“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.” -- Walt Whitman On a crisp September day more than a decade ago, I sat on a cooler in a California meadow at dawn. Hot coffee in hand, I drew breath on what was to be my final morning of a weeklong deer hunt with a man then my friend, now… hard to say. In a few hours, I’d pile back into my truck and return to the world of pavement and steel and glowing computer screens. But for the moment, all was quiet. Everyone else was fast asleep in their tents, and the slightest of breezes set the fading oak leaves to murmuring amongst themselves.
While I don’t hunt,I shoot, and grew up in a community of hunters. Nearly every yard had a deer hanging by thanksgiving, and frequently rabbits, or a pheasant headed for the kitchen….my father took me with him hunting near our camp.
Now, some fifty years later, I find myself getting into arguments, discussions, on Instagram or Nextdoor, over hunting. You are correct, the topic raises hackles. I recently pointed out that nearly every hunter I know, loves the creatures he or she hunts. And there’s population control to consider where deer are concerned. It never fails, I get bitter retorts and insults for my stance and observations. Your writing on this very subject is long overdue! I hope some non hunters reflect on these writings and perhaps become more accepting….
Great article and a topic I often run into with people who have trouble squaring the circle of hunting/killing an animal that I respect and love to watch. I'm currently reading "On Hunting" (fox hunting) by the English philosopher Roger Scruton as I prepare for my first fox hunt. Scruton has a wonderful examination of this very topic. His take is less about the identification/closeness of death (though that resonated with me quite deeply - especially those instances where I've had to wring a pheasant's neck or watch as a deer takes its last breath), and is more about a connection to our ancient selves and the natural world. "For millions of years we were at one with the animals, hunting and hunted by turns." But he also recognizes the animal itself as a totem and our viewing of them as a quasi-religious attitude. "The hunted animal is hunted as an individual. But the hunted species is elevated to divine status as the totem, and a kind of mystical union of the tribe with its totem seals the pact between them forever... By pursuing the individual, and worshipping the species, the hunter guarantees the eternal recurrence of his prey." One last comment, Scruton writes about a mid-1800s book about the life of a fox, as if written by a fox itself, with deep sympathy for the fox and a hatred for human cruelty towards it. It was written by a master of hounds who was renowned for his drive in in hunting. A contradiction indeed. The book is well worth picking up and reading it for his entire thought process as it applies to not just fox hunting, but all hunting.
I don't hunt, but I let people use my land to do so- turkeys, deer, squirrels, rabbits. The ones who hunt here do it for food, and I get a bit in exchange for the privilege. We all use the animals in ways that honor their sacrifice, completely and deliciously. I thank God and the creature for feeding us, for the venison jerky, roast, meatloaf, and chili, the squirrel Brunswick stew and the fried rabbit. It's a privilege to eat so well, and I try to care for the animals while they're alive.
My sister and I argued all the time about the ethics of hunting. She hated it, refused to eat any wild game, preached to my father, brother and myself that it was inhumane to hunt and kill something just because we could. Dad asked her once if she had ever been at Five Mile Creek just after spring thaw. She never had. Dad, Jim and I had though (at different times) and I will never forget the sight and smell of all those deer that starved and died over the winter because there just wasn't enough forage for them. Why did the dying deer gather at Five Mile Creek? Sick and starving, they wanted water. As Dad bluntly told her that day: "At least the deer I take died quickly, without pain. They were in agony for weeks, So think on that, Miss Smarty Pants."
