Facts About Hunting and Fishing

In the United States, so-called sport hunters kill 100-250 million wild animals every year. They include mourning doves (25%) and squirrels (15%), followed by quail, rabbits, ducks, and woodchucks. Deer constitute 3% of the animals killed by hunters.

Approximately 92% of sport hunters are men, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Hunters spend a lot of time hiding: wearing camouflage, waiting in ambush, and killing with long-range, high-tech weapons. They use various ruses like the urine of a doe in heat, "the rattle", and tree stands (deer); wooden decoys (ducks); mimic calls (turkeys and ducks); and sunflower seeds (mourning doves) to entice their largely defenseless prey and make it easy to kill them.

Most of the animals caught are not dangerous to the sport hunter. Even animals who pose a threat (e.g., bears, wildcats) would rather run than fight, unless they're cornered or protecting their young.

Forty-five percent of hunters do their killing on public lands supported by taxpayers. Recreational hunting is allowed on 14% of the National Wildlife Refuge System. The amount hunters pay for hunting licenses, duck stamps, etc., does not cover the cost of hunting programs and game warden salaries.

Approximately 60 million animals are wounded and left to bleed to death, die of infection or thirst, or starve. Many babies are orphaned and left to starve. In addition, hunters often kill the mates of animals who mate for life (e.g., geese, foxes, coyotes). For every animal a hunter kills and recovers, at least two are wounded; many die later from blood loss, infection, or starvation. Up to 50% of deer struck with arrows by archery hunters are left to die in the woods.

In the last two centuries, sport hunters have helped wipe out dozens of species and brought others close to extinction. Hunters often kill the natural predators of animals that they later claim have become too populous.

Hundreds of people are killed and thousands are injured in hunting accidents every year-the vast majority through carelessness (hunters shooting themselves or getting shot by other hunters), not through animal attacks.

State wildlife agencies are pro-hunting and deliberately act to artificially increase the size of deer herds so there will be more to kill for hunters: by clear-cutting forests to increase their food supply, and gender manipulation (allowing more bucks than does to be killed during hunting season). Deer are polygamous, and a high doe-to-buck ratio leads to a larger herd, which means increased sales from hunting licenses. Deer hunting costs about $25 per pound of meat.

Only 6% of Americans hunt, but 31% participate in some type of humane wildlife-related recreation, and spend about 38 billion dollars a year. In a 1995 Associated Press survey, 51% agreed that it is always wrong to hunt an animal for sport.

Other types of hunting are Internet, canned, trophy, contest kills, pigeon shoots, hound hunting, bear baiting and field coursing. Internet, or remote-controlled hunting, allows the "hunter" to use his computer to fire at a real-life fenced-in animal many miles away. Canned hunting involves shooting captive, hand-reared animals at close range. Trophy hunting, such as the current scramble for global warming-threatened polar bears, involves slaughtering animals in order to display them in trophy rooms. Contest kills involve the shooting of wild animals such as prairie dogs or coyotes for prizes. Live pigeon shoots are another contest in which pigeons are shot by the thousands at close range, often dying a slow, agonizing death. Hound hunting uses packs of dogs to corner animals such as bears and bobcats so hunters can shoot them at point-blank range. Bear baiting lures bears in with food offerings, whereupon the hidden hunter shoots them. Field coursing is a hunting competition using dogs to chase rabbits, foxes, and other animals, allowing them to catch the terrified animals and tear them apart.

The aquatic form of hunting is fishing. Approximately 70% of global fish stocks are "over-exploited", "fully exploited", "depleted", or recovering from prior over-exploitation. At least 44,000 albatrosses are entangled by tuna long-line fisheries every year. Fish feel pain as well as fright. Being hooked hurts fish. Fish that are let go after being hooked (catch-and-release fishing) can die from injury or shock or exhaustion, and often lose their protective outer coating. Fishing harms other animals such as birds and otters, who swallow hooks and plastic bait or become entangled in lost fishing line. The flesh of most fish contains pesticides and heavy metals that can cause serious diseases like cancer in humans.

How can you help get out the truth about hunting and fishing? By writing letters to the editor; sending e-mail to, or phoning your legislators to support animal protection legislation; informing managers of stores that sell hunting and fishing gear that you are unhappy with their policy; and making friends and family aware of the sad plight of millions of wild animals in the U.S. as well as worldwide.