46 Fun Facts About Hunting

The Pittman-Robertson Act of 1937 funds state wildlife programmes through a tax on what?

The act taxes guns, ammunition and archery gear (11% excise, 10% on handguns); signed by FDR, it has funded much of America's wildlife recovery.

Under Pittman-Robertson, states are reimbursed for what share of an approved wildlife project's cost?

The state pays up front and claims back three-quarters, so licence fees still matter.

Who designed the first Federal Duck Stamp in 1934?

Jay 'Ding' Darling, a Pulitzer-winning cartoonist and head of the Bureau of Biological Survey, drew two mallards landing on a pond for the 1934 stamp.

Money from Federal Duck Stamp sales goes where?

Proceeds go into the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund, which buys and leases wetland for the National Wildlife Refuge System; the stamps have raised more than $1 billion since 1934.

Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell founded which hunting-conservation group in 1887?

The Boone and Crockett Club, founded by Roosevelt and Grinnell in 1887, codified the 'fair chase' ethic and keeps the North American big-game records book.

In hunting regulations, what is a 'bag limit'?

A bag limit is the maximum number of animals one hunter may take, per day or per season; wildlife agencies set it to keep harvests sustainable.

Which bird, once North America's most abundant at up to five billion, was extinct by 1914?

The passenger pigeon, shot and netted by market hunters and shipped by the barrel, was gone by 1914; Martha, the last, died at Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914.

The Lacey Act of 1900 made it a federal crime to do what?

Introduced by Iowa's John F. Lacey and signed by McKinley, it was aimed at market hunting; a 2008 amendment extended it to timber.

Which forester and hunter, author of A Sand County Almanac, is called the founder of wildlife management?

Aldo Leopold's 1933 textbook Game Management earned him the first professorship in the field, at the University of Wisconsin; A Sand County Almanac appeared posthumously in 1949.

In the essay 'Thinking Like a Mountain', what does the author watch die after shooting it?

Leopold shoots an old she-wolf and watches the 'fierce green fire' die in her eyes, an experience that changed his view of predators and fed his 'land ethic'.

Who developed the compound bow in 1966?

Holless Wilbur Allen, a Missouri bowhunter, fitted pulleys to a cut-down recurve in 1966 and patented the compound bow in 1969.

What does a compound bow's 'let-off' describe?

Let-off is the drop in holding force at full draw: a 70-pound bow with 80% let-off holds at about 14 pounds, so bowhunters can wait for a shot.

Fred Bear, the bowhunting pioneer, moved his archery company in 1947 to which Michigan town?

Bear Archery moved from Detroit to Grayling, Michigan, in 1947 and stayed until 1978; Ted Nugent's song 'Fred Bear' honours him.

How is a shotgun's gauge defined?

So a 12-gauge bore, about 0.729 inches, is larger than a 16-gauge; the .410 is the odd one out, named by calibre.

Which shotgun gauge has long been the most widely used?

The 12-gauge, with a bore of roughly 0.729 inches, dominates sales for waterfowl, upland and clay shooting; the smaller the gauge number, the bigger the bore.

What is the most hunted native big-game species in the Americas?

The white-tailed deer is hunted more than any other big game in the Americas; the US herd rebounded from about 300,000 in 1930 to some 30 million by 2005.

When do bucks of the most-hunted deer species shed their antlers?

Whitetail bucks typically drop their antlers from late December to February, after the autumn rut ends and testosterone falls; a new set grows each spring and summer.

Why does a whitetail buck or doe raise its tail?

The white 'flag' tells the hunter the game is up; the US herd rebounded from about 300,000 in 1930 to some 30 million.

How low did the US wild turkey population fall by the late 1930s?

About 30,000 wild turkeys remained in the late 1930s; trap-and-transfer restocking raised the population to 1.3 million by 1973 and past 6 million by the 2000s.

In turkey-hunting terms, what is a 'jake'?

A jake is a juvenile male turkey, recognisable by a short beard and an uneven tail fan; a full-grown male is a tom or gobbler, a female a hen.

A male wild turkey's 'beard' is what?

The beard is a tuft of hair-like filaments hanging from the chest, growing longer with age; a few hens grow one too, and its length is a hunter's brag.

In which year was Ducks Unlimited, the wetlands conservation group, founded?

Ducks Unlimited was founded in 1937, amid the Dust Bowl drought, by publishing tycoon Joseph P. Knapp, and has since conserved well over 15 million acres of wetland habitat.

What kind of shot must US waterfowl hunters use?

Since 1991 US waterfowl hunters must use lead-free shot such as steel, bismuth or tungsten, because ducks swallowed spent lead pellets off the bottom and were poisoned.

What is a hunting 'blind'?

