Our quarry was the elusive and tasty woodcock. I find it funny that hunters, prone to dick jokes, hunt this particular bird. And not only do they shoot the woodcock but later they eat it. But I digress.

We were after woodcock, which is a tiny woodland bird with long beak and an overall sandpiper-like body. We went down to an island on the Hudson River where there was both good woodcock habitat and good duck habitat. The idea was this: We’d check out the duck habitat, observe the ducks, figure out where a good place to shoot the ducks from might be, work out the approach to the duck-spot, and so on, and while we were there if any woodcock dared to spring into view as they tend to so late in the afternoon, the hour before sunset, we’d blast them. And later, eat them. In a non sexual way, of course. Meanwhile, the intelligence gathered regarding the ducks would be used by my hunting companion during duck hunting season, which as I understood it was coming up.

It was on this trip to the river-island, by the way, that I learned that duck hunters are not allowed to shoot the duck while it is in the water. You have to wait until it flies into the air. That told me quite a bit about what bird hunting entails … it is as much, or more, about shooting as it is about hunting. I also suddenly realized the meaning of the term “sitting duck.” Prior to that I had not thought about it much.

So we checked out the duck habitat, and wandered back and forth among the clearing and brushy woods and water spots, mostly quietly, when suddenly we saw the crane. I had never seen a crane before. It came out of nowhere, and in just a few long and slow wing beats traversed the open sky and disappeared beyond the treeline. The moment the bird came to view my companion raised his shotgun and threw the cocking mechanism and safety. By the third wing beat he clearly had a bead on the bird. He kept his aim steady as the bird flew out of sight, but he never pulled the trigger.

“What was that?” I asked.

“I dunno. But I’m pretty sure it’s not in season.”

“That why you didn’t shoot it?”

“I guess.”

I was impressed that he was able to raise the gun and not fire it. That was good. That meant that if there was some endangered species flying around among non-endangered species that were being hunted, a hunter, with skill, could avoid shooting the endangered ones and only shoot the non-endangered one. I wondered if all hunters were this skilled. Or not.

Then, moments, even seconds, later, something else flew into view and he raised his shotgun and fired.

BAM!!!

And a thing came reeling down out of the sky landing pretty close to us.

“Woodcock!” he yelled. I was impressed that he was able to spot the bird and fire so quickly and actually hit the thing. Yes, yes, this sport was about shooting more than anything else.

So we walked over to it and as we got close I could see it still moving, either not quite dead or twitching from nerves. And as we got close enough I could see that it was not a woodcock. It wasn’t even a bird. It was a bat, trying to crawl away using its wings. The hunter stepped on it and killed it.

“Oh well,” he said.

I was no longer impressed.

Stop the Kentucky Sandhill Crane hunt. Click here for more information.

Here’s a detail:

The arrows are thin darts of wood, often made of palm. Large marantacae leaves serve as a bowl and as a ladle. The poison includes a large number of ingredients, and the specific recipes vary a great deal (and are often guarded). This concoction included the juice pounded from a vine that contains strychnine. About seven arrows are fired at a monkey, up in the trees, per strike (on average) and it takes about two strikes to bring down a monkey. Several dozen arrows are made at once, and when they are used they are not recovered (they rarely fall all the way back to the ground). They are fletched with a fragment of a leaf passed through a slit cut near the base with metal arrow or small knife. It is not uncommon for the archer to run along the ground shooting up into the trees as the monkeys move quickly across canopy leaping from branch to branch. For certain species of monkeys, the dominant male will make a stand and be th most likely killed. Also, females with infants are fairly vulnerable. Often, the monkey is wounded enough to die some time over the next day or so. When it does so, it falls to the ground and quickly starts to rot. The Efe’s dogs can then easily find the dead monkey from the smell. Monkey mean is very tough, lean, and has a strong taste.

There have been many studies of what impresses us about members of the opposite sex, but to my knowledge these studies are largely centered on Western societies, and never of foragers. There has been consideration of this issue, but no large scale surveys. One of the reasons for this is that you can’t do large scale surveys in so-called “small scale” societies, because there are just not enough people.

But I can provide a few insights on what might be impressive to the ladies (things about men) in forager societies. Keep in mind, however, that this is strictly speculation, though informed speculation.

I had previously talked about sharing, and here I’d like to expand on one aspect of sharing, the so called “distribution and redistribution system,” and it’s meaning in relation to courting.

There is a pattern that has been observed in virtually all forager groups, whereby men divide up the spoils of the hunt in a certain, largely ritualized, way, then pass these packages of meat over to the women, who then redistribute the meat in a manner commensurate with the needs of members of the group. I’d like to describe how this works specifically with the Efe Pygmies as an exemplar for foragers in general. Many aspects of what I’m describing here are nearly universal among foragers. Moreover, I’m going to specifically talk about “group hunting” when several men are involved in one cooperative hunting episode. However, the principles involved here actually apply to other forms of hunting as well, to varying degrees.

