Today was the last day of duck season. Today I shot my limit of ducks. The first duck splashed down on the edge of my decoys a few minutes after the initiation of shooting hours—although I had heard volleys of shots for almost ten minutes. Gauging the distance in the near-dark, I knew from experience that my shot likely would lack the velocity to drop the bird when it flushed and I realized, as I watched it swim in the slightest of light, that I had a decision to make. No one wants to be skunked, least of all on the last day of hunting season.

One month ago, I had another difficult decision. It was a grey, cloudy, December day with hardly any wind. The first ducks landed eight minutes after the initiation of shooting hours. That the ducks had even landed among my decoys gave me hope as on the previous morning I had watched sixteen groups of ducks fly overhead in the strong south wind—and none had committed, despite demonstrating deep consideration with their craning necks to descend to my decoys. Rather than returning home empty-handed yet again, I shot at the ducks and I am ashamed to admit that I did not drop either of them as I lost them in the darkness of the shoreline and distant tree line when they sprang from the mirror-like surface of the pond. Yet, my hope was buoyed the next December morning after the two ducks had flown away (hopefully unharmed) when group after group of birds dropped down to the calm surface of the thin water. The gadwalls and teal circled with caution before slowly cupping their wings and dropping; the ring-necks zipped down, crashing into the water like feathered, air-borne torpedoes. Within forty-five minutes I had shot my limit. As I gathered all the birds and my decoys and took a moment to record the beauty of the environment and the birds, four more gadwalls circled trying six times to land in the decoys until they finally gave up determining that my constant motion on the shore a few yards away posed too great a danger.

Today, I chose not to shoot. The shot would have been legal (I had checked the website and my watch repeatedly), but the experience of a month prior and the likelihood that I would wound the animal, now at the limit of my range and sight, and not kill it made the difference. I made my decision based upon a commitment to an ethical limitation recently born from experience and contemplation. Eventually the duck, which looked like a gadwall, concluded that something was awry and took off, the tips of its wings leaving circles in the top of the glassy water. By the end of the day, more gadwalls and tiny green-wing teal drakes dipped down to my little pond for the last time. I gathered the birds and my decoys into the boat, the joy of a successful hunt tinged by the bittersweet knowledge that it was the last.

The whole process reminded me that sport hunting today is one of limits. I have argued that hunters have always lived on the edge, pursuing wild animals that naturally avoid predators in the “other” spaces outside of those regions which society increasingly defines as protected from hunters. Hunters kill and are bloody and thus are marginalized to the “limits” of society and the “limits” of the wild or at least wild animal populations. Thus I have contended, “Since the Neolithic agricultural revolution and the advent of villages and towns, hunters and the practice of hunting have inhabited liminal places in human cultures. Hunters were and continue to be in the middle and on the edge. Historically, hunters have habituated intellectually and physically between wild nature and structured society” (God, Nimrod, and the World, 3).

Sport hunting is a complex activity that is difficult to define—although I have tried to do so in the past: “[H]unting is the pursuit … of a wild animal with the intent of killing the animal. That the animal must be pursued implies that the animal is potentially capable of escaping the hunter (i.e., it is wild and free) and the hunter’s means of killing the animal. That the animal is wild implies that it is not domesticated and that it is naturally disposed to evade humans. The definition of hunting does not assume a specific purpose or use of the dead animal. That the animal is to be eaten would imply predation, that primitive impulse for survival” (God, Nimrod, and the World, 14).

Sport hunting today—that is any hunting that is not done solely for survival—depends upon limits many of which are imposed by the sportsman himself as a means of keeping the prey animal wild (capable of escape), to test himself in regards to skill and ability, and to insure the possibility of hunting in the future. Yes, there are laws dictated by the state, but the limits in question are those that bring satisfaction to the sportsman and hunter and simultaneously define him as well.

Some limits on the hunter cannot be controlled immediately. There are limits to the current physical and mental capabilities of the hunter, to her skills, to her knowledge, and to the equipment that she might afford. There are limits to natural resources and the wildlife populations that she can access.

Yet even before the hunt, the sportsman imposes voluntary limits like the choice of available equipment (the gauge of shotgun, the size of shot), of whether to be accompanied by a dog, the selection of pump, semi-automatic, or even double-barreled firearm, and even the construction of the blind. Additionally, there are the limits of personal ethics which influence split-second decisions like choosing whether or not to shoot at a bird based upon its distance or perhaps even its species, or to shoot a duck on the water (likely insuring a kill and minimal damage to breast meat), or to flush the duck increasing the odds that the duck will escape or perhaps fly away wounded from a less-than-lethal hit. These limitations imposed by personal ethics are the result of the hunter balancing the good that she pursues—like physical and mental challenge, desirable meat, a trophy to commemorate the moment, and the humane death of the prey.

Yet, sport hunting requires a complex equation of limits because it is not based on the singular demand of self-preservation but based on the passion for a satisfying or rewarding experience (or bundle of experiences including the acquisition of food) that might be repeated and an equation of fairness founded on a personal ethic of pursuit which frequently evolves with time, situation, and even prey animal and a willingness to submit (or not submit) to the boundaries of behavior (established by those who might not share a commitment to similar experiences) promulgated in policy purportedly seeking the common good of the members of the society and that society’s valuation of non-human life and the environment. Such an ethic cannot be reduced to law nor can it facilely be articulated as “fair chase.” The National Hunter Education Course (which is used by several states) pushes the idea of a hunting ethic—but only from a pragmatic position that seeks the perpetuation of hunting opportunity in America not as a means of ensuring personal satisfaction or an inherent value in the animal itself. (The first foundational ethical point is “Respect natural resources,” but this vague statement is in the context of not abusing land or resources so as not to offend a landowner and thus lose access to the land.) Hunting ethics cannot be dictated; laws and policies are dictated either by legislatures or in the case of wildlife by commissions. Ethics may be culturally influenced, but essentially, they are personally formulated and followed according to the discipline of one’s will. Ethics are an expression of the person and his or her own formation and willingness to deny himself or herself freedom for a greater good. It may be unpleasant to consider, but how a hunter limits himself through his decisions and performances in the field, in the stand, or on the water demonstrates who he is at the core.

From my personal experience, the greatest challenge to the discussion of hunting ethics is that hunters will happily debate hunting regulations but they don’t want to discuss hunting ethics…