Blinds and decoy spreads are the core of waterfowling; a punt gun once let market hunters kill dozens of birds in one blast.

What name is given to the skin covering a deer's growing antlers?

Velvet is the blood-rich skin that feeds growing antlers through summer; once they harden, bucks rub it off on saplings before the rut.

Which state has by far the most feral pigs?

Texas holds roughly 2.5 million feral pigs, more than any other state; it even allows 'heli-hogging', shooting them from helicopters.

Which Spanish explorer introduced pigs to Florida in 1539, ancestors of today's wild hogs?

Hernando de Soto landed at Tampa Bay in 1539 with a herd of pigs to feed his expedition; escapees became the ancestors of Florida's wild hogs.

Which deer-hunting method has people walk through woods to push animals toward waiting hunters?

Tree stands, ground blinds and stalking are the alternatives; the rut in late October and November is the prime time for all of them.

The Hunting Act 2004 banned hunting most wild mammals with dogs where?

The Hunting Act 2004 covers England and Wales; Scotland had acted in 2002, the Commons invoked the Parliament Acts to overrule the Lords, and drag hunting stayed legal.

On what date did the English fox-hunting ban come into force?

The Hunting Act received Royal Assent on 18 November 2004 and came into force three months later, on 18 February 2005.

What is falconry?

Falconry is hunting wild quarry with a trained bird of prey; evidence dates it to Mesopotamia around 2000 BC, and UNESCO listed it as intangible cultural heritage in 2010.

The 1486 Book of St Albans ranked birds of prey according to what?

Its list matched each bird to the social rank of its handler: an eagle for an emperor, a peregrine for a prince, a kestrel for a knave.

Jim Corbett, who shot the man-eating Champawat tiger, gave his name to what in 1957?

Hailey National Park, India's first, opened in 1936 and was renamed Corbett National Park in 1957, two years after his death; his Man-Eaters of Kumaon sold millions.

Richard Connell's 1924 story 'The Most Dangerous Game' has General Zaroff hunting what?

Zaroff hunts shipwrecked sailors he lures onto his island, giving each a knife and a three-hour head start; the story became a 1932 film with Fay Wray.

In Greek myth, Actaeon was turned into a stag and killed by his own hounds after offending which goddess?

Artemis, goddess of the hunt and twin of Apollo, punished Actaeon for seeing her bathe; her Roman counterpart is Diana.

Which youthful hunter, beloved of Aphrodite, was killed by a wild boar?

Adonis, the beautiful youth loved by Aphrodite, was gored by a boar while hunting; in Ovid's telling she turned his blood into the anemone flower.

Punt guns, mounted on small boats, let 19th-century market hunters do what?

A punt gun, a huge-bore shotgun fixed to a flat punt, could kill dozens of resting ducks in one shot; such slaughter led to the Lacey Act and federal bag limits.

'In-line' muzzleloaders are designed to resemble what?

In-lines put the primer directly behind the charge and look like modern centrefire hunting rifles, often with scopes; they still load from the muzzle, qualifying for muzzleloader seasons.

What is a person employed to manage a shooting estate and its wildlife called?

A gamekeeper manages a shooting estate's habitat, rears and protects game birds, controls predators and organises shoot days; beaters and gillies assist on the day.

Which of these animals is one of Africa's traditional Big Five game species?

The black rhinoceros, with the lion, leopard, elephant and Cape buffalo, makes up the Big Five, a term coined by hunters for the most dangerous animals to hunt on foot.

Venery, the form of hunting that includes fox hunting, uses which kind of dog?

Venery uses scent hounds, such as foxhounds, that track quarry by smell; coursing with sight hounds like greyhounds is the other classic hound sport.

What is the hand-held lever that Ice Age hunters used to hurl spears called?

The atlatl, or spear-thrower, is a short lever with a hook that extends the arm and launches a dart much faster; examples from France date back some 17,000 years.

Stone spearheads dated to as early as 500,000 years ago were found in which country?

Stone points from Kathu Pan 1 in South Africa, about 500,000 years old, show damage consistent with use as hafted spear tips.

One theory names which animal as the single most important species in the anthropology of hunting?

Caribou and reindeer (one species) sustained hunters across Eurasia and North America, and the Magdalenian of late Ice Age Europe was long called the Reindeer Age.

Which antlered Celtic god is named on the Pillar of the Boatmen found under Notre-Dame?

Cernunnos, the antlered 'horned one', is named on the 1st-century Pillar of the Boatmen found beneath Notre-Dame in 1710 and is linked with stags, wild beasts and the hunt.

Whose 'killer ape' theory cast early hominids as hunters armed with bone and horn weapons?

Raymond Dart, who described the Taung Child in 1925, later argued from Makapansgat bones that australopithecines were predatory 'killer apes' wielding bone and horn weapons.