Feb 17, 2022
On today’s episode, Dr. Chris Darimont joins us to talk about a paper he co-authored a year ago that caused some debate among hunters. The paper, “Large carnivore hunting and the social license to hunt”, examines social theory around perceptions of hunting. We chat with Chris about some of his reflections on the paper one year after publication and what he thinks its insights can teach us about how hunters should engage in thoughtful dialogue with non-hunters and ensure we are being steadfast and respectful ambassadors of hunting. In the conservation segment, I take a bit of a deep dive into the recent initiative to suspend the black bear hunt in California (47:25). I go over some of the rationale in Petition 2021-027 submitted by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and offer some reflections on the current state of data, what is needed moving forward, and what you can do to get involved. The California Fish and Game Commission is meeting today (February 17, 2022) to hear the petition, so be sure to follow up on the results of the petition and tune in to later episodes for updates. I also give you a discount code that can be used on Hunt To Eat's black bear hunting t-shirt to show your support for bear hunting.
Today, we chatted about:
- Paper: “Large carnivore hunting and the social license to hunt”: https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cobi.13657
- Article: “Citing wildfires, animal welfare activists petition California officials to stop bear hunting”: https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article257512894.html
- Article: “Editorial: Are California’s bears in peril? Suspend hunting season until we know”: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-02-05/lets-not-hunt-more-bears-until-we-know-how-many-are-there
- Humane Society of the United States black bear petition: https://www.humanesociety.org/sites/default/files/docs/HSUS_Letter-Comission-Black-Bear-Hunting.pdf
- CDFW “Black Bear Take Report 2020”: https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=195525&inline
- “Berry Dash – Black Bear Hunting T-Shirt”: https://hunttoeat.com/shop/t-shirts/signature/bear-hunting-t-shirt/