Sprawl Is Killing Hunting

Hello Bonnie:

First, I want to apologize for the statements of some, but I do agree with the hunters side. Second, I hunt. I love it. My daddy hunted, my sons hunt. We eat what we take. I summer in East Hampton, NY we see deer a lot. The deer in the suburbs are habituated by human contact. Try that in Naples, NY and you would not get the same reaction. I spent several seasons learning how to hunt before I got my first deer.

I used to work next to a poultry plant. The chickens going there are hosed how? It is the avian equivalent of a concentration camp. They do what... live a few months and bam, we kill them, cut them up, and then eat them. We pay the people to do our killing and butchering for us. Do you condemn these working class people because they kill you dinner. So if you wear leather, east meat, wear lipstick, use modern drugs or vaccines, have a pig heat valve implant, or use insulin, estrogen some animal died in the process. Life ai

Now imagine you are an 8 year dairy cow, who is past prime milk age. She has lived for years in one barn, one field. One day she gets a truck ride, meets a ton of new cows, all of then equally nervous and jerky, as she is. Then she walks up a ramp and some guy shoots a bolt into your head. That is modern agriculture. Sorry, but that is the reality. The bolt is so much better than a sledge hammer.

Will you accept the American icon, the wolf roaming East Hampton to reduce the herd eating the shrubs? Would you like a puma in your backyard? I would love bear in my backyard. As a kid, we watched them at the town dump. Wait till one eats some poodle and everybody gets upset.

Big game hunting is a recent human activity. It is only in the last 40,000-20,000 years ago that we got smart enough, technologically astute and organized suitably to take big animals. It is a very sensual experience. Are you surprised by that. Every sound. It requires a new education. How do you track? How do you manage the wind, so your scent doesn't spook the animal? You learn patience. How do move quietly? How do you handle the sight of the animal? How do you shoot? How do you butcher it? Do you have the stomach to do that? I

I have taken (killed) deer with rifle, muzzle loading rifle, shotgun and, yes, bow. I had the “joy” of getting them out of the woods. Heck, I would try a spear and an attelotal if the game laws would allow me.

Besides, why should the plants die? They are alive too. They make their own food. We just steal it from them or take the animals that eat them. Or is it that you only care about cute, cuddly, mammals.

But the kill isn’t the high point of thing. As every deer hunter knows: “When the buck drops, the fun stops”. If you ever desire to try hunting shoot me an e-mail. Please forgive my fellow hunters their emotional responses. Hunting for many is a passion.

By way of closing, I’m a 58 year old woman. I own the land I hunt on and it has been part of our family life for generations.

Antonia Gilligan of NJ 3:34PM April 07, 2009