Hunting for Ecological Learning Joel B. Pontius, University of Wyoming, USA; David A. Greenwood, Lakehead University, Canada; Jessica L. Ryan, Laramie, Wyoming, USA; Eli A. Greenwood, Thunder Bay, Canada Abstract Considering (a) the many potential connections between hunting, culture, and environmental thought, (b) how much hunters have contributed to the conservation movement and to the protection of a viable land base, and (c) renewed interest in hunting as part of the wider movement toward eating local, non-industrialized food, we seek to bring hunting out of the margins and into a more visible role as a legitimate focus for environmental learning. To dig beneath the sometimes dismissive stereotypes that often marginalize hunters and hunting, and to explore hunting as a practice of ecological learning, we went straight to the source— we went hunting. Through narrative inquiry, this paper explores the ecological learning experienced in the context of a weeklong pronghorn antelope hunt in traditional Cheyenne and Arapahoe hunting territory in central Wyoming. By juxtaposing four voices, we recreate the hunting cycle and make meaning of our experience learning about ourselves, our environment, our food, and the more- than-human world. Résumé Compte tenu, a) des nombreux liens potentiels entre la chasse, la culture et la pensée environnementale, b) de la contribution considérable des chasseurs au mouvement environnemental et à la protection d’un habitat naturel durable, et c) du regain d’intérêt pour la chasse au sein du mouvement pour la production alimentaire locale et non industrielle, nous cherchons à sortir la chasse de la marginalité et d’en accroître la visibilité dans le but légitime de l’apprentissage environnemental. Afin de passer outre les stéréotypes parfois méprisants qui marginalisent souvent et les chasseurs et la chasse, et d’étudier l’utilité de la chasse dans la pratique de l’apprentissage écologique, nous sommes allés à la source : nous sommes allés à la chasse, directement. Par une enquête narrative, l’article examine les expériences d’apprentissage écologique vécues lors d’une semaine de chasse à l’antilope d’Amérique en territoire de chasse traditionnel cheyenne et arapahos au Wyoming central. En juxtaposant quatre voix, nous avons recréé le cycle de la chasse et tiré une signification de l’expérience d’apprentissage sur nous-mêmes, notre environnement, notre alimentation et le monde au-delà de l’humain. Keywords: hunting, ecological learning, ecological literacy, environmental educa- tion, food literacy, place-based learning, narrative inquiry 80 Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 18, 2013 Hunting for Ecological Learning With humans and other animals, hunting is the original environmental educa- tion. To say so acknowledges a reality almost forgotten in modern and postmod- ern culture. That is, humans coevolved—as both predators and prey—with other animals that also learn (Shepard, 1996). Considering the evolutionary and an- thropological role of hunting in human societies, along with the prominent place of hunting in the worldwide conservation movement, it is surprising how little hunters’ voices have been heard in the contemporary field of environmental education. In the field, hunting has been largely discussed by those speaking out against it, with a few exceptions such as Asfeldt, Henderson, and Urberg (2009), who position hunting as a critical element of a northern Canada place-conscious curriculum, and reports of hunting in research on significant life experiences (Tanner, 1998). Hunting is also part of a broader interest in traditional ecologi- cal knowledge among both Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars. Among many Indigenous peoples, hunting traditions are inseparable from cultural tradi- tions that connect human beings to other animals and to the larger lifeworld; as Marker (2006) suggests in his educational inquiry into the Makah whale hunt, to neglect hunting among Indigenous groups is to neglect culture. The Politics of Hunting Hunting is clearly a controversial topic. It is likely that some readers felt strong emotions for or against the practice upon reading the title of this paper. To briefly frame hunting in its polarity, it has been represented as the essence of domination and the aggressive search for male psychosexual identity (Kheel, 1996), but also as a model of natural connectedness and relatedness between human animals and the land (Nelson, 1998); a moral evil (Regan, 2001), but also a moral good (Cahoone, 2009); a practice that is not environmentally sound (Kretz, 2010), and one that plays a critical role in conserving biodiversity (Petersen, 2000). Perhaps it is because hunting can be a divisive issue, eliciting generalizations