Posts Tagged → hunting
Last day of Great American Outdoor Show
If you have not yet gone to the new Great American Outdoor Show, today’s the day.
Even if you’re not a hunter, there’s still much to see and do. The Farm Show complex is enormous and every hall is packed. RVs, campers, boats, fishing everything, mapping, GPS technology, clothing. Etc.
One thing I noticed last week was a booth full of furs also selling turtle shells. Whether or not these shells are from wild native turtles, illegal, or from some farmed non-native species, it disturbed me to see them. Turtles take a good ten years to reach maturity, when they can begin breeding. Their nests are subject to raids by raccoons, skunks, snakes, possums, and bears. ATVs and dirt bikes often are ridden over the soft soils turtles choose to lay their eggs. Collectors grab them for illegal sales, dads take them home for their kids to see, etc.
You get the picture. Turtles don’t have it easy.
If there’s one thing missing from the GAOS, it’s an emphasis on land, water, and wildlife conservation. Plenty of emphasis on the taking part, not much on the conserving part. Maybe that’ll change at next year’s show.
Who is a “sportsman”?
Sportsmen were the nation’s first conservationists, advocating in the 1890s for sustainable harvests of previously unregulated birds, fish and animals like deer and bear. Acting against their own individual self-interests, they banded together to place limits on wildlife and habitat so that future generations would have opportunities to fish, hunt, camp, skinny dip, sight-see, wildlife watch, and help wildlife recover from 300 years of unregulated market hunting and industrial exploitation.
By the 1920s, a culture of stewardship and natural resource conservation was cemented into the sporting ranks by leaders like Gifford Pinchot, Teddy Roosevelt, and Aldo Leopold. Hunting clubs across rural America incorporated stocking programs, tree planting, and facilitating public land purchases to improve and increase wildlife habitat.
Fast forward to today, where wildlife populations are largely stable, wildlife habitat is not in crisis mode, and hunters and anglers are experiencing the best opportunities to harvest trophy fish and game in many decades. We are living in a golden age of the outdoor lifestyle.
Riding on the successes of past generations, today there are some grumbling guys with guns, crabbing that they don’t have anything to hunt. The real shameful behavior is the recent abandonment by some of these men of the sportsman’s stewardship ethic and the conservation pledge that made the hunting community highly respected among the larger society. A group of disaffected users, takers, and malcontents calling themselves “sportsmen” recently endorsed HB 1576, a proposed Pennsylvania bill which would gut the very state agencies charged with protecting Pennsylvania’s natural resources, and remove from state protection those plants and animals necessary for healthy hunting habitat.
The question on the table is, Are these men sportsmen? Are they sportsmen like Aldo Leopold was a sportsman?
While I wait to hear back from others, my answer is No, these men are not sportsmen. They are simply men with guns, freeloaders, spoiled children living off the hard work of both past and present generations, while complaining it isn’t enough and they want more, now, dammit. Their behavior is short-sighted and embarrassing, nothing like the visionary selfless sacrifice of their forebears. They should be publicly shamed and drummed out of the ranks of sportsmen.
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“The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, “What good is it?” If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.”
― Aldo Leopold
You see the darnedest things while hunting
Southeastern Pennsylvania has an overpopluated deer herd of Biblical proportions. Every drive results in shots and deer scrambling across the landscape, making their momentary escape.
On a recent hunt, a midget deer presented itself to every hunter in our group. It was a dwarf deer, without question not a baby or a fawn, apparently fully developed but the size of a fox. I am not making this up or exaggerating.
Although its tail was the regular size for an adult deer, its body was tiny. We nicknamed it the chihuahua deer, and no one shot at it. It was just too cute and freakish. I wanted to adopt it as a pet, which is a big no-no, as wildlife never goes home to become a pet. But it was entertaining to think of it as a pet. I bet it would become mean and spoiled.
Hunters see the darnedest things while afield: Endless trash left by someone too lazy to clean up after themselves; hawks taking snakes and mice; animals fighting; meth labs; you name it, someone you know has seen it.
Today we saw the chihuahua deer, a first-time experience. Maybe it’s a new species. Maybe its extremely diminutive size spawned too much silliness. Maybe hunting is more than killing; sometimes it’s just the experience of witnessing God’s amazing creation.
Bless you, chihuahua deer.
Good luck today, deer hunters
Like many Pennsylvania families today, ours went afield for the morning. My son, having watched an enormous buck run past us in the early morning dark, minutes before shooting light, decided his feet were cold enough and it was time for him to head in.
None in our hunting party got a shot off, yet, but we are gearing up for an afternoon drive, usually productive.
