MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Animal-rights activist Heidi Prescott stands before a room full of hunters, baiting them with questions that convey the Humane Society's position on their favorite pastime.

It is Josh Lavalle, an 18-year-old freshman from Elizabeth, Pa., who bites first.

"Are you saying hunters do not help wildlife?" asks Lavalle, a forestry major at West Virginia University who first argues the pro-hunting standby, overpopulation. "If hunters don't kill them, they're going to get hit by a car."

It's the kind of debate that John Edwards likes to hear in The Tradition of Hunting, a three-credit course that he says is one of only a few nationwide.

Edwards and James Anderson, assistant professors of wildlife and fisheries resources, won a $34,000 grant to design the course, drawing 90 students last fall. This semester, 62 are enrolled, two of them women.

Amy Morgan, 25, of Rivesville, says she's been around hunting all her life. Though her father, uncles and grandmother hunted, Morgan says she had no interest. That's changed.

"Taking this class has also helped me in sort of bonding with my father," says the aspiring wildlife manager. "It's slightly changed my view. Now I want to go. I want to check it out."

This is not a how-to-hunt class. Seminar topics include the evolution of hunting in society, its role in wildlife management, traditions, ethics, animal rights, gun control and economic impact.

But there is plenty of practical information, as when guest lecturer Brett Kenney discusses the nutritional qualities of low-cholesterol, high-protein venison, then teaches proper field-dressing and butchering.

Nearly everyone in the class is an experienced hunter, but Anderson hopes that will change.

"When we talk about controversial issues, we have to play devil's advocate," he says. "And when we have the NRA here, it's like preaching to the choir. You can't have student discussions when you don't have two sides."

That's why he invites speakers like Prescott, senior vice president for campaigns for the Washington, D.C.-based Humane Society of the United States.

The number of licensed hunters in the United States had been declining. But October figures from the U.S Fish & Wildlife Service show the number of licensed hunters rose slightly in 2004, from 14.74 million to 14.78 million, or about 5 percent of the U.S. population.

Edwards says West Virginia has done a better job than many others at cultivating a new generation of hunters. But Prescott finds such recruitment troubling; she prefers to see numbers falling.

Student John Sagle, 23, of Richmond, Va., tries to persuade her that hunters aren't cruel.

"You kind of mourn the death of a deer," he says, "but you have a use for it."

Prescott helps run campaigns against new hunting laws, animal baiting and "canned" hunts, where the prey has no hope of escape. She says ethical hunters consider canned hunts unsportsmanlike and a flaw in their collective public image, so a few are starting to collaborate with animal rights groups.

She asks the students if they would consider working with her.

"It's possible," Lavalle said. "Any groups can agree on some common ground."