OT: Hunting ** Sorta Longish

[Guest guest]

Howdy Kathleen,

 

You buy it from a butcher silly!

>

 

Sorry .. its illegal to sell wild game in America. But glad I am someone

bit on my bait .. I wanted to talk about this. ;-)

 

Like most folks, I have opinions on plants and animals as food and I realize

that such not discussion is not the main theme of aromatherapy news groups

unless we separate the plants from the animals .. which is really a double

standard approach to the issue of dealing with Mama Nature and her bounty.

 

Some readers might dislike hearing facts that could confuse them but some

folks welcome hearing how it is rather than how they wish it was .. so here

I go. ;-)

 

I am trying to retire from the AT/EO business and even if that was not the

case, this news group is non commercial so I have had little to gain by

writing here. But over the years I have added a tad of knowledge to the

group and will probably continue to do so. I reckon if folks wanna see a

rainbow .. they gotta stand a little rain. ;-)

 

I returned to the U.S.A. from 19 + years in Turkey in the summer of 2007 ..

returned to my roots .. gardening, hunting and fishing. We have a large

organic garden and orchard and I am thrilled to watch plants (and critters)

keep bouncing back regardless of what we do .. Mama Nature has taught plants

(and critters) to survive even under the worst of conditions .. all a part

of evolution and survival of the fittest. Plants and wild creatures can

easily adapt to their environment .. mankind .. we are behind the power

curve .. probably because we are sometimes confused and allow our emotions

to control our actions.

 

This is a pro hunting post so folks can dump it now if its gonna bother

them. It is also a long post and I don't apologize for that cause odds are

it might be my last post .. the List Moms might decide to kick me off for

this one. ;-)

 

For those who choose to continue to read .. its reality down where the

rubber meets the road. If we lay aside emotion it might educate some folks

... unless they are vegetarians. Later on you will see that the Greenest of

Green groups today support hunting.

 

First .. to answer those who might wonder how I am able to shoot those

pretty little Deer .. the answer is .. good optics and a steady trigger

squeeze. ;-)

 

If one is opposed to hunting but not to eating fish .. is it because one is

cold blooded and the other is warm blooded? Would those same folks trap a

mouse if it were loose in their home and eating their food or gnawing the

labels off their EO bottles .. and perhaps spreading disease?

 

I agree with folks who say hunting is not much of a contest .. the odds

favor the hunted .. not the hunter. A Deer can detect as many as 7 scents

at a time from 500-600 yards .. and Wild Turkey are the most wary of all

game in North America .. if they could read they could read the fine print

on a newspaper at 100 yards and could hear the snap of a match stick at the

same distance. A hunter spends maybe 95% of the time sitting in a cold

tree stand for hours without seeing a Deer .. or in the forest line waiting

for a Wild Turkey. When it comes to a mouse vs a mouse trap there is no

contest .. the mouse trap wins every time. Deer and Wild Turkey and other

game have the odds on their side.

 

Hunting in America is a cultural thing .. like apple pie and baseball. I

don't expect folks from every country to understand this. I have spent

more than half my adult life outside the U.S.A. and have learned to tolerate

and even participate in customs and cultural events that I might not

understand.

 

Assuming one is not a vegetarian .. they will probably get their meat and

fish from the local market. If so, they are eating meat .. and fish (with

some exceptions) that was raised in a inhumane manner and slaughtered

without concern for the degree of fear the animals were exposed to when they

were killed. Stress has a definite negative impact on nutritional value

and tenderness of meat .. animals killed while struggling and listening to

other animals bawling in fear and pain give us lower quality meat.

Unfortunately, it is only the devout Muslims and Jewish people who work to

avoid this panic when they slaughter animals for food .. most others are

barbaric in this regard.

 

When I (and any other REAL hunter) shoots a Deer .. we do our best to put it

down dead with one shot. We know where to shoot and we do our best to hit

that spot. We killed that deer .. but it was running free up to the moment

it died .. unlike those caged up animals we get from the supermarket.

 

Additionally, meat and poultry and in many cases, fish sold in the market

are not natural. They are filled with chemicals and hormones that might make

us grow two heads a few generations from now. I would say that roughly

85% of the food my family consumes are organic fruits, vegetables and

berries from our own garden and Deer, Duck, Goose, Turkey and Fish I harvest

from the woods, fields and lakes in our area. In the last year my

cholesterol level dropped to below 200 .. a first in my life .. it was never

below 300 prior to this time. I owe this in great part to the consumption

of wild game.