Good luck today, deer hunters! Hunt safely!
Challenging modern sensibilities
Yesterday, the distant father of one of our bear hunters texted his cell phone, urging him to retreat from the cold descending upon central Pennsylvania.
“Too cold! Go home!” read the text, which included several other adjectives supposedly describing hunting conditions.
The dad is not a hunter. He’s a very nice man, a hard worker, a veteran of Vietnam War infantry battles that earned him two Purple Heart medals. He’s no wimp. He is, however, a member of a materially comfortable society that increasingly believes food comes from the market, heat from the switch, and clothes from China.
Luxury is the standard for most Americans. By international standards, our ubiquitous cell phones, big screen televisions, cars, and expensive clothes are unimaginable expenses in days filled with constant quests for food and shelter around the planet.
Hunting for us makes us human, and quintessentially American. Hunting connects us to a human tradition predating anything surrounding Americans today. Cold weather is part and parcel of hunting. It challenges our artificially padded modern sensibilities for a few days, something that everyone needs. Couch potato nation, arise!
Ode to bear camp
Not too long ago, just a few years, actually, a couple hundred thousand Pennsylvania hunters would gather together for the three days before Thanksgiving.
They’d meet under old tar paper shacks, new half-round log cabins, and “camps” both fancier and more rustic. Wherever they gathered was “bear camp,” the place from which they would sally forth in the state’s most rugged topography in search of a lifetime trophy, one of Pennsylvania’s big black bears.
This 100-year tradition that spawned many long Thanksgiving holidays and peaceful family gatherings among the quiet outer fringes of civilization was inadvertently destroyed by the introduction of a Saturday opener for bear hunting.
Now, pressed for time, bear hunters can get out on one day and say they tried. Lacking Sunday hunting for bears, these hunters might hang out, cut some firewood, and then return home to watch a football game Sunday evening. Fewer hunters make camp together for the remaining Monday through Wednesday season. Sure, hunters are out there, and some camps have tagged incredible numbers of bears in recent years, but the momentum of camp itself is gone, fragmented by the introduction of Saturday hunting and the absence of Sunday hunting.
To say that bear camp was a unique amalgamation of individuals is a gross understatement. Used to be that only the crazy die hard bear hunters would be so driven as to take off of work. Now, so many guys come and go on Saturday that the flavor and chemistry of bear camp is changed, and for the poorer.
I’m an advocate for Sunday hunting. Lots of reasons why, but the loss of that bear camp feeling is a good one by itself. If bear season opened Saturday and continued through Sunday, the old experience would be resurrected. I miss it, because I miss the guys who come up now to only hunt Saturday, and by the time I arrive Sunday, they’re packing up or already gone. Gone are the easy times catching up about our kids, families, and work.
Now, bear camp has evolved two “shifts,” the Saturday hunters, and the oddball crew made of guys who can think of no better way to spend time than out in steep, remote areas, hanging off cliffs, falling down steep ravines, and sitting around with buddies back at camp at night to laugh about it. Two shifts, same camp. Same roof, different people.
Sad. I want that old feeling back. Gimme Sunday hunting for bears, please, so I can reconnect with the old friends I hunted bears with for over a decade before the advent of a Saturday opener.
UPDATE: Well, plenty of people have weighed in on this essay. Seems that Saturday has opened up bear hunting to more kids than ever before, and more hunters in general. Concentrating most of the hunters on one day is a fact of lacking Sunday hunting. And no one disagreed that the momentum has now been lost on the week days.
Sunday Hunting in Pennsylvania
Hunters United for Sunday Hunting (www.huntsunday.com) filed a federal lawsuit yesterday, seeking to compel Pennsylvania to allow the Pennsylvania Game Commission the authority to establish Sunday hunting for various species beyond the crows, coyotes, and foxes presently allowed.
The merits are enormous, the case against it weak. It comes down to good government applying consistent laws, a hallmark of democracy. Religious freedom is also part of the suit, since the ban on Sunday hunting is religiously motivated and prevents equal participation by all citizens.
What is sad is hearing pro-gun, pro-hunting folks use anti-gun, anti-hunting arguments to prevent Sunday hunting, as if it does not come back to hurt them.
Here is my position: If you hunt and own guns, then you should desire a greater hunter recruitment rate to replace the people we are losing to age. More hunters means a stronger Second Amendment advocacy pool. Otherwise, if we fail to make up the gun owners we lose, then the gun owners lose political power, and watch their rights slip away as laws change and they are powerless to stand up.