The most common Efe group hunt is called “mota.” In this method of hunting, a number of men spread out in the forest to surround an area, with one man (the “beater”) going to the center of this area with one or more dogs. The dogs are released by the beater, sent out into this area and called back again and again. Game that is roused by the dogs are then subject to being shot at with arrows by the archers who had previously spread out. If an animal is hit, help from other hunters or from the dogs may be solicited, and the animal run to ground and dispatched.

The animals are usually carried back to near the camp (these animals are small and can be carried whole by one person) where two people (not the hunter himself) butcher the animal. The animal is cut into standard pieces: The head, each front limb and body quarter, each hind limb and body quarter, and an area of the middle of the animal including the last few ribs (this is considered to be the “special” part, possibly because it contains the backstrap/loin meat).

Sometimes the head is left with one of the forelimbs. Sometimes the back two quarters are kept together.

Each of these parts is then given to a different man depending on a set of rules that specify a link between a man’s role in obtaining this meat and a particular body part. The rules vary from place to place and presumably time to time in Pygmydom, but it may be, for instance, that the man who called and organized the hunt, usually the beater, gets the front left limb, the guy who trained/owned the dog that ran down the animal a back quarter, etc. The only really consistent thing across the different rule sets is that there is usually a key hunter (the person who first shot the animal, for instance) who gets this middle back piece.

One striking aspect of this is that efforts are made and culturally determined to ensure that a lot of people were involved in the kill of any animal, even by a lone hunter. Here are some of the rules that ensure this:

1) No man carries his own arrows. The metal tipped arrows the Pygmies use for hunting ground animals are each made by someone else. Therefore, if you shoot an animal, another man besides yourself was “involved.”

2) The dog is owned by a particular person.

3) A ritual fire is burned before the hunt by a particular person.

4) The beater is a particular person. These three — dog owner, fire burner, and beater, may be the same person, two people, or three people.

5) The animal is supposed to be butchered by individuals other than the prime hunter.

6) The animal is supposed to be butchered OUTSIDE OF CAMP (even it it runs into camp and dies there … it would be dragged outside of the camp for butchery) by TWO people. (Not one, even though that would be possible.)

7) Oh, then there is the guy who shot the animal!

All of this ensures that even if you hunt alone, multiple people will be involved.

Now, we are guessing that the ladies are concerned with the hunting, and the meat, and thus with the quality of hunters, in some way. So the first approximation is that the women measure the hunting ability of the men and take this into account during courtship. Previous studies have not supported this idea.

One idea that may work is that the ladies pay attention to the man’s package. What I mean by this, is they notice what package of meat he comes in to the camp with, which would give the woman an idea of his role in the hunt, and thus information to assess his hunting ability.

However, there is a catch to this: I have observed that the men hardly ever walk into camp with the pieces of meat that actually represents what they actually did for the hunt. If this is a signal, the men are being dishonest.

One idea that may work to get past this problem is that the men are being dishonest but the women can’t figure this out. If the men came into camp and verbally claimed a certain role in the hunt, the women (and others) could easily detect the lie. But by simply carrying this package of meat into camp and not saying anything, and handing this meat over to a particular woman (someone they are trying to impress) they are not as easily caught in the lie.

However, I don’t believe this for a second. I think the women would still be able to tell who is being honest, or at the very least, the women would understand that the whole exercise is a charade, and simply not use this as information in choosing a mate.

So this brings us to one more idea that may help understand this, and I think the explanation for what is going on.

Suppose a young man is a typical hunter, and is courting a prospective mate who is hanging around in camp (visiting her sister, perhaps). As a typical hunter, there really is not much he can do to increase his role in the hunt, other than simply showing up and doing his job. Most of the hunters are excellent shots, and although older guys do better than younger guys, how you do over a series of a few hunts is also very largely a matter of luck.

But suppose this young guy comes into camp each day for two or three days in a row with a real nice package, something that would indicate an important role in the hunt. But he did not earn this package by what he did during the hunt. Instead, his male relatives and friends give him the package, knowing that he’s interested in the woman likely to be in camp on their return.

This indicates nothing about his hunting ability to the woman. But it does indicate something much more important: It indicates that he is not a complete jerk. It indicates that he has friends, that they will give him a break, and that he is part of a coalition of cooperative foragers. That is what makes a good mate.

