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On Hunting and Ethical Choices
Everyone has to deal with their own morality. The problem exists when humans, most of whom have a generally good opinion of themselves, rationalize behavior they know is wrong. This sets you up to continually lower your beliefs about right and wrong until you find yourself in the place you said you’d never be. I’m no stranger to this folly, but I remain vigilant about it and ask the Spirit to guide me when I’m not being an impulsive fool.
I wrote once about a bird I injured when I was a kid. I must have been about seven — and I was lethal with that Daisy BB gun on starlings and the other trash birds I was allowed to shoot. Then there was the jay up in some tree. I felt some need to prove something. Busted wing. The darn thing was everywhere outside my house that summer, it’s broken wing reminding me of how bad a person I was when I shot it. That blue jay served a purpose though: it was a fitting allegory for my shame. The story would have been easier to tell if I’d taken my finger off the trigger.
I killed an Atlantic Salmon ( I think ) on the Rapid River in Maine. I spent a third of an hour stalking into position to angle for her. My wiry 12-year-old body, balancing on a rock, flicked a fiberglass fly rod with a Mickey Finn streamer over and over until I got a take. I remember the fight and the landing. The legal limit was 13 inches and this one was 12.5. I spent a lot of time stretching and smashing that fish. In the end, I filleted a fish I should have let go. The story would have been better if I’d have let her go.
I am not an avid hunter. I spend only 5-15 days a year hunting, most of it for birds. I follow the laws because I love the challenge and the killing part. Following the rules makes it fun. There are other rules (not binding) that I find more important than the legal ones because they define who you are: Respecting the environment. Respecting the land owners. Respecting the safety of everyone. Respecting your prey. Understanding your role in the greater scheme of nature. You are an apex predator with responsibilities.
One of those responsibilities is to be an example for younger hunters and fisherman. Integrity happens. If Mr Dentist did what he’s accused of, he has no friends in any of the hunting circles I know.
I shot my first elk last fall. An older patient of mine paid for the pricey hunt ($6,000) and I was excited to do it, practicing much of the summer at the range. When I arrived at the elk camp, I developed a real dislike for the head guy. He advertised this fair chase hunt, but it turned out he had a relatively tame herd of elk ( between two ranches) and that he was used to letting old men dodder up to them and shoot. I declined to kill one and had his old down-and-out assistant take me 10 miles and 3,000 feet up on horseback to look for animals instead.
We got one and it was a rush beyond compare. Back at camp, the head outfitter scored the 7×6 at 298. Anything over 300 and it can be entered in the Safari Club for Idaho. He was trying to talk me into saying it was 315 so I could have my name in some stupid book. I told him he had the wrong person. This story is easy to tell.
In the quiet of the night a person alone can lay back and have all kinds of strange thoughts. Do you like the company you keep in those moments?
Published in General
It’s all in what one hunts, Mike. Have you tried cheerleaders?
They’re a bit gamey tasting unless you marinate them overnight.
The other white meat. Mmmm, mmmm, good!
Is there a limit or can you take all you can transport?
If you tie up a purse with some diamonds, plus a wedding ring from a quarterback, you can drag it across the football field and lure the cheerleader out for a kill shot.
Watch it you hetro normative cis male hunter. Don’t make me take my guns to town.
Guilt? About the singing or the shooting?
I did feel like I fell into a burning ring of fire, I went down, down, down as the flames went higher. Does that count?
My name is Sue, how do you do!
Ahh, the Zoey Tur vs Ben Shapiro moment I’ve been expecting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pckjiU6iYEU
Bravo.
DocJay, Thanks. You are welcome in our Colorado elk camp (really a log cabin home) any time (you can by out-of-state cow tags too).
People say things like that as if they’re somehow negative. The attractive outgoing girl who chose her vocation with an eye to the whole of her life seems to me to have it pretty well together.
I prefer mine medium rare.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_(meat)
I highly recommend it……to mike laroche, on hunting
Save the cheerleader. Save the world.