 

The human population in Henry County is roughly 33,000 (11,000 in the County

Seat of Paris) .. and it is not growing .. the deer population is roughly

200,000 .. and it is exploding.

 

The population density of New York City is roughly 3,000 people per square

mile but here in Henry County it is 55 per square mile and in farming areas

it is 5 or 6 per square mile .. but the White Tail Deer population county

wide is closer to 60 per square mile.

 

Bag limits here are generous .. 3 antlered Deer per season .. but 3 antler

less Deer PER DAY. Antler less Deer can be male .. they must have one point

at least 3 inches long to be antlered.

 

Deer season closed here in Tennessee on 10 January .. Henry County came in

2nd (again) among the 95 TN counties .. 5,018 deer turned in. Extremely

low this is so Deer will likely suffer some form of disease before next

year. Now that the season is closed .. those critters are out playing on

my land .. they are wise.

 

So 5,000 + Deer were killed by hunters in Henry County .. but before the

next season rolls around .. another 1,000 or so will die when they run into

the road and strike moving vehicles and another 10,000 or more will die of

various diseases. IF we had turned in 25,000 Deer the population next

year would still be larger than this year. Almost every Doe will

reproduce .. those under one year old normally have one Fawn .. 10% of them

will have twins. Seventy percent of older Doe have twins and roughly 12%

of them have triplets. Even if 50% of those Fawns do not survive the first

year the population will still increase .. do the math.

 

My cousin has a farm here .. near 2,000 acres. Last year wild life

management folks determined that he should cull roughly 50 Doe from his farm

this year .. we were able to take but 5 .. all Deer went nocturnal early in

the season this year. We took but 8 antlered Deer .. but we attempted to

manage the herd by taking only Doe and Bucks that were 8 pointers or above

so we passed up many Deer. We now know our decision was not a good one and

we'll not repeat it next year. Last year I took 7 Deer and then stopped ..

we ate those 7 prior to this season opening .. this year I took but 5 so we

will be out of venison before the next season starts.

 

Like most farms here, the Deer population is too large .. they consume many

thousands of dollars in grain crops each year. Forty to fifty percent of a

White Tail's diet here is from agricultural crops. Few farmers are happy

about sacrificing the fruits of their labor to wild animals .. but it is

common here for farmers to accept this. The only way to control the Deer

population is by harvesting them .. which is still inadequate.

 

All of his fields are surrounded by woods .. when he harvests he expects a

75 yards or more of field adjacent to every wood line to be without grain

and often he must replant corn in early spring because Wild Turkey walk down

a row and pluck every corn plant they come to when it peeks out of the

ground. Tender corn plants are one of their favorite foods.

 

Like most farmers here he owns land he can't farm but must pay taxes on.

Whether one owns 10 acres or 10,000 acres they can clear but 5 acres a

year. The government controls this via aerial photos and overlays and if

you exceed the 5 acre limit fines are heavy. He also has roughly 160 acres

of swamp land along the Obion River that he can not touch. That land must

remain swamp .. he can't drain or channel the flow of water .. so natural

habitat is not at risk on his farm and most other farms in our area. That

land will remain wild for many generations to come.

 

The land laid aside as Nature Preserves in the U.S.A. is larger than the

entire area of Europe. Tax Revenue from hunters in Tennessee alone is

roughly $9 million annually. The money is used to maintain those preserves

and it comes strictly from taxes on hunting licenses, firearms and

ammunition. If you throw in the amounts spent on travel and lodging and

other goods and services it will be considerably higher and this revenue

does create jobs .. not just in Washington, D.C. American states (no

credit to the Federal government) have the best wild life conservation

programs on Earth and Tennessee has one of the best in America.

 

Still .. we cannot control the population of White Tail Deer. Our

conservation programs are sometimes too effective .. Deer are a nuisance to

people and at times a threat to their own existence.

 

Likewise, we have done too good a job of protecting birds of prey .. I

respect the laws prohibiting killing of Eagles .. we have many Eagles in my

area .. they nest and produce here .. but the prohibition on killing of

hawks has resulted in a major decline in the population of rabbits and quail

and I believe the wildlife management people will in time have to take

another look at the population of Deer and birds of prey .. maybe take

drastic measures and fight the Greens (and some hunters) to level the

playing field.

 

Folks who have little knowledge but heavy hearts might ask .. " Why not

reintroduce natural predators? Well .. the answers are many as far as Deer

go .. and protection of natural predators (birds of prey) is wiping out the

rabbits and quail. There is a happy balance there somewhere but its not an

easy one ... hunting helps some to fill the gap until we can come up with

more sound solutions.