Indeed, if women made choices among men based hunting ability, then they would be making poor choices. First, hunting ability might be important, but many other things are important as well. Second, as noted above, most forager men are pretty good at hunting. How well someone does is more a matter of luck than ability. So, hunting is not a trait that varies meaningfully or that can be assessed accurately.

Having said that, among the Efe, there is a form of hunting that is done by only some men, and that produces on its own about the same amount of meat as all the other hunting efforts combined, on an annual basis. This is the killing of an elephant. It is hard to do, far more dangerous than other forms of hunting, and highly productive. I suspect a lot of women would not be interested in such a mate. The guy must be crazy, after all. But some are. It is very rare to find Efe men with more than one wife (it is allowed but very uncommon). An Efe man does not usually have more than one wife, but when he does, it is often because he is an elephant hunter.

An Evolutionary View of Humans 1: Introduction
An Evolutionary View of Humans 2: Sleep
An Evolutionary View of Humans 3: Remembering Names
An Evolutionary View of Humans 4: Sharing
An Evolutionary View of Humans 5: The Opposite Sex

Hunting and Human Evolution

Why is hunting thought to be a key factor in human evolution? Partly because it was once widely believed that among the primates, only humans ate a fair amount of meat (not counting insects). If human hunting and meat consumption was unique among primates, then the evolution and effects of this behavior could easily be understood as vitally important. Moreover, a lot of fieldwork and thinking about human evolution centered on Europe, where cave paintings of animals were common, with some hunting themes seemingly represented in these paintings.

Of course, the uniqueness of human hunting behavior is now understood to be a gross overstatement. There is hunting of mammals and the like by several primates, and in particular, chimpanzee hunting (mainly of monkeys) is fairly common.

We now know that almost all of the important events that have happened in human evolution (since the chimp-human split) happened in Africa, and that the European record, while interesting, is not the primary record for these events. Therefore, one would think that the European bias would be somewhat reduced in current thinking (the fact that it is not is of great interest, but I’ll not go into that here!).

But I think the most important reason for hunting taking center stage in the study of human evolution, to what appears to be an unjustified level, has to do with the nature of “Man” and the nature of “Hunting.”

Have you ever been hunting, or been along with others while they did so? I’ve accompanied both North American game hunters (armed with firearms) and Efe foragers (armed with arrows and spears). Most of my time has been in the latter pursuit, and in a few instances, I joined the hunt not just as an observer but as a participant/observer.

I don’t think hunting is a normal human activity in the same way that hunting is a normal lion activity, or a normal wolf activity. Humans seem to react to hunting in a very powerful way, similar to how humans react to violence in general (and hunting seems to be fairly violent) or to certain kinds of sporting events (as observer or as participant). A lot of yelling and screaming and jumping around can ensue under certain conditions. Yes, most forager groups disdain bragging and avoid giving too much credit to any individual for being a great hunter, but the visceral reaction to, say, a near miss or to those moments when the hunted animal turns on the hunter (usually only briefly and to the animal’s final chagrin), is powerful and can’t be covered up or put into the background by cultural norms of modesty.

The Real Reason We Hunt?

Is this the case in humans? There is no way to know this at this time. There certainly are groups of human foragers (in the ethnographic present) who rely so much on meat that hunting is basically a form of subsistence, no matter what other function it may have. Even when plant foods are abundant, meat is still important to almost every group of forager (and non-forager, likely) as a source of “complete proteins.” All traditional human hunting is imbued with ritual and ceremony that exceeds that generally linked with gathering. So in the end, there is evidence that hunting can be and often is an ecologically important activity for human foragers. There is also evidence that hunting is (probably) always an important social activity, mainly among men.

[Ask me later: Why a photograph of the Afrikaans Language Monument in this particular place, at this particular time…]

“Man The Hunter”

When a 19th or 20th century guy archaeologist holds a beautifully made, often phallic-shaped obsidian spearhead in his hands, feeling it’s heft and running his fingers along the still sharp, elongated, stone-hard edge, he is bonding with another guy, of a much earlier time period, who could probably have killed his quarry just as effectively with a sharp stick, but opted instead to produce, carry around, display, and use this really cool piece of gear. So it’s a guy thing, and it’s a gear thing. It’s sort of a guys-with-gear thing.

Hunting isn’t likely the driving force in human evolutionary change, but it can certainly be an important human activity that is related to human evolutionary change.

One final brief note on something to be addressed at another time: The assumption that hunting by men is central to human evolution has led many to assume that hunting drove the evolution of tool use, and thus, tool use is a male thing. This contradicts the best evidence we have about technology in primates, which suggests that females, not males, are the tool makers, tool users, and the teachers (or at least facilitaters) who pass this ability on to subsequent generations. So, gear, it turns out, may be more of a girl thing after all.