and stereotypes, that it is little discussed in contemporary environmental education journals and conferences. Yet like other cultural practices, hunting is poorly understood when discussed in general. Hunting takes form in practice, and draws its meaning from particular people in the context of place, time, and relationship. It is not only people for or against hunting who have disagreements about the practice. For example, women and men who draw on the literature of eco- feminism might, depending on their relationship to food, other hunters, and wild land, either decry or support the practice of hunting. Writing from one eco- feminist stance, Kheel (1996) understands hunting as a male-dominated search for psychosexual identity, and also as a ritual that serves to prepare humans for war. Kheel defines hunting as “a symbolic attempt to assert mastery and control Hunting for Ecological Learning 81 over the natural world” (p. 39). Cerulli (2010), on the other hand, cites ecofemi- nist ideals as his impetus for learning to hunt. Cerulli explains how his journey into hunting began with vegetables, as he grew gardens and tried to “keep the wild at bay,” applying biological insect controls (“beneficial” insects killing “un- desirable” insects in the garden) and living with food losses incurred by whitetail deer and woodchucks. Over time, Cerulli began to perceive the forest as full of diverse wild food that grows on its own accord. On his path to hunting, Cerulli reflects, “I was on the same quest that led me to vegetarianism, the quest for a respectful, holistic way of eating and living in relationship with the world, for right dietary citizenship” (p. 52). Undoubtedly, some hunters embody the char- acteristics Kheel highlights, and some, Cerulli’s motivations. Hunting has also at times divided environmentalists from one stripe from conservationists of another. However, the values underlying these communi- ties overlap substantially in terms of habitat protection and the importance of the more-than-human world to the health of all. In recent years, hunter-based conservation groups have been among the most successful habitat protection activists on earth (Petersen, 2000). While the everyday economics of “develop- ment” and “growth” continue to absorb critical habitat and wild land into the capitalist mode of production, groups such as Ducks Unlimited, Rocky Moun- tain Elk Foundation, Pheasants Forever, and many others continue to protect habitats and ecosystems from destruction. Ducks Unlimited, for example, sup- ports the management of 6,301,016 acres of wetland habitat under conserva- tion easement in Canada, and a total of 12,693,635 acres of wetland habitat in North America (Ducks Unlimited, 2013). Ducks Unlimited reports that they have influenced 108,569,037 acres of wetland habitat, supporting the overall health of freshwater ecosystems. In 2012, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation con- served their 6 millionth acre of elk habitat, concentrating largely on critical win- ter range (Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, 2013). The actions of elk hunters, in this case, have protected some of the most important elk habitat and wild land in the Northern Rockies from development and fragmentation. The conserva- tion of habitat by hunting groups often makes possible access to wild places by non-hunters and hunters alike, and has proven to be a significant defense against population decline in hunted and non-hunted species. While some crit- ics of hunting might object to land conservation strategies that support hunt- ing, it is difficult to deny the importance of habitat protection to the survival of species (humans included) and ecosystems. Additionally, land conservation by groups associated with the tradition of hunting is unrivalled by environmental- ists who take an explicit anti-hunting or animals rights stance toward the issue (Petersen, 2000). Conversations around hunting also connect with the “question of the animal” (Oakley et al., 2010). Recognizing the trap of anthropocentrism and the difficulty of speaking on the behalf of other animals, here we situate the process of hunting, killing, and eating wild animals as one part of a wider conversation 82 Joel B. Pontius, David A. Greenwood, Jessica L. Ryan & Eli A. Greenwood on the relationship between humans and other animals. Through an exploration of hunting and what it means to living and learning, we are also interested in a “blurring of the lines” between nonhuman and human animal forms. We take in lives to live and they become our bodies; we die and our bodies take on other forms: this is the collective story of life on earth. While we acknowledge that for some animal advocates, hunting or eating meat is morally