 

As for Deer.. natural predators like wolves and grizzly bears never

effectively controlled populations of Deer, Elk, Buffalo and other grazing

creatures in the U.S.A. Disease was Mama Nature's method of control.

Before Western man came Buffalo herds stretched for hundreds of miles in

places .. and annually they died by the millions .. slow deaths they were ..

disease and starvation .. it was these weak animals that the predators

generally fed on.

 

Secondly .. just as was the case during our earlier history .. with the

Indian tribes of America .. Western man was not willing to adjust his norms

to meet their needs. The young Indian warrior had but three ways to earn

respect and his feathers .. (1) to be a good hunter and provider for his

family .. (2) to be a good horse and wife thief .. which was beneficial in

bringing in new blood to horse herds and family clans .. and (3) to be a

good warrior .. to slay as many enemy as possible and adorn his lance with

their hair.

 

The White tribes had no conflict with the Indian hunting but it bothered him

when the Indian stole his horses .. or his daughters .. or his wife. And

it didn't set well with the White Tribe when the Indian took the scalps of

his family. Clash of culture or whatever .. reality is reality.

 

Likewise .. it would today not be to the liking of farmers if Wolves and

Grizzly Bears were eating his profits by killing his cattle, pigs or sheep

... and few people are Green enough to volunteer to be a meal for a Grizzly

so that the natural circle of life can continue without interference.

 

Man has upset the balance of nature and it is the duty of man to reestablish

and maintain that balance as best he can. It is proven that hunting is the

way this must be done.

 

Go on Google and ask .. Why is Deer hunting good? or Is hunting good for the

environment .. we will get MANY logical positions on this from both

universities and environmental groups .. if we ask why it is not good we

will get a few illogical, totally emotional links that border on the

ridiculous .. not as ridiculous as the analysis of events by Keith Olberman

or Glen Beck .. but still .. ridiculous. ;-).

 

As it states here, hunters are among the Greenest people in America.

 

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/hunting-environmental-470\

90405

 

" Public support for hunting, however, is on the rise. A 2007 survey

by Responsive

Management Inc. <http://www.responsivemanagement.com/>, a social research

firm specializing in natural resource issues, found that 78% of Americans

support hunting today versus 73% in 1995. Eighty percent of respondents

agreed that “hunting has a legitimate place in modern society,” and the

percent of Americans indicating disapproval of hunting declined from 22% in

1995 to 16% in 2007.

 

Perhaps matching the trend among the public, green leaders are increasingly

advocating for cooperation between hunters and environmental groups: After

all, both lament urban sprawl and habitat destruction. " UNQUOTE

 

And go here ... http://www.uga.edu/srel/ecoviews/ecoview031117.htm

 

Those who oppose hunting today are in the minority and they are fine with me

as long as they don't rest their glasses on the end of their nose .. or come

across as superior, aloof and arrogant creatures like some folks Americans

have put into high elected positions .. and begin to believe that they are

morally and intellectually superior and anyone who disagrees with them is a

knuckle dragging Neanderthal who needs a Nanny State to tell them how many

sheets of toilet paper they can use at one sitting. Some of my best

frienemes are confused folks who believe more gummit is the solution to

man's problems. My oldest son is one of those folks .. but my youngest

son (turns 4 in March) likes to watch the O'Reilly Factor with me .. and he

has already had instruction (using a BB gun) on safe use of weapons. When

he is five he will move to a .22 caliber and when he is 6 .. kids can hunt

at 6 in TN .. to a .243 Winchester.

 

I don't hunt anything I don't eat .. except coyotes. I will kill coyotes

simply because they exist .. in my opinion they are like rats .. they should

not exist. My position might not be the correct one but it is not an

emotional decision .. I have my rationale for this exception and its no

different than the one I would use if a human threatened my life or that of

my family .. or .. the life of anyone else. Being a retired soldier and

military police officer .. I know for a fact that there are times when

deadly force is the proper solution to a difficult situation.

 

Back to coyotes .. some will argue that they are a necessary part of the

natural chain but I don't buy that argument .. that chain has long since

been broken .. by man .. and more coyotes is not a fix for this. I have

never seen a dinosaur or a saber tooth tiger and I don't miss them. I

believe that if all coyotes were gone from America they too would not be

missed. ;-)

 

In addition to lowering my cholesterol by eating more venison, hunting has

improved my health in other ways. Early last year the quacks wanted me to

have a knee replacement and I was getting shots for arthritis now and then.

