THE POWER OF A THOUGHT

by Jack Ewing

Some people kill wild animals for food, and others hunt for trophies. I learned to hunt at a tender young age. We didn't need to hunt for subsistence, but we did eat most of what I killed, everything from doves to deer. I knew all about trophy hunting too, since my dad traveled to far away places to shoot exotic animals and later hang their heads on his office wall. So the day Tonio, the Hacienda Barú cowboy, called me to come and see his trophy, I could sympathize with the feeling behind the proud smile radiating from his face. Yet when I looked down at the velvety, yellow coat of the dead ocelot ( Leopardus pardalis ,) I felt a pang of uneasiness in my guts, like sadness or pity. What a shame, I thought, to have ended the life of such a marvelous animal.

But then the hunter in my psyche slipped subtly into control. I wonder if there another one of these spotted cats up there in the jungle, that I could kill, I pondered.

Almost instantly, the absurdity of these two conflicting thoughts struck me. How could I feel remorse for the ocelot one moment and, a few seconds later, wonder if there might be one more that I could kill. Thinking back on it now, 30 years later, I believe that what scared me was the idea that I would even consider killing the very last ocelot in the jungle. I never hunted again. A couple of months later I posted NO HUNTING signs on the boundaries of Hacienda Barú. Eventually, I hired a full-time forest guard to combat poaching.

Hacienda Barú had more jungle and more wildlife than any place around Dominical, and in the 1970s, nobody could imagine a life that didn't include paca ( Agouti paca ) and peccary ( Pecari tajacu ) meat. Prohibiting hunting was definitely not the way to win a popularity contest. I was threatened, insulted and accused of thinking I was God. You think you own the wildlife, yelled one angry hunter, waving his machete menacingly. But God put the animals here so we can kill them and eat them and you have no right to stop us.

I don't care what you do on your own land. I retorted, holding my ground. But if you come on Hacienda Barú to hunt you can expect trouble.

But conditions often change in such a way that we see things from a different perspective. Public opinion about hunting changed a little in the early 1980s, but I believe that the real turning point came with the completion of the paved road from San Isidro in 1986. Prior to that time a couple of vehicles a day would drive past our house. The new and easy access to the region brought many people from outside. Several salesmen who made weekly visits to local communities, even carried rifles in their trucks and shot every animal they saw. Weekends brought carloads of hunters from places like San Isidro and Buenos Aires.

In 1987 a group of men came to my house one Saturday afternoon. Looking over the familiar faces I felt a little uneasy, realizing that most were past enemies. All were hunters or ex-hunters. Eduardo, the spokesman, was the brother of the man who had threatened me with a machete. Don Jack, he began, we need your help. If we don't do something, these outsiders are going to kill all of our wildlife. Just imagine; our grandchildren may never know the paca or peccary.

What a change, I thought. Fifteen years ago he was saying: ‘You think you own the wildlife.' Now Eduardo calls it ‘our wildlife.'

The visit from that group of hunters got the ball rolling and a vigilante group called ANADO was founded. It later evolved into a nationally known environmental organization called ASANA, that works to protect natural habitats throughout our region. There are now a lot more animals and a lot less hunters. Cattle ranches have been replaced by nature reserves and cowboys by naturalist guides. In fact, wildlife and tropical nature have become the major attraction for visitors to the region.

And it all began with a thought.

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Focussed in Birdwatching Costa Rica and Ecotourism