Elites tried to monopolize hunting
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
This happened in the blink of an eye: in the area of modern Germany, anatomically modern human hunter gatherers have showed up something like 45-50 000 years ago, but after early European farmers have arrived from the southeast 7500 years ago, they entirely displaced the hunter gatherers in just 2000 years, despite the former having 42 000 years of head start (which is 7 times longer than the entire recorder history).
The reason is simple: using agriculture, you can have much more humans occupy the same area. You quickly get population counts that are completely impossible to sustain by hunting. If you nevertheless allow them to hunt, they will very quickly hunt the animal population to extinction, especially when most of the land is already used for cultivation instead of being dedicated for wildlife. We know this, because this happened on multiple occasions. Human arrivals to Australia have hunted most of its megafauna species to extinction. Same happened when humans arrived to Americas.
Point is, if you allow everyone to hunt, and hunters are numerous and adept, soon nobody is able to hunt, because there is nothing left to hunt. This is also happening today, with overfishing.
Here's a very well-written article from 2020, from the respected D. Meltzer, that breaks down the evidence really concisely and cites most of the other literature I would point to: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2015032117
All of that said, I agree with and want to add to your main point. We did see commercial hunting result in exactly the conditions you described in early American history. Actually, famous commercial hunters like Boone recognized that we were quickly losing the prevalence of wildlife (although it is likely that the prevalence was only there because of the recent demise of the majority of the Indian - and I use that word for the same reason as the author I'll cite - population that had been hunting them, see Charles Mann's "1491").
Now, I certainly believe that climate changes at the time also played a role: for all we know, these might have even been responsible for most of the animal population reduction, through shrinking the habitat etc. But without the humans killing off the rest, they’d have survived, just like they did during climate changes for previous millions of years — it’s not like the climate just suddenly became unstable recently, after millions of years of high stability.
But yes, the overall point is that humans have produced cultural technology that made us just too good at hunting for it to be sustainable source of calories for majority of population, and this has already been true for many millennia.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesi...
The extinction of moa in New Zealand is entirely attributable to over-exploitation by humans. The extinction of megafauna in Australia seems to have been climate change + human hunting + human modification of the environment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-stick_farming
Or, it could be that the same climate shift which allowed the humans to show up also was bad for the megafauna.
Hunting rifles almost never go bang, and it is pretty rare that a deer just falls over dead, yet if the two happen at the same time, it is hardly a coincidence.
The linked article might address this better than I have (I haven't read the article yet)
While in the first part of the coexistence between hunting humans and big animals the extinction of various species was more gradual, in Africa and Eurasia, in more recent times the big animals have disappeared almost immediately (at geologic time scales) after the arrival of humans, e.g. in Australia, America and various big islands.
During hundreds of millions of years, there have been many extinction events, and the biggest animals have always been the most affected by them.
Nevertheless, soon after some big species became extinct, other previously smaller species have grown in size, to fill their place.
There has never been a time with a so low abundance of big animals as since the humans have spread all over the world, and it is obvious that no other big animals will emerge naturally, as the cultivated lands have left too little space for them.
The only way for some big terrestrial animals to appear again would be through genetic engineering and they could live only in reservations, like in Jurassic Park.
> For most of our history, most humans societies were only barely able to feed themselves. All growth in food supply was quickly matched by population growth.
This, like most clichés isn't strictly wrong, but it's not very true either, at least for agrarian societies. Almost since the beginning of agriculture, agrarian societies have experienced food surpluses, and that's what made the cities appear (as in a pre-industrial society the urban population feeds from the surplus of the countryside). And, at least in Western Europe, until the late middle ages there was a lot woodland completely fit for agriculture[1] that weren't exploited yet, leaving a huge margin for population to grow (and it did in fact, grow). So in most of the history of agriculture, again at least in Western Europe, population wasn't simply linked to the size of the potential food supply. It was probably much truer during the early modern period, when most woodland had been converted (even though the quick adaptation of the British agriculture during the continental blockade showed that there was again quite some margin there).
[1]: we know that they were fit for agriculture, because by the end of the middle ages, they were cultivated.
>> During the medieval ‘agricultural revolution’, new forms of cereal farming fuelled the exceptionally rapid growth of towns, markets and populations across much of Europe. The use of the mouldboard plough and systematic crop rotation were key developments and led to open-field farming, one of the transformative changes of the Middle Ages.
You are confusing an individual-level surplus with society wide one. It is true that a single farmer, with abundance of land, can produce great surplus of food, much more than he or his family is able to consume. However, on a society scale, there was very little surplus overall. In better years, food was quite sufficient for everyone, sure, but in worse years, people starved, especially children, elderly, and the destitute.
This is immediately obvious by looking at the population figures. The population growth everywhere was glacially slow by early modern standards, except when a group moved into previously unoccupied territory, or into territory occupied by groups with with worse food production technology.
Consider, for example, population growth in colonial America and in early decades of USA to population growth in UK. If UK population grew as fast as New England in years 1600-1800, by 1800 UK would have had something like 500 000 000 people (half a billion) living in it. Such rapid population growth was only possible in New England thanks to abundant land, very little of it has been previously used for cultivation by native Americans.
Or look, for example, at the rapid population growth in Africa today. Why hasn’t Africa ballooned to a billion people already in 1800, despite millions of years of head start? Simple: they simply couldn’t sustain populations so high with technologies available to them.
Given right circumstances, the population growth and fall are extremely fast on a historical scale, though it is hard to intuitively comprehend for humans due to us living on a single human lifetime scale.
So we got red deer, fallow deer, whitetail deer, samba deer, rusa deer, sika deer, chamois, tahr, salmon and trout.
