In 2019, the Boone and Crockett Club (B&C) issued a position statement on baiting, stating that hunting over bait can be considered fair chase in some circumstances. Fair chase, as defined by B&C, “is the ethical, sportsmanlike, and lawful pursuit and taking of any free-ranging wild game animal in a manner that does not give the hunter an improper or unfair advantage over the game animal.” According to Aldo Leopold, an ethic is based on public support for right actions and opposition to wrong ones. Past surveys indicate that most of the general public, state wildlife agencies, and state wildlife agency deer biologists oppose hunting with bait. The major reason typically given by the general public is fair chase. Additionally, deer hunting over bait violates two principles of B&C’s definition of fair chase. First, providing food habituates deer to humans, making them less wild to the point of being semi-tame. Second, bait gives the hunter an unfair advantage by training deer to show up at a specific time and place. Lastly, hunting deer over bait is not fair chase just because it is “appropriate given the circumstances,” as written in the B&C position statement. The deer management objective does not determine fair chase. “Appropriate given the circumstances” renders the whole idea of fair chase meaningless. As noted by author Jim Posewitz, fair chase “addresses the balance between the hunter and the hunted,” and when there is doubt about whether a hunting practice is fair chase, “advantage must be given to the animal being hunted.” In my opinion, deer hunting over bait, regardless of the circumstances, is not fair chase.
