Friday, September 17, 2010

Deer Season

Deer season soon is coming too soon. My nephew is a deer hunter and he hunts on leased land that adjoins our property. 
I've heard all the arguments for hunting deer:
1. You have to thin out the herd so they don't over populate
2. They will starve or otherwise die of disease or old age, and so on.
I'm sure these are valid reasons to someone, but I would really hate to think that one of our deer that we've been feeding forever, will be killed by hunters.
I saw a funny cartoon once where the deer were armed and were returning fire. A hunter takes a flesh wound in the arm and as he dives for cover, he screams to his partner, "Hey! They're shooting back, THAT'S NOT FAIR!" 
I howled when I saw that one and I wish I'd cut it out and saved it.
If I were to hit the lottery, or that my next book hits the best seller list (which is almost as great a long shot as hitting the lottery), I'd buy all the adjoining land and no one would harm, fowl, fish, or animal.
Anyhow, when I talked to my nephew, I told him under no circumstances, bother a critter on our land, and not to tell us if he killed a deer around here. 

5 comments:

  1. My sister and her husband hunt and enter lotteries in the western states for elk, etc. I don't understand the process. On the farm we were raised on no one in our family of women hunted, but mom let the neighbor men hunt on the pastures. I'm glad there were no deer there.

    I think I've seen the cartoon you mention. It's hillarious!

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  2. I was never much of a hunter myself, but do a lot of fishing in my spare time.

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  3. I don't like the rational hunters give about 'thinning the herd, etc.' Natural predators take the old, sick, weak leaving the herd genetically stronger. Human hunters take the big, the strong, the beautiful leaving the herd weaker. Early human hunters probably hunted like animal predators. But with the development of better weapons, today's trophy hunting predominates.

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  4. I use to deer hunt--but haven't since college some 30 years ago... The main fallacy in the "culling the herd" argument is that hunters want to take the prize of the herd instead of shooting the weakest, which harms the health of the herd (as I write this, it seems Kris has already said essentially the same thing). Hunting for food I have no problem with, but I don't care for antlers in the living room

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  5. They shoot game on this estate with the excuse that it brings in cash, I see this as an indicator to the level of their intelligence if the only way they can think to bring in money to the estate is to hold a weekly killing spree. Not that I’m saying your nephew is not intelligent as I know hunting deer is different to what they do here – apart from the killing bit.

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