High-five.
That would be terribly cruel to the goats.
For some unknown reason, I found myself staying at a ranch in Red River, New Mexico one weekend and the place was crawling with elk hunters from Texas. My husband and I spent two days horseback riding through some beautiful terrain and would then come back to the “house” and open a nice bottle of chardonnay on the front deck. I still remember the pregnant pause and then the inevitable snorts from the other guests when the wineglasses came out.
24 hours into our stay one of the more curious hunters approached us and told us to jump in his truck for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. My husband Braveheart declined, but I hopped up in the cab and we took a brief ride at sunset to the edge of the property. The man turned off the engine and said, “Now listen.” I heard something I’ve never heard before- the sound of bugling elks. He turned to me and said, “Isn’t that something?”
When I got a BB gun at age 10 of whenever, I shot a sparrow and then wished I hadn’t. I haven’t gone hunting since. There have been times when I wanted to get into it but it didn’t work out, and the times when it could have worked out (with job and family commitments) I wasn’t interested.
I have killed quite a few fish, though. In pre-family days I enjoyed winter spearfishing for northern pike, especially in early winter when there wasn’t enough snow on the ice to make it too difficult to see below. I sometimes sat in our darkhouse and watched for hours. It might have been -20F outside, but I sat inside, stripped down to my t-shirt, and listened to music while watching the life under the ice.
Back during the Carter administration when everyone was hunkering down in survival mode, we got into homesteading with a big garden, goats, sheep, and chickens. The first year we raised 125 chicks, about half of which became roosters. I had helped Dad and Mom with butchering when I was young and thought I knew the ropes, but I had a lot of trouble making myself chop off the first one’s head. I might have backed out, but there was the matter of children to support and buying feed for all those chickens. After I finally made myself do the first one, I soon got used to it.
Moral of the story: There is squeamishness and there is morality. Sometimes the two get confused. Sometimes one is an aid to the other.
Seems one’s purist minded post on hunting went into the vapors.
As for the flap over trophy killing of a lion, if a crossbow was used as reported, poor choice of weapon and did not honor the beast as it is due.
Crossbows wre meant for biped on biped action, simple.
Have owned a few and would not hunt with one. Heck, Ya could drive a bolt straight thru a cheerleader and what a mess that would be. Medieval one surmises.
I always wanted to go lion hunting Maassai style. Just you, a spear and a quarter ton of alpha predator. Thats the real way to prove who’s the alpha predator. I dont have a problem with regular old hunting, but if I was to kill something for the sole purpose of the thrill I would at least like to look it the eye. As it is I’ll stick to target shooting.
Outstanding point. Simply outstanding!
Great post Doc. One of the biggest irresponsibilities to me in the whole Cecil story was making a poor shot when the time came. I was always taught to let any animal walk on if you do not have a clear, fatal shot. If that trophy buck won’t turn around or is in the brush then he lives for another day. Of course there is always the chance of an errant shot but that is why you do what you did and go to the range to minimize that chance.
Let the blade do the work. A little bit of wrist action helps.
There is nothing more American than Cheerleaders [yes, I purposely used an uppercase ‘C’ because they are more important to this country than obama].
I’m sure the culture-killers are working on getting them eliminated. Shirley, they project some form of micro-aggression. God knows what threat a beautiful, athletic, scantly-clad, nimble, young women could pose, but I’d like to find out.
The peril is too great Jim. Ill do it.
Wilber, nice seeing you. I’m always fine wherever the topic goes. When LaRoche is near I have an inkling.
Yeah. The dentist my mom took us to when I was a kid had this thing with fillings: “Well, it’ll hurt a bit to give you the Novocaine so why don’t you try doing without it. This won’t take long. You can lift your finger if you need to stop.”
“Just a little bit longer.”
“We’re almost done, it’ll take longer for the shot to work than it will to finish.”
My current dentist – an academic as well as a clinician – tells me I have a genetic predisposition to caries.
It’s a good thing Dr. *&!#$% is dead.