wrong, we are not primarily interested in expanding the debate over the ethics of eating. Rather, we simply wish to include the voices of hunters in a conversation about environmental education, wild land, food, and connection to the more-than- human world. Hunting for Food as Place-Based Ecological Education Across North America and elsewhere, hunting is rooted in the family traditions of diverse cultural groups, especially where biological diversity remains part of the landscape, and where people have access to wild land. In such rural communities, whether Indigenous or non-Indigenous, seasonal hunts play a significant role in local culture, learning to hunt remains a powerful initiation into a particular kind of regional ecological consciousness, and hunted animals often represent a major portion of the family diet. We contend that hunting is itself a unique place-based ecological education. Connecting with rural communities, the authors of this paper are using interest in hunting as a way to root to and deepen local ecological knowledge in formal education systems. Joel and Jess are currently teaching an undergraduate humanities course called “Hunting and Spirituality: Perspectives on Self, Place, Other, and Eating,” which concentrates on sustainability issues in modern food systems, explorations of spirituality as relatedness with the more-than- human world, place-based cultures and worldviews, and hunting/gathering in the natural history of human experience. Joel is also teaching a course called “The Ecology of the Hunt: Understanding Elk, Mule Deer, Pronghorns, and the Animals who Hunt Them,” for local high school students who would otherwise not have a school-based environmental education opportunity in secondary school. The course includes opportunities to meet local natural resource managers, complete habitat improvement projects, and examine the lifestyles of local animals, including humans. These classes are packed with people who want to learn more about the land, and who otherwise find much of the school curriculum abstract and irrelevant to local life. Although hunters hunt for a variety of reasons, hunting for food to eat and learning from the experience is the subject of our inquiry, not recreational or trophy hunting. The local foods movement continues to grow and has become a popular context for much environmental education. Researchers have shown that school and community gardening and related food programs can provide fresh, healthy, and great tasting foods to local communities and that the process Hunting for Ecological Learning 83 of growing, preparing, marketing, and eating food offers a rich menu of cultural and environmental learning opportunities (Williams & Brown, 2011). For access to healthy, fresh food, many people are going local and opting out of the industrialized food chain. Books and films like Fast Food Nation and Food Inc. have helped to spread the message that the ecological impact of industrial food production is a cultural, political, ecological, health, and therefore, educational issue. As the local foods movement has grown, demand for local meat has also increased. In his ground-breaking treatise on food, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollen (2006) reports that large-scale industrialized meat production not only comes with huge social and ecological costs, but has also led to a set of government regulations that severely limit opportunities for small-scale local meat production. In this context—where the demand for local foods (including meat) is growing, and where consumers find their choices to be limited by meat- industry politics—we have begun to see an increasing interest in hunting. The authors consider hunting as one possible practice, amongst many others, that can lessen the environmental impacts of eating while creating meaningful relationships with food and place (Kerasote, 1993). Collectively, we are a hybrid of past, present, and future eating ecologies. To give the reader perspective on our vacillating eating practices, one of the hunters featured in this paper has returned recently to an exclusively vegan diet for the sake of heart health. Another will assume a seasonal vegetarian diet once the elk and pronghorn from last season’s hunts have been consumed. We both honour and participate in vegan, vegetarian, and omnivorous diets; by exploring hunting, we do not intend to advocate for or against the choices of others. The rationales behind our own food choices continue to change as we learn, depending on the places we live, health considerations, and the communities we are involved in. Currently, we buy vegetables from local community supported agriculture programs, grow vegetable gardens each growing season, and purchase eggs from