TWS, The Wildlife Society,is the professional organization for wildlife biologists, but their newest "professional" publication looks more like something from the Audubon Society, at best.

I am a game biologist. I am not ashamed of being a game biologist. It is true that my degrees don't say "game biologist." Instead they say the degree is in "Wildlife Biology" or "Wildlife Science" or Wildlife Ecology." My job title isn’t "Game Biologist" either, but that doesn't disguise or obscure the fact that I am a game biologist. I am not ashamed of this.

I am the wildlife biologist for my federal agency in Alaska, and my primary job duties fall under the realm of game biology. I examine the science as reported in the refereed literature such as that in the Canadian Journal of Zoology or the Journal of Wildlife Management, and the unrefereed science-based assertions made in the gray literature such as the Pittman-Robertson reports, and the statements from rural Alaskans who have lived among the wildlife species for an indeterminate, but very long, time. From that I try to provide regulations for the hunting of wildlife that are science based, but yet are artful enough to meet the needs of people who depend upon hunting for their subsistence.

I expect, and usually receive, verbal bashing from such organizations as the Defenders of Wildlife, or the Friends of Animals, or the Humane Society, who are opposed to any and all hunting. This bothers me not at all.

These people get their views of ecological reality from Walt Disney or the TV's Animal Planet, and then they parrot what they've heard: that all hunting is evil. They must suppose that rural Alaskans can wander down to the local Winn-Dixie, Kroger's, Albertson's, or other grocery store and buy their groceries. That the equivalent such store might be several hundred miles away across roadless terrain never enters their mind. It doesn't matter to me that they denounce hunting and my efforts to preserve it. All Americans have the right to state their views, just as all Americans have the right to ignore such ignorant drivel. If rural Alaskans do not have the ability to hunt and to kill, they will not have the ability to eat. Hunt. Kill. Eat. It is simple, and it my job and my joy to enable the continuance of such a simple lifeway of cause and effect.

At times, it I also recommend that certain game populations be managed for trophy hunting. Trophy hunting is one form of wildlife management that is firmly rooted in solid science and that benefits the hunted population. Simply: for the males to produce trophies, they must have excellent nutrition, so the population must be kept below K so that each individual is at the highest possible nutritional plane. This also has the added benefit of ensuring that the maximum percentage of that population survives extreme weather events that are only too common in Alaska.

When I recommend trophy hunting, I can be assured that I will be bashed by the usual anti-hunting crowd, but also some of the subsistence hunters. The anti-hunters will bad mouth me merely because I recognize that hunting is an integral part of the activities of a portion of American society today, and some subsistence hunters will condemn me because they are unable to understand that not all hunters simply take the first animal they find. I listen to them, and in turn they listen to me as I try and explain the science behind the management actions I propose. It doesn’t bother me (too much) that few of them will understand my way of thinking.

What does bother me is when my own professional society, one that is supposedly based upon the scientific principles of wildlife management, starts to incorporate anti-hunting attitudes into the things that it publishes in its official publications. Imagine the complete shock I experienced when I perused the Wildlife Professionalfor the Fall of 2007. In an article, Cristina Mittlemeier makes the statement that an amateur's photograph is a trophy. But wait; there's more: "wildlife photography allows one to become the fable African hunter of days gone by. The trophy will be just as cherished, except for the happy fact that no creature will have to die to obtain it.(emphasis mine)†Any game biologist, any hunter, will immediately see the anti-hunting bias that such words display. I quickly checked the cover to make sure that I hadn't accidentally ended up with a magazine from one of the Disneyite groups. Alas, it wasn't so. I was reading something produced by The Wildlife Society. If the wording had merely been “no animal dies in getting the trophy,†I might only have wondered what the relevance was, but the wording reeked of a hatred of hunting, especially trophy hunting.

I can only conclude that perhaps the professional society that once represented the scientifically based principles of wildlife management has stepped out into Disneyworld, and perhaps I am no longer suitable as a member.

Don't think of yourself as unsuitable...they are the ones that are out of sync. Your NEW responsibility is to make sure people like Cristina get purged from the Wildlife Biology professional system, preferrable quickly. A person like this that is allowed to stay and write such articles can and will be very influential to getting other professionals to think just like her. Please write to the magazine, as an experience professional yourself and get this woman released of her duties asap, explaining her true intention of this article. Tell all of your other contacts in this profession to do the same...this type of article content cannot be allowed to stir the pot of controversy within the very profession that allows hunting to continue as we know it...for now anyway.

I don't have facts to support my opinions, so take it as only a hypothesis...

I know very few "field" wildlife biologists who retain affiliation with TWS, but most of the students and faculty I knew at universities were members. And there's the rub.

Somewhere along the way, it became accepted that you could be a wildlife biologist in a lab. Field time was optional. I saw a great many while I attended grad school whose aspirations were to attain a PhD in wildlife management - not to manage wildlife. And the end result is those who were removed further from the field taught others, who became further removed from the field, until it is all the equivalent of a video game - virtual management.

I see more and more folks in the ranks of wildlife agencies who are non-hunters - if not outright anti-hunters. Folks who ought to know better cast aside science for political correctness. And in this day and age, those folks rise quickly to be agency heads - furthering the problem.

Judging from your post, you have learned well that wildlife management really boils down to people management. Its unfortunate that the curriculum requirements didn't acknowledge that when I attended school...

I am the Senior biologist for a local company, and I resigned a position on the local board for TWS and no longer am a member due to the organization's affiliation wit the government wildlife agencies and the control over the group by State and Federal employees that become members and use the meetings and presentation workshops to push their government agendas....Sounds like a 'big-brother' theory, but all to true locally. Maybe it is just our local group? unfortunately, these same people [locally] are very anti-hunting/firearms.

I am still a member of Wilson's, Raptor Research, and American Society of Mammalogists.

I have seen alot of wild life groups turn against hunting.The nature conservency has turned more towards nonhunting and forgotten who paved their way.Alaska is heaed towards nonhunting in the road systemAnchorage controls the state voting wise and is like the LA of Alaska.I live in semibush near a small town that is totally dependent on wild meat.The fish and game opened up a cow hunt to wipe out the moose because of car accidents.Its going to hurt our meat supply.The trophy hunting is not the best thing for the moose population.The largest moose are taken and the middle sized moose breed.Our moose have gotten smaller fron changing from 3 brow tines to 4 brow tines.The 4 brow tined moose are very small and you never see any 60 inch moose any more.The average legal moose is 51" in our area now and just barely legal.It makes it hard to find a legal moose any more.It kills me how fish and game caters to the hunting guides and tour bus companies but for get the hunters who pay their wages.Tropy hunting is killing hunting with higher fees and young hunters getting tired of not shooting anything.If we dont keep kids interested in hunting its going to disapear.The way hunting is headed towards trophy hunting is going to end up a rich mans sport like in Europe where you will go with a government guide who determines which animal you shoot and how much it cost based on antler size.