Two species of swan are regularly found in Utah, tundra swans (Cygnus columbianus) and trumpeter swans (Cygnus buccinator). Tundra swans migrate through Utah. During the fall migration period they are hunted in the state under guidelines established by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Trumpeter swans are occasional visitors to Utah during the same migration period. Because trumpeter swans are difficult to distinguish from tundra swans in flight, they 11 are at risk of being harvested during the swan hunt. In my thesis, I examine the factors that may influence trumpeter swan vulnerability to harvest. Specifically, I evaluated height and velocity of foraging flights for both species of swans and identified characteristics of Utah swan hunters. This information could assist the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources in developing an educational program to reduce trumpeter swan vulnerability. I applied flight dynamics theory to 86 trumpeter and 178 tundra swan measurements. Both speed and height of short-range foraging flights were used to predict trumpeter and tundra swan vulnerability. The theory predicted that trumpeter swans fly slower and lower than tundra swans, and thus may be more vulnerable to harvest. The predicted flight height of tundra swans was compared to observations of tundra swans made at the USFWS Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. Average body area of the two species of swans was compared. Trumpeter swans had, on average, a 30% larger body area. Combining the lower predicted flight and larger body size, trumpeter swans may be up to 26% more vulnerable on a 3.8-km flight and 15% more vulnerable on a 10-km flight than tundra swans on the same flight path. In addition to current regulations, the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources is interested in implementing a swan hunter education course to further reduce the likelihood of a trumpeter swan being harvested during the swan hunt. I surveyed a representative sample of Utah swan hunters to determine if they would participate in the course and attitudes about current regulations, and to identify specific topics that should be emphasized in the course. My survey suggested that Utah swan hunters would be receptive to a swan hunter education course. Based on the responses, any swan hunter education course should emphasize identification of trumpeter and tundra swans, distance estimation, and regulations regarding the swan hunt.

This study investigated the various sources of information utilized by a sample of the Oregon adult population to gain information and ideas about the wildlife resource. The results were compared to those of a study of college and university students and their sources of information that gave them anti-hunting attitudes. The basic question posed was: What sources of information are most commonly utilized by a sample of Oregon’s population in obtaining ideas and information concerning the wildlife resource and do the proportions of various sources utilized compare with those indicated by college students as sources of anti-hunting sentiments? Additional questions asked of the subjects revealed less anti-hunting sentiment than in many portions of the United States and further hinted at simple bias in the direction of pro-hunting attitudes.

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This study is a description and interpretation of talk about hunting. The study is based on data gathered from in-depth interviews with twenty-four hunters in the United States who did not become hunters until adulthood. A single overarching research question guides the study: How do people create and use discourses of hunting? The study is situated within the ethnography of communication research program and, more specifically, within the framework of cultural discourse analysis. The study employs cultural discourse analysis methods and concepts to describe and develop interpretations of how participants render hunting symbolically meaningful, and of what beliefs and values underlie such meanings. The major descriptive findings include recurrent patterns of talk concerning: connecting with land and nature, spirit, other people, human ancestry, and human nature; taking responsibility in ecological, ethical, and health-related ways, both through hunting and through other practices such as gardening; being engaged, present, alert, excited, and challenged; killing for appropriate reasons, in appropriate ways, and with appropriate feeling; and living and acting in response to a modern world that diminishes human experience, brutalizes animals, and harms the natural world. The major interpretive findings include hunting being linked to other practices such as gardening, and being spoken of as a deeply meaningful pursuit practiced for the feelings of connection, engagement, and right relationship that it fosters, and as a physically and spiritually healthful remedy for the negative effects of modern living and of industrial food systems. This research demonstrates that hunting and talk about hunting can be underpinned by common beliefs and values shared by hunters, non-hunters, and anti-hunters. This research also suggests that adult-onset hunters and their discursive practices may be of unique value to wildlife agencies and conservation organizations, to other adult onset-hunters, and to both scholarly and public understandings of—and dialogues about—the practice of hunting.

Hunting law as a tool for environmental protection In the scope of three main chapters, introduction and conclusion, the thesis attempts to capture the relationship between the Czech hunting legislation and nature conservation. The question is whether we can consider the current concept of the Hunting Act (449/2001 Sb.) as one of the tools of environmental protection. For the elaboration I based the research, among other things, on my personal experience with pro-landscape hunting in the vicinity of the village Vinaře, Central Bohemia. Furthermore, I elaborated on interesting cases of judicial and administrative practice and, last but not least, I took into account the relevant legal norms and appropriate literature or professional texts. The first chapter deals in more detail with the very concept of hunting, including various interpretations and therefore also meanings. The second part of the first chapter describes - rather briefly - the history of hunting predominantly in the Czech territory. In this context, greater emphasis is placed primarily on the first signs of nature protection. The next chapter follows the very essence of the monography, namely the role of hunting in environmental protection. I pay special attention to the hunting ground and game in this regard. One of the separate...

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In the last half century, gun ownership has been one of the most hotly debated topics in the United States. The right to bear arms was written into the U. S. Constitution and into the hearts and minds of its citizens. During the last half century, however, numerous gun control laws have been enacted at Federal, state and local levels, and it can be argued (plausibly or not) that part of the legislative intent has been to decrease the number of gun owning households in the United States. For many decades, this number hovered at one half of all households (Wright, 1995). The possible success of these gun control efforts is suggested by an apparent and rather sharp decline in the ownership percentage beginning in the 1990s. In 2000, the household gun ownership rate had decreased to 32.5% (according to the General Social Survey). The question raised in this thesis is how to account for declining gun ownership. More specifically, I ask if there has in fact been a decline in ownership, or whether the apparent decline is an illusion resulting from changing demographics. A third possibility, that social norms have changed such that admitting gun ownership in surveys is now more problematic for many people, is also considered and seems, indeed, to be the most telling line of explanation.