the family down the road. For the present, we wish to consider the ways in which the practice of hunting is the context of a broad spectrum of ecological learning. To explore the process of hunting, we went straight to the source—we went hunting. The participants in this inquiry are Jessica Ryan, a 35-year-old yoga instructor, David Greenwood, a 46-year-old professor of education, Eli Greenwood, a 12-year-old outdoorsman, and Joel Pontius, a 29-year-old doctoral student studying environmental learning. Jess, Eli, and David were attempting their first kills supported by Joel, an experienced hunter. The group hunted pronghorn antelope in the Shirley Basin, a vast, remote, high desert in traditional Cheyenne and Arapahoe hunting territory in central Wyoming. The basin is home to the largest pronghorn herd on earth and supports critical sage grouse habitat and the strongest populations of black-footed ferrets and swift foxes anywhere. The Basin is also stressed by energy development including large-scale wind farms, uranium mining, and the production of beef cows. 84 Joel B. Pontius, David A. Greenwood, Jessica L. Ryan & Eli A. Greenwood Narrative Method Abram (1996) writes that there is a profound association between storytelling and the more-than-human terrain... we are situated in the land in much the same way characters are situated in a story… along with the other animals, the stones, the trees, and the clouds, we ourselves are characters in a story that is visibly unfolding all around us. (p. 163) Connecting with this notion methodologically, we created a narrative structure of the hunting cycle and an associated image to emplot (Polkinghorne, 1988) our experience and meaning-making. We used the hunting cycle as a base map to write, share, and refine our personal reflections, and as a way to explore our individual and collective learning. We then worked through our stories with Laramie artist Justin Deegan to create a visceral image that invites readers into our experience (Figure 1). Figure 1. Hunting cycle Hunting for Ecological Learning 85 Because of our desire to privilege diverse voices over a singular academic voice, the remainder of this article is a narrative collage of the hunting cycle. We selected these excerpts from a much larger set of stories, based on their ability to demonstrate more deeply aspects of the hunting cycle from the perspective of di- verse hunters. Through the following narratives, our intention is not to generalize or universalize our experiences, but to share, authentically, our particular experi- ences of a hunt. However, we do represent an emerging group of people who are hunting as a means of connecting with local, meaningful food. As a form of arts- informed inquiry (Cole & Knowles, 2008), our story contains its own teachings about environmental learning and reaches its own conclusions, while disrupting stereotypes that surround hunting today. The hunting cycle image is also one way we attempt to open up the story of the animals that were killed, without speaking for them. Each section of the hunting cycle begins by naming a “place/setting” and suggests generative themes embedded in our relationship to the hunt. Ele- ments of the hunting cycle serve as headings to add structure and explanatory power to the “collective story” (Richardson, 1990); the reader is encouraged to consult the hunting cycle image often as the story unfolds. Home Place Place/Setting: Laramie, Wyoming. Dinner and stories together the night before the hunt in Jess’s loft apartment. The scent hanging the room is a mixture of incense, herbs, and meat. On the menu: Blackened pronghorn tenderloin from a young buck Joel recently killed with his bow, roots, tubers, and greens from a local farm, and poached Colorado pears. Everyone watches in awe as Eli eats several steaks. Purpose and Intention David: My introduction to cultures of hunting, as for most people, came through the eyes of those who had never experienced it. As a kid in the back seat of our Volk- swagen, I would watch my mother wince in disgust as the carcasses flew by on the highway between Madison and Milwaukee. My mom didn’t need to tell me how she felt about it. She did, however, offer her opinion one November when she dropped me off at a friend’s house for a birthday party. I must have been six because it was Todd Jones, a boy I knew in first grade. We pulled up to his house in our Volkswagen Bug just as a big station wagon arrived with two huge bucks strapped to its roof. I remember feeling like, wow, and my mom just said evenly, “Your father and I are educated people. We are not the kind of people who go out and kill helpless ani- mals.” Then Todd and the other boys, whose dads were probably also hunters, ran out of the house to look at