Natural born cullers? How hunters police the more-than-human right to the city

Abstract

Urban areas are a messy more-than-human interface for humans and synanthropic wildlife. Norms for what constitutes a ‘problem’ animal to be culled, a displaced animal to be rescued, or a species nuisance whom one simply has to let live, are undergoing rapid change. We investigate the changing expectations that municipal hunters experience that they have from society in relation to managing problem wildlife in cities. Adding to the literature on the constitution of ‘problem’ animals in human environments, we show what happens to these animals in the practical sense, and what informs this decision. Our point of departure is to ask by what rationales hunters consider lethal interventions in urban nature to be legitimate, and which they find to be morally problematic. In a discussion, we reflect on what this says about, and means for, multispecies coexistence. Through interviews and go-along participant observation with 32 municipal hunters in Sweden, we show how municipal hunters wrestle with growing unease about new custodial roles they are expected to inhabit, as facilitators of the natural order, as garbage collectors of society for unwanted wildlife, and as enforcers of an interspecies code of conduct for the city. Based on this analysis, we discuss the relative standing of reparative, sacrificial, aesthetic, goodwill, practical, categorical and situational rationales for culling. This paints a picture of hunters as more conflicted about their control of urban nature, in challenge with the stereotypical idea of the professional hunter as a ‘natural born culler’. It also shows a city of parallel planes of multispecies coexistence, where some species and animals get a pass more than others.