Deer Season
Even though I am not fond of venison, I have always appreciated Deer Season. I have spent many a day during the season out in the woods, with a rifle in hand and camera around my neck.... going through the ritual. Again, I do not like venison, so I really have no need to actually shoot a deer other than with my camera. I do have many decent photos from over the years.
I think deer hunting is a wonderful and appropriate activity and believe it encourages us to be more naturally involved with the real world, the natural environment. It also helps us be better attuned to what it REALLY takes to be a meat eater. Although I typically ended up taking pictures in my own hunting, I also (from my biology background) have been a very good "surgeon" and always was sought after to help to dress the deer as neatly and cleanly as possible for the deer other members in camp were able to get.
I have also liked the camaraderie of deer camp, the drinking and carousing that occurs. It is relaxing and feels like a different world from my day-to-day.
With the passage of my elderly father-in-law this past January.... I lost my significant link to deer hunting and deer camp. I missed even thinking about opening day last Thursday.
PipeTobacco
6 Comments:
I am urban in background, so it is difficult for me to relate to. But I am now live on the rural fringes, and I do see that it is part of rural tradition. And it does seem that it is the social aspect that is the big draw.
Only in Alaska do they kill the wolves to protect the moose so they can kill the moose.
In the twenty-first century there is no need to kill animals for blood sport. It is not about the meat. The cost involved in a hunt for outweighs the cost of buying meat - it is about the killing.
the Ol'Buzzard
All the people I hunted with that shot a deer (not those like me who came up for the fun of camp) liked and wanted and did eat all the venison they obtained. I think hunting is valuable when you are a person who eats meat to realize the actual aspects of needing to kill an animal for meat. Getting meat only from the grocery store takes the meat eater away from that reality and keeps them "hands-off" the real world requirement of killing an animal if you choose to eat meat, IMO.
Aw, how could you shoot such a beautiful creature? I'm glad it's mostly with your camera.
My husband reluctantly allows deer hunting on his land in Ohio. His sister doesn't allow it on her part of the land. I doubt that the hunters know or care about the difference. I have no problem with hunting, as long as the hunters behave. Their petty arguments over the years about who got to hunt on which parcel of land irritated my husband so much that he turned the whole project of permits over to his neighbor, who allows hunting on his property. The thing is, the deer's natural prey was killed off years ago, and the trees suffer for it. My husband plants hybrid chestnut trees on his land and has to put cages around the seedlings to keep the deer from browsing them. (The rodents are something else.)
I used to be dead set against hunting, but seeing deer killed (or worse, half-dead) along our roads, plus having a new co-worker who hunts and has discussed his point of view, has changed my mind. If a hunter is careful, the deer's death is much quicker and more merciful than being struck by a car or starving to death or even being taken down by a coyote. My co-worker hunts to fill his freezer with meat that is not full of antibiotics or steroids, which a lot of our grocery store meats are. There is no difference between shooting a deer and killing a cow or pig, and in many cases, hunting provides a more humane death.
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