the deer. I wanted to join them, but I guess I supposed that I wasn’t one of them. I felt like I was missing something, sitting there in the Bug with my mom. Learning to hunt in my forties, in a way, is a return to face the rituals of denial and abstraction that have surrounded eating my whole life. The hunt I wanted to be 86 Joel B. Pontius, David A. Greenwood, Jessica L. Ryan & Eli A. Greenwood part of was a stalk and a chase that would recreate the ancient rites of the hunt and invite me into everything that hunting has to teach. Since I was a boy I have known without being told that the chase and the kill are— well, sporting, full of excitement and Leopoldian delight (Leopold, 1989). This does not mean that it is fun to kill animals, but that the stalk and the kill excite a deep genetic and ancient cultural energy that comes fully alive in the hunt. What also comes alive is a deep compas- sion and even sadness and regret for the life taken, for the bloodshed, and for the suffering. Anthropologically, hunting has often been described as a male initiation ritual. There is something troubling today about learning to kill being viewed as an appropriate rite of male initiation. This is a relatively new cultural concern. What I knew was that my son desperately wanted to hunt, and if he was going to hunt, we were going to approach it together with as much conscious masculinity and care as I could model for him. I am attracted, awed, and repelled by this ancient rite encoded in our own bones, muscle, and teeth. Hunting is a viscerally embodied act that puts you in direct contact with blood, breath, muscle, sinew, and bone, as well as with your spiritual and emotional body. When Joel told me I’d be learning to hunt with a yoga teacher, Jess Ryan, I knew I was being invited into something unique. Jess: For over a year I questioned whether hunting was for me, but above all, I knew I loved the Shirley Basin. I knew I loved the animals, the rocks, the flora, the smell of the air and how I could see a storm coming from 70 miles away. I knew where the soil changed and would turn to clay as soon as it started to rain. I knew the Milky Way against a black sky without light pollution. The more time I spent on the land, the more I felt separated from its inhabitants. I felt like a foreigner, clearly appreciating this place and the natives, but I had no real need to blend in; to “be” the animal. As a yoga teacher I put a lot of spiritual weight into the decision to hunt. In the study and spiritual path of yoga there is much adherence to vegetarianism and promoting nonviolence, or the yogic principle of ahimsa. But, yoga literally means, “to yoke or unite.” I was constantly contemplating my authentic connection to what I ate, where I lived, how my actions impacted these non-human beings, and how they impacted me. We are all connected and I wanted my connections to be more mindful. Yoga, to me, is not about bending my body or looking a certain way, but learning about myself in the process of the bending. In this way, I view hunting as a yogic process. I’m learning deeply about myself; mind, body, emotions, spirit, as I go through the steps of making my first kill. Joel: I have lived, as long as I remember, close with the land and its nonhuman ani- mals. My earliest memories consist of catching lizards, snakes, turtles, crawdads, fish, bugs, and others. In my case, the act of catching often led to eating the animal (or at least intention to eat—sometimes my dad would veto my more primal wild food ideas, maybe for the better). The first large mammal I killed was a young male whitetail deer when I was 12, and I have eaten wild animals as part of my diet ever since. Hunting for Ecological Learning 87 By hunting for my food I feel more related to the land: to the animals my fam- ily eats, the places I hunt, and the others who connect with my killing, like the ravens. Foraging on the land alongside other animals deepens my experience of a life economy that encompasses all. Abram (2010) refers to this as the “great gift economy”, “our membership in the big web of interdependence, as both eater and eaten” (p. 63). Hunting Grounds Place/Setting: After a long drive on dirt roads, the hunting party turns down a rut- ted two-track and enters an orange gate. We enter and close ourselves inside the gate with wild, if degraded, land. What will happen here? In hunting we track the unknown and hope to find it. For Joel and Jess, this marks a return to the hunting grounds; for David and Eli, an introduction. Our bodies’ senses begin to take in vast openness of this land. We are on constant alert for prey. Joel: To enter our pronghorn hunting grounds, David opened an orange metal gate marked “private property” by a weathered sign. The land is not privately owned, but I have considered touching up the paint. The orange gate is literal, but it is also a metaphor I love. You have to open the boundaries of the space and close yourself inside to arrive. As we pulled into camp, I was anxious. Several weeks earlier I had left the camper in a severe snowstorm. In the meantime, wind gusts of more than 70mph ripped through the Shirley Basin. In my experience, camping stuff stands up to 50mph wind, but at 60mph it starts to give. At 60mph I start to fall apart, too. I was worried that we might find a roofless camper when we arrived or worse, so I was relieved to see the clay-coated camper, not nearly tough enough to withstand a place like this, almost intact. A beef cow had used one of the pull-out beds to scratch its back, breaking off a support, so a quick fix using an old fence post, spare change, and a cooler would have to work. Descent into Place David: The morning of our first full day of hunting was clear and cold and frost covered the sagebrush, stubble, and bare ground. In the east, the sun moved up over the mountains some 20 miles distant. Then the entire landscape started to steam and glow. After breakfast when everyone was dressed and ready for hunting, I asked Jess if she would lead us in some pre-hunt yoga. “Really?” she asked, smiling, as if she thought I might be kidding, “I’d love to.” In our camouflage and hard-soled boots, we followed the teacher to a level rounded clearing. Jess took a position in front and invited Joel, Eli, and I to spread out from one another in an arc, two arm-lengths apart and facing her. Then, with her binoculars still haltered around her chest and the one rifle we shared standing 88 Joel B. Pontius, David A. Greenwood, Jessica L. Ryan & Eli A. Greenwood at ease on its bipod in the dirt, Jess centered us first in our breath. Together as four hunters we filled our lungs with air, and grounded our feet and vertebrae into the earth. What I had imagined would be a token yoga blessing, Jess made into a slow and deepening awareness of self, other, and place. At one point during our practice when we stood palms forward facing the sun with our eyes closed, I opened mine to witness my twelve-year-old son deep into his own experience of what we were shar- ing. He was glowing. This was a boy who had a strong urge to shoot animals, and now his initiation into the hunt began—with yoga. Joel: It was difficult to let go of expectations and control facades in this place, guid- ing three beginning hunters in what we all hoped would be their initiation into hunting through their first kills, but what could possibly have been all sorts of ex- periences. I felt a deep sense of responsibility to everyone involved: the people, the pronghorns, and the land. Our yoga practice helped me to trust the place and the process more. As we pulled ourselves together for our first day of hunting, I focused on the tools we would need. I loaded Shirley, the rifle we shared, with ammunition: lead- free rounds (lead would be poisonous to all involved) that I hand-loaded following my pronghorn hunting recipe. I grabbed game bags, my skinning knife, sharpener, several gallons of water, extra food, and other tools. I have been in enough wild situ- ations in my hunting grounds that I know to be (over) prepared. Stalking/Relating Joel: Over the course of several days, we interacted with pronghorn herds as big as 30 and as small as one. Distance is a nimble shifter of shape out in the big, open spaces of the Shirley Basin, so most of our stalks ended with the realization that the animals were beyond our reach. At times, we were sure the pronghorns were un- touchable. In a way, they are. They are made of openness, the intensity of the wind and incessant sun; all attributes that help me question my killing, but also power- fully reinforce why I want to be partly made of them. By the second day, our hunting collective began to meld with the place and each other. Communication became less verbal and more intuitive, and so did our interac- tions with pronghorns. Jess: Stalking pronghorns caused me to shift out of my logic/left-sided brain and slip into another state of mind that integrates intuition, felt-sense, and sensitivity to the subtleties of the landscape. Like yoga, when done from a fully integrated place, the act of stalking takes on an equal need for masculine and feminine energies. As integrated hunters, we utilized the feminine qualities of intuition, watching and modulating the breath, the fluid movement of the body, internal awareness, and empathy. Parts of our stalks were very masculine and physical, too: crawling on the ground across a cacti-laden desert, running, crouching, using narrow focus and vision as a predator. Hunting for Ecological Learning 89