And indeed, hunting them on public land is very egalitarian indeed, as is fishing for them - no such thing as a private river, although some landowners are attempting to privatise prime trout rivers by stealth.
In terms of rights to access rivers, it's complicated. There's the myth of the Queen's Chain [1], which has a kernel of truth in it, in very specific circumstances, but people had assumed it was far more broad reaching than it is.
And then there's the Ad Medium Filum Aquae (AMF) concept from English common law:
> By the common law, ownership of land adjoining a watercourse, which is not owned by the Crown, gives rise to the presumption that title extends to the middle line. It is a rebuttable presumption - that is, evidence to rebut (disprove) the presumption is always admissible.
That said, a lot of the riverbeds and banks of the larger (by our standards) rivers are owned by regional councils - we run three levels of government, central, regional, and local, and regional is the most focused on water allocations and flood management, so giving them ownership of the riverbeds and floodbanks around flood-prone rivers is a no-brainer - so AMF doesn't come up too often, but if you hunt for rabbits or similar, which love the braided riverbeds, then knowing where AMF applies and doesn't is vital to not meeting a grumpy farmer.
Unlike (what I've been told about) the UK, no-one can actually own the fishing rights to a river, nor the fish in the river. But you can own the land neighbouring it.
And yeah, that's how you privatise a river - buy land on both sides of the river from farmers who had previously reached an agreement with the Department of Conservation or similar to allow angler access via specified routes, and then rescind that access.
Of course, you can claim that you're not privatising the river because _technically_ the prime trout fishing stretch that your land now surrounds can be accessed via a hike upstream from Crown land that only takes 3 days one way.
I mean technically, yes, it's not privatised, but realistically, it pretty much is.
That said, the Crown is getting smarter about this, and is focusing more on permanent easements instead of relying on the goodwill of land owners - especially when rich American celebrities start buying up large high country farms, they tend to be rather... ...private, and thus averse to the public continuing to cross their land.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Hamilton_(engineer)#Jet_b...
[1]: https://www.herengaanuku.govt.nz/knowledge/rivers-lakes-and-...
In England, I think it can be a matter of buying the land either side of the river, but whether its owner controls navigation seems to be contested.
The UK Environment Agency says watercourses (including rivers) in England can be privately owned. [0]
British Canoeing seems to say that access to most navigable waterways in England is contested, including as trespass: "Of the 42,700 miles of inland waterways in England, only 1,400 miles can be paddled uncontested - that is a mere 4% of what is available. Paddlers are subject to challenge or dispute over their right to be on the water. ...If you are paddling on a river, lake or other waters where there is a disputed public right of navigation, then it could be alleged you may be trespassing." [1]
I think watercourses are a proper subset of waterways, with lakes being an example of waterways that aren't watercourses.
The right of owners to control fishing in England (and Wales) seems not to be contested in the way navigation is: "While the national rod licence gives a licence to fish anywhere in England and Wales, you might still need permission from the riparian owner to fish from her/his stretch of the river bank. The owner of the land adjoining one side of a natural river or stream owns the exclusive fishing rights (called, riparian rights) on her or his side of the bank. These rights extend up to the middle of the water. They can be leased or sold as separate property right (apart from ownership of the land itself). So, the owner does not necessarily have the right to fish from her/his side of the bank. An owner whose land adjoins a pond or lake has similar rights which extend as far as the middle of the water unless it encircles the pond or lake." [2]
[0] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/owning-a-watercourse
[1] https://www.britishcanoeing.org.uk/go-canoeing/access-and-en...
Can I ask what 'reloading' is? I'm guessing it's making your own ammo yourself, yes? I'm curious to know more, if you (or anyone else) wouldn't mind sharing.
"I don't have time to reload" sounds like you're just throwing the entire gun away instead of putting more bullets into it but that can't be right (although I could see someone doing this in an action movie :) )
Yes. It's mainly done for two reasons: cost and performance.
If you use a lot of ammo you can reduce your net costs. Depending on what you shoot the cost savings can be substantial, especially if your firearm is not a common type.
You can achieve higher performance (accuracy, power, etc.) as well. Refining the 'load' (primer, powder and bullet are the main variables) to a particular firearm, as well as precisely controlling materials and assembly, can improve accuracy.
Lately, availability has also become a motivator. Ammo scarcity can sometimes be worked around by acquiring components and assembling them yourself.
Anyhow, it's a common pursuit and a continuation of historical practice; at one time everyone made all of their own ammo. The downsides are the time and equipment necessary, including space to accommodate it all, which needs to be dry and clear of unrelated traffic, and the possibility of injuring or killing yourself or others if you do it wrong.
I've done it and it suits geek type mentalities; a multidimensional optimization problem involving obscure knowledge and refinement. It's quite a thrill to touch off a round you designed and assembled.
The phrase "reloading kit" is extremely helpful for learning more about this
Crossbows and bows do need a license where I live. You can use them only on a special target practice place. The law also regulates how you should transport the bows to your home (you have to unhook its string). The license for a bow requires a training course and everyone can take those. Guns are obviously much more restricted.
I believe that is fine. I understand that this might sound crazy to someone who has grown up being able to buy guns at the grocery store. To me that sounds crazy.
They lost their last one because the heirs were uninterested in ranching and sold to someone much wealthier in Dallas who wanted it just for hunting. They weren’t able to find a similar situation because ranches were getting bought up by other wealthier hunters.
France is an infamous example.
Over here in Romania there are still pockets of "common people" going hunting, but they're on their way out, it has slowly become a rich person activity.