I am enjoying this thread. It is an important subject and should be discussed. In the past several years much has been written about hunting, the whys and the ethics. It is not an easy subject because like most other issues in our society it is confused with many falsehoods and emotions. I always wanted to hunt as a kid. However, my dad was born and raised in the Bronx and since he was career Navy we never lived anywhere long enough to establish the relationships necessary to pursue hunting. Besides, even though my dad sometimes carried a 1911, neither he nor my mom would allow a firearm in the house. A dead deer or pheasant wouldn't have ever crossed their property line if they knew about it let alone eat it (Hell, they never had Mexican food until I graduated college, and then only once). I didn't start hunting until 33 or 34 (I'm now 42) and it without question is what was missing in my life. But for me it is a rather complicated. As Ted Kerasote has written (in The Bugle and elsewhere) hunting for me is a celebration of nature in all of its myriad and wonderful forms. It is also a year round experience, not one or two weeks in the fall. I live in Oregon High Desert and every weekend spend at least 3 hours poking around the desert and forests (literally, 2 miles from my house) with a recurve or longbow stump shooting pine cones, grass and twigs. I usually take my dog with me. I see so much that I didn't see before I hunted because now I have a focus for my curiousity which has made me a much better naturalist. In fact many of the great naturalist/biologists were hunters--Aldo Leopold is perhaps the most famous. Today many of the leading conservationists are also hunters; those who write for Sierra and Audobon (?) like Kerasote above, but also Ted Williams and Rick Bass. Kerasote's book BLOOD TIES is a must read for anyone interested in this subject. He also gave a speech that was printed in several periodicals a couple years ago where he classifies the different hunter types. I don't recall all of the catagories but I think the major ones were the meat hunter, the social hunter (the one week at deer camp with family and friends), the naturalist hunter, etc. He didn't make judgements on whether one was better than the other but there are slobs in every group. I hunt with traditional/primitive bows as well as rifles and shotguns. As a group however, I have seen more unethical hunting practices with compound bow hunters than any other. Many, at least in Oregon, take up the compound because they didn't get a rifle controlled hunt draw. They buy a bow they can't shoot very well, and a hideous amount of camo (as if the camo and face paint will help them as stalk from the stopped pickup in order to get a shot), then road hunt and take 40 or more yard shots.
Three years ago I shot my one and only elk. It was a test because I didn't know how I would feel killing such a magnificant animal but also I wondered how I would feel cleaning it. It was like I had come full circle and had done things our immediate ancestors did not very long ago but in our plastic supermarket society have lost touch with. I didn't take pleasure in killing the animal but I did feel a satisfaction that I could and did do it. I had eaten elk before so knew what it tasted like. The one thing I did discover is one cow elk lasted 2 years for my family of four (two small boys). Whether one chooses to hunt is a personal and a very moral decision. The fact many feel they won't and can't kill an innocent (whatever that means; nature is cruel) animal is fine but to take to the next step and imply or say a hunter is less sensitive, less of one who appreciates nature, is totally false. I personally do not know any nonhunters who spend as much time in the desert or forests as I do (or some of my hunter friends) or who even approach the knowledge I have acquired of natural things. However, some of these same people think nothing of building a house in undisturbed areas destroying habit that in fact kills more wildlife than hunters. They presumably want to be close to nature but by living "in it" they destroy it.
[This message has been edited by Flashman (edited September 22, 1999).]
