Popular Culture Review Vol. 4, No. 2, June 1993 | Page 81

Feather Fashions, and Hunter-Naturalists

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sportsman-hunter (or, perhaps more clearly, the hunter-naturalist)
supported by a general public anathema of the horrid squandering of
animal and bird parts. This rarefied version of consumption nurtured
the value of each member of the wildlife population. The catch and
release program in fishing devolved from this philosophy.
Altherr explains that "the hunter-naturalist type originated in
disgust for the barbarous and avaricious practices by both sport and
conunercial hunters" (Altherr 8), so clearly it was also a time of
negotiation in regards to what constitutes sport hunt probity. In any
case, a great deal of the impulse toward this New World gentleman's
variant of a traditional blood sport came from what passed as
America's aristocrats: old money, scions of Robber Barons, offspring of
the industrial elite.
Under the quickly developing gaze of the sportsman this neoteric
philosophy incorporated not only the relatively well developed
idea, among the European landed, of the "fair hunt" but also a respect
for scientific inquiry in the outdoors and sympathy for the potential
game animal. In addition, as Altherr points out, for the hunternaturalist "hunting literature should be cerebral as well as
instinctual, inspiring as well as exciting, erudite as well as
commonplace" (Altherr 8). Rather than base the enjoyment of a hunt
on quantitative results the hunter-naturalists endeavored to create a
qualitatively measured fully-rounded experience. For them, it was
the enjoyment of ritual, the salubrious effects of the outdoors, the
heuristic aspects of the chase, and the generally wholesome
components of a hunt episode which were most important. If a kill
was made, it was to be achieved in the most sportsmanlike way.
From this perspective there is a sort of intellectual recapture of the
environment.
Other Effects of New-Style Sport Hunting
One of the effects of the rapidly growing hunter-naturalist
cosmology was an expending network of outdoors organizations which
"actively supported legislation to control or outlaw commercial
hunting of both game and non-game species and [which] waged a
media campaign for the legitimization of spert hunting and vigilant
conservation measures" (Altherr 14). It is important to keep in mind
that the hunter-naturalist was not opposed in any fundamental way