I refused the operation and refused their prescription medications. I

started hunting again and it was not easy but I accepted the pain and drove

on. To walk a mile I would stop a couple of times and rest a minute ..

then drive on. This was frustrating because while in the military I could

do a 20 mile force march and a 5 mile run was simply a boring exercise.

But I am not a young dude now .. I will turn 68 next July.

 

Still .. now, a year later ... before daylight I can easily walk a couple of

miles across fields and woods carrying a rifle or shotgun and a 30 pound

pack and climb trees to get into deer stands .. and search (sometimes on

hands and knees) through the forest for animal trails or the rare wounded

animal that did not go down immediately. Sometimes we place the perfect

shot but a deer will run 200 or 300 yards before they die .. survival drives

them and I respect them for their stamina.

 

During the last 10 days or so of Deer season the weight of my gear increased

to close to 40 pounds .. plus rifle and ammo. The reason was Global

Freezing .. wind chill temperatures that last 10 days were never above Zero

Fahrenheit so I was wearing layers and layers of clothing .. and Mickey

Mouse boots that weighed over 3 pounds each. I was still able to do my

thing with little effort .. but damn that Global Freezing. ;-)

 

The pain in my knee has reduced by 85% or more .. my strength has improved

200% or more .. my endurance by 300% or more .. and I believe that the odds

of me ever getting that knee replacement are 1000% against it.

 

I will close by saying that folks who know how to grow and preserve foods

and harvest Nature's bounty from the wild will be in a lot better shape than

some others if Global Freezing goes down .. the Earth is cooling you know.

And if the economy continues to head South .. otherwise nice folks in the

USA might find themselves in a position of having to try to take the fruits

of labor from those of us who are self sufficient .. which is another good

reason to know how to properly use and care for a quality firearm. ;-)

 

I believe that as my son grows he will learn to truly respect and appreciate

nature .. as I do .. and he will fight to protect wild places and pass on to

his son or daughter hunting and conservation skills that are harmonized with

nature. When man is not in harmony with nature he is a lost soul .. no

more than a sterile, boring biped without feathers.

 

I also believe that when it is my time to go under snakes people will walk

past my casket and say .. " That has gotta be the healthiest looking dead man

I have ever seen .. and such a smile he has on his face. " ;-)

 

> :-)

>

 

Are you still smiling? ;-)

 

 

> Kathleen Petrides

> Bead Hussy

> http://www.BeadHussy.com <http://www.beadhussy.com/>

>

 

 

Wishing you all a great 2010 .. a healthy 2010 .. and hoping your cooking

pot will always be filled with Mama Nature's bounty.

 

Y'all keep smiling. :-)

 

Butch ... http://www.AV-AT.com <http://www.av-at.com/>

 

PS 1: I am a proud member of PETA .. People Eating Tasty Animals. ;-)

 

PS 2: Lemme add that hunters and fisher persons I know voluntarily

abide by the laws and will report those who do not .. but a part of game

protection requires enforcement through penalties. Last summer some dude

in an overpowered bass boat drank too much .. ran his boat into a pontoon

boat .. and killed a person. He was later imprisoned .. the charges were

drunken use of the boat .. manslaughter .. and having over the limit of bass

in his boat. I BS you not. How much time he got for each offense I can

not say. Another group was charged with having far over the possession

limit of Wood Ducks .. la ridiculously high number .. they bragged on it.

The local judge fined them and prohibited them from ever owning a hunting

license in Tennessee again. Then a Federal judge took the case .. not

double jeopardy because with migratory birds its two different

jurisdictions. He fined them and prohibited them from ever being able to

purchase a Federal Duck Stamp. Meaning .. they will never hunt again.

Knowing that a few judges (mostly in New England) have let child molesters

off with a small fine and probation .. I am glad I live in the South.

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Am I still smiling? You betcha.

 

yes I know butcher shops aren't allowed to sell wild game... stupid law imo.

 

As you well know, I don't have anything against hunters, I do believe they

serve a much needed function... In fact, the only thing I have agains the

hunters here and SPECIFICALLY my neighbor, is he wouldn't set up a blind

(he's an archer) and take a couple of rascals that eat my birdseed and my

flowers. the other thing is... I need to find a hunter willing to SHARE.

Sheesh.

 

there was nothing in your post that offended ME, but I can imagine that

Veggies and Vegans won't like it.

 

anywho...

 

Be well and take care

 

Hugs

K

 

--

Kathleen Petrides

Bead Hussy

http://www.BeadHussy.com