Date of Award
12-1-1991
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A. in History
First Advisor
Dr. Ted Ownby
Second Advisor
Dr. Robert Haws
Third Advisor
Dr. Frederick Laurenzo
Fourth Advisor
Dr. Charles Reagan Wilson
Relational Format
dissertation/thesis
Abstract
This thesis examines hunting in Mississippi with regard to the changing relationship between humans and their environment. Hunting is the basic human interaction with nature. It is timeless activity, yet at the same time an activity deeply impacted by the human relation to the land.
In approaching the change in hunting this thesis examined human population change by reviewing the demographic consequences of the rural exodus in addition to the response of animal populations to the human exodus and to the restocking efforts of wildlife biologists. At the same time that people were leaving the farms, organized game conservation was working to replace such wildlife as deer and turkeys that had declined in the face of the agrarian population. A regrowth in large game populations and a decline in small game populations was at once a product and accompanying process of the changing (rural to urban) lifestyle.
Hunting existed through either extreme of the relationship to land, from the early diffuse agrarian lifestyle to the later urban non-agricultural mode. During the early relationship to the land, hunting was characterized by an intensive harvest of mostly small game according to the available leisure and subsistence requirements of the agricultural cycle. Property rights were less prevalent than the concept of a communal right to game. After the rural exodus people hunted larger game according to seasons determined more by scientific precepts of wildlife conservation and during times dictated by non- agricultural work regimens. Property rights likewise became more important than the idea of communal ownership of game.
As the character of hunting took on more modern aspects, the ethical systems professed by hunters became more concerned with the preservation of the game and thus the experience of hunting. Earlier ethical systems among non-subsistence hunters usually emphasized fair play in the taking of animals. Later, hunters became more concerned with the continued survival of game and therefore absorbed the ideals of conservation into the sporting ethos. For later hunters ethical hunting must not only maintain the legitimating circumstances of possible death and possible escape for the animal, it must not endanger the overall health of the game population.
Recommended Citation
Prewitt, Wiley C. Jr., "The Best of All Breathing: Hunting and Environmental Change in Mississippi 1900-1980" (1991). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2654.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/2654