The tonic of wilderness
Reading just about any wilderness outdoors report by hikers or wilderness advocates, you’ll have a tough time not meeting up with the well-worn phrase “the tonic of wilderness.”
All my life I’ve been a wilderness hound, and I don’t know what that phrase means. Whether day hiking, fishing, or camping with a rifle next to me many miles from the nearest road, my feelings about wilderness have zero association with the word tonic.
Euphoria, and drug-induced narcotic stupor are more accurate for my take-aways. That Cloud Nine feeling can stay with me for weeks after returning to human settlement. Getting older only makes it better, because so many layers are filtering the experience now. Water, stands of old conifers, some far off hill that sees one or two people a year, or a decade, these now are the templates upon which each new excursion is planned. Studying a topographic map now yields concrete images of what to expect in my mind, accurate or not.
Since last year I’ve taken to marching about with a heavy pack loaded with 50-65 pounds of steel as a means of getting back into some sort of decent condition. Sometimes I am fortunate enough to hike a local park for 30-60 minutes. Usually, it’s just my neighborhood that I’m tromping through in my rugged hunting boots. Concrete isn’t pretty to see, and my mind once again helps out. As the minutes tick by, a quiet euphoria overtakes the senses, and my eyes see trees, distant horizons, and unbroken scenery. My hand instinctively grips an imaginary rifle, and oblivious to cars whipping past, I wander unnamed marshes somewhere else.
If someone wants to call this the tonic of wilderness, OK. It makes no sense. But if that’s now the by-word, I’ll accept it. Just so long as I can get more, soon
Hunting season is here, and I’m not
Hunting season, around these parts, is an all-consuming month of shooting star-like proportions and beauty. All year we wait to hunt bear and deer, with our packs on our backs and our rifles in hand. Wild areas that haven’t seen a human in a year suddenly welcome one, two, maybe three long striders. And that’s where I’ve been the past month, living in tents in wilderness areas, climbing up cliffs, playing cat and mouse with deer that either walk in front of your car or fall to my bullet, and which provide clean, healthy, sustainable nourishment nonetheless.
With old friends and new, I’ve had some exciting adventures, learned some new things, and had opportunities to reflect on life and career topics. Hunters Sharing the Harvest received one of my deer, with a $15 donation for the processing, and two friends are splitting another deer I took. A third deer I harvested I’m splitting with a friend. Over the coming month, I’ll dole out venison treats to friends and colleagues, sharing nature’s bounty. Along the way, thirty pounds of flubber have disappeared from my torso, and my kids tell me I look like their dad again. Friends tell me I look ten years younger. That feels good.
More to come after this frenetic month ends next weekend. Until then, keep yer powder dry.
Monday: Joe Sixpack Hunts the King’s Deer
Feudal Europe provided the backdrop to American Constitutional government, a stark contrast between arbitrary laws and the rule of law.
No greater symbol represents this contrast than the King’s Deer, a wild animal whose sole existence was dedicated to royalty’s pursuit of hunting pleasure. Surrounding the forests in which the deer lived, lived poor peasants and serfs. Often starving and rarely enjoying fresh meat, any English peasant who hunted a deer to feed his family also put his life in jeopardy. Cruel punishments were handed out to those caught ‘poaching the King’s deer’, despite their wide availability.
Fast forward to Pennsylvania, the Keystone State, the cornerstone of American independence and liberty, and the first experiment in democratic colonial rule. Here, wild game was and remains the property of the citizenry. No longer the King’s deer, our ubiquitous whitetails are available to anyone who wishes to take a basic course in hunting ethics, safety, and wildlife conservation. Our game laws are the opposite of Europe’s, even today. Our wild game are available to all free, law-abiding citizens.
Long a symbol of wild places and clean habitat, the graceful whitetail deer is also a symbol of freedom, of the individual opportunity that defines so much of American life.
Tomorrow, Monday, the rifle season for whitetail deer begins around 6:45 AM, and about one million free citizens will be afield with high powered rifles and shotguns in their hands. Each of us all-American Joe Sixpacks will be pursuing not only deer, but ideas. Ideas of freedom of movement, freedom to own firearms without government approval, freedom from want. Hunting isn’t just about shooting or recreation, but about fulfilling our roles as predators in a complex ecosystem, and our duties in a politically complex Republic. Different religions have different expressions of human freedom: the Passover Seder and the Eucharist are two that jump to mind. But here in Pennsylvania, we also have deer season, a secular but nonetheless deeply meaningful observance.
Good luck, shoot straight, be safe, enjoy your family and friends, and remember that a bad day hunting is better than a good day at the job.