For years there was a nearly albino doe hanging around our piece of the mountain. Everyone knew her, everyone saw her, everyone liked seeing her. A student from my alma mater, Mansfield University, made a short film on her. Then a 19 year old out of state hunter shot her and no one was more furious than the hunters in our community. Local hunters had watched her for years; she was special to them. And to them that young out of state hunter was just a trophy taker, a hunter who killed her because he wanted that white hide. What made everyone more furious is that he took the hide, with skull, and the backstraps (tenderloins) and left the rest to rot in the woods. When he came back next year, HIS ENTIRE FAMILY was denied access to any private land for hunting. No one wanted them there because of what he had done. One farmer even said to his face: "Remember that doe you shot last year? We do too." They didn't come back after that. All of us cherished that doe and all of us remember the dead deer (and other animals) at Five Mile Creek. I can remember being with my Dad on a squirrel hunt where we just sat and watched the squirrels play. Never even loaded our guns. We didn't have to. It was a successful hunt we thought. We see and we remember and we honor what we kill. It's just that simple and that complex.
I hope my amazing 7 year old grandson, who earnestly, out of no where, says " Grampa, I don't like that you kill animals" will some day understand what you describe in this post. And, I hope that he keeps thinking and acting on what is in his heart and understand that I did the same.
You've summed it up well. We like to reduce everything to a simple good/bad in our lives. Life and death are far more nuanced. As a follower of Jesus, I think there's an entire dimension we cannot see. Perhaps the animals we eat are part of that. I don't know but it's something I wonder about.
Great article! I have had the same experience while deer hunting with the 1790 Pennsylvania flintlocks I built as a copy of one built by Peter Berry. Doe came right up and sniffed my leg. Huffed at me , turned and walked slowly away..... many a cold morning I enjoyed watching them, and then came the time to take a life... The experience is as you say, part of being in the game/plan. And venison backstraps are a rare delicacy.
You've put down in one page what I've spent a lifetime trying to express and have never put the words together. Well done, and you speak for many. Thank you for making it happen.
I wish I had an article like this when I first started hunting. I got a lot of questions from friends and acquaintances who couldn't understand why I would *choose* to hunt. They seemed to accept that people who grew up hunting were just "that way" but they seemed absolutely confused by my choice to start hunting. Philosophy and ethics have always been at the heart of hunting and I think you did a great job of articulating your perspective here. Not an easy task for such a hot button topic.
Powerful piece, thank you Hank!! You are such an amazing writer. I don’t hunt but my husband and I raise and slaughter livestock on a small scale, just for our personal consumption. I cannot, will not eat factory farmed meat. Before I had land to raise animals on I traded things that I made for wild fish and game meat. I get into this type of conversation a lot with people- they say, “how can you eat something after you’ve nurtured and taken care of it for its whole life?” And I say “how can you eat something when you don’t know how it’s lived or what it’s been fed?” Of course there is no “right” answer…. My “right” answer is right for me and me only, and I’m fine with that. I do feel that in the emotionally and physically difficult process of raising and slaughtering my animals that I have earned my right to be an omnivore. Once I hit “post” on this I am going to put on my parka and slog up to the barn and let my ducks out, then the chickens, and chop through the ice on all the water troughs, and take some extra grain up for my goat and llama because it’s so stinkin’ cold outside that I feel bad for them. Then I’m going to take out the duck confit out of my sous vide and start thinking about what to make for dinner…. Thanks again for the great piece that reminds me of why I do all of this every day. Also, I think “Retrograde Neanderthals” would be a great name for a band! LOL
Hank, like your other posts, this is a great one. You cite the Bible, as I often do as well. Genesis makes very clear when God gave us permission to eat meat. I do know where I am going when I die and I expect you do as well. If not, I invite you to investigate it and to join me in South Texas for a hunt and some good discussion.
I find it fascinating that people view nature as "other" than human. Great article, I started hunting in my fifties. So have more questions than answers. Which led me to you. Had shot a black bear and he was tough. It was during COVID and had no idea how to make eating him enjoyable. That bear led me on a creative process that was new to me. My least favorite harvest, but taught me a lot about who I am and who I choose to hunt with. We are all students and teachers. Thank you Hank.
Great piece. I hunt deer, grouse, and turkeys on my land. Taking an animal's life should always be done with respect, and with thanks for the food that animal will provide to the hunter and his family. Most anti-hunters I know grew up in an urban world, and really have no direct connection with the natural world. Food comes from the store, not from nature, and killing any animal is viewed as a bad thing. Had I grown up in that type of environment, I might feel the same way now......I'm not sure. I was fortunate to have grown up in a family that hunted, where my dad and uncles taught me to not kill anything that I don't intend to eat, and to appreciate the natural world that supports all life.
Well said! Another version, of this topic you have touched on before, short concise and to the point.
We just arrived home in MT after driving through crazy bad weather from our favorite rabbit hunting spot a couple of states away. In total 6 hours extra driving due to snow storms and closed highways.
This time I had 3 kids with me, my oldest 14 year old to my middle kid who is 10. I introduce them to hunting through our annual rabbit hunt - prepared for with many hours before on Appleseed shoots to backyard rifle mentorship by yours truly. It’s beautiful when you see the marksmanship pays off.
During these precious winter days my kids get to practice stalking, patience, adjusting clothing for weather and activity, understanding their bodily needs for intake and output 💩 and handle it. They do mistakes, they learn, they get frustrated, they feel satisfaction when it all connects.
In the midst of all of this they at some point successfully connect hours of practice and failed spot stalks with a standing headshot and a quick kill. A rabbit is down. We clean it, put it away and talk about how it went down and rabbits that got away, and the rabbit that didn’t get a clean kill.
In the middle of a nature we are surrounded by beauty and death. We take life and we see life. We see evidence of other animals struggles, dead on fences, frozen to death, sometimes witnessing an eagle or hawk or even an hermine closing in and killing a rabbit. Without philosophizing a lot on it we reflect on what we see, we observe and feel part of it, of nature - as it should, because we are.
Thank you Hank for this piece of your soul brought to daylight to resonate with so many. I’ve been hunting since I was a child, born in Juneau ,AK . My religiosity (I think I made that word up ;-) was always at the fore when quietly melting into the eyes of the downed animal. Taking a Dall sheep was a searing --yea, to the bone-- and life altering experience. It was the pinnacle for me personally of a hunting /gathering life encouraged by my father when I was a teenaged girl. The campfire backstrap was communion at its best.
I am so glad I found you and eagerly devour your writing. Bless you in your journey and thank you for taking us with you.
While I don’t hunt,I shoot, and grew up in a community of hunters. Nearly every yard had a deer hanging by thanksgiving, and frequently rabbits, or a pheasant headed for the kitchen….my father took me with him hunting near our camp.
Now, some fifty years later, I find myself getting into arguments, discussions, on Instagram or Nextdoor, over hunting. You are correct, the topic raises hackles. I recently pointed out that nearly every hunter I know, loves the creatures he or she hunts. And there’s population control to consider where deer are concerned. It never fails, I get bitter retorts and insults for my stance and observations. Your writing on this very subject is long overdue! I hope some non hunters reflect on these writings and perhaps become more accepting….
Great article and a topic I often run into with people who have trouble squaring the circle of hunting/killing an animal that I respect and love to watch. I'm currently reading "On Hunting" (fox hunting) by the English philosopher Roger Scruton as I prepare for my first fox hunt. Scruton has a wonderful examination of this very topic. His take is less about the identification/closeness of death (though that resonated with me quite deeply - especially those instances where I've had to wring a pheasant's neck or watch as a deer takes its last breath), and is more about a connection to our ancient selves and the natural world. "For millions of years we were at one with the animals, hunting and hunted by turns." But he also recognizes the animal itself as a totem and our viewing of them as a quasi-religious attitude. "The hunted animal is hunted as an individual. But the hunted species is elevated to divine status as the totem, and a kind of mystical union of the tribe with its totem seals the pact between them forever... By pursuing the individual, and worshipping the species, the hunter guarantees the eternal recurrence of his prey." One last comment, