Fair Chase Hunting

Hunting

States

Kansas

Missouri

Iowa

Administrative

We, MAHA, as an organization are not entering into any debate on what is or is not fair chase hunting. We further do not take any political oriented position on should there be only fair chase hunting or other means. We simply are defining our concept of hunting and application of private land fair chase self guided hunts for the do it yourself hunter. The intended result of our efforts is the continuation of such hunting from a general public, landowner and membership perspective.

Along the spectrum of man’s hunting of wildlife it ranges from the lowest possible method of him running naked using only the speed of his legs and gripping power of opposing thumb hands to that of every possible tool ever devised to locate, acquire and kill any other creature. Somewhere along that spectrum between these opposed extremes we must draw a line at which we will operate. This document does just that for MAHA and its members.

We begin with the often cited and widely accepted definition of fair chase as provided by the Boone and Crocket Club: “Fair chase is the ethical, sportsmanlike and lawful pursuit and taking of free ranging wild game animals in a manner that does not give the hunter an improper or unfair advantage over such animals.”

Those that seek a finite definition to all clauses of this statement may miss the point of the entire discussion. The variability of nature precludes one set definition uniformly applicable to all conditions. Fair chase hunting is a concept that provides a framework of principles based on grouped similar ideas that serve as a basis for analysis to provide the answer to what is or is not fair chase hunting. In our case, the discussion to follow provides that conceptual framework for how MAHA operates and how its hunters must conduct themselves.

While out checking our leases we came across this fall flock that was none too concerned about our being there.

Fair Chase

The clause “Fair Chase” is that all pursued wildlife has fair chance to escape the hunter through full use of all of its God given capabilities to detect, fly or run unrestricted by man or his inventions.

The above statement is simple enough and usually easy to recognize in practice. Man the hunter may use what he has to pursue, detect, acquire and attempt to harvest any wildlife as long as that wildlife has full use of its own innate and inherited physical capabilities to evade any hunter’s attempt at harvest. The easy example is no high fence restrictions to the movement or escape of a deer. MAHA does not have any high fence hunt or any other hunt that restricts wildlife’s ability to evade a hunter. However, the definition of fair chase does enter into less distinctive categories than that as illustrated by high fence hunting.

Fair chase within this definition (wildlife’s capability to escape) allows the hunter’s use of deception and concealment as these two techniques do not restrict any wildlife’s ability to evade the hunter. This includes deceptions such as decoys, scents, or calls and concealment as blinds, camouflaged clothing, and cover scents. At this point the definition of fair case is largely limited to that of a single prey and hunter. That of course is not the only means hunters may employ.

Fair chase further enters into less distinctive definition when regional or sub group standards are applied. An example is the pheasant drive hunt while legal does begin to enter into restricting the pheasants’ escape from the hunter.

A line of drivers closely spaced that allows no distance between them within which the pheasant can pass without being in shotgun range and existent between the drive line and posted hunters equally spaced begins to restrain the pheasant’s ability to escape the hunter. This is a case where an invention of man now acts as a restriction to the wildlife’s fair chance to escape the hunter through use of its God given capabilities. A coherent firing line of shotguns for a pheasant is equal to a fence for a deer. Under the concept of fair chase, it is an absolute, meaning that any restriction to the wildlife’s capability to escape unrestricted by man regardless of degree renders that hunt less than fair chase.

For MAHA we do agree that a drive hunt to be less than the absolute definition of fair chase without discussion to the hunter’s shooting ability or to the spacing between hunters. There go we prohibit within this association of hunters any form of drive hunt.

From the opening week of Missouri waterfowl season, middle zone. Bo, Ed and Alex with a mixed bag of teal, mallard, wigeon and woodduck. Warm temperatures, clear blue skies and still some ducks well before the migration.

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