Shooting Sheep to Save Sagebrush: The Violence of Habitat Restoration

摘要

Shooting Sheep to Save Sagebrush: The Violence of Habitat Restoration Jo-Ann Shelton University of California, Santa Barbara Widely endorsed by environmentalists, shooting feral animals is a means to restore landscapes scarred by human activities. The goal of restoration is to secure the welfare of flora and fauna that existed in a region before the arrival of humans (especially Europeans) and their biological baggage. Maintaining healthy populations of pre-Columbian (pre-European) species is a major concern for environmentalists, whose sense of urgency is enhanced by the knowledge that so many species are threatened with extinction, and that severe damage can be done in a relatively brief period of time. Shooting species that were imported to an area by humans, and that now jeopardize species that have inhabited that area for a much longer period, seems like a simple and quick solution. But shooting is a violent act, and I think that it is appropriate, at a conference sponsored by advocates for peace, to ask whether violence is an acceptable means to reach an endpoint on which we all agree: the protection of a diversity of plant and animal life. The author will argue that the use of violence contravenes environmentalists’ claims to respect nature because it perpetuates a philosophy that humans have the right to destroy elements of nature whenever they choose. To illustrate the argument, two examples of mass shootings of grazing animals are presented. In each case, shooters justified the killing on the grounds that the targeted species did not fit in the region any more. The first example is the shooting of bison in 19th century America. The second example is the shooting of feral sheep in this decade in the area of California. The killing of bison by people of European descent occurred for several reasons: to clear the land for agriculture and herding, to profit from the sale of hides, and to have fun. The procurement of food was only one, and frequently not the primary, reason for hunting bison. In fact, very often the skinned carcasses were left where the animals had fallen. And sometimes they were not even skinned because they had been shot only for sport (Roe; Fleharty; and Danz). With the construction of railroad lines across the continent, the hunting of bison became a sport anyone could enjoy. Consider these accounts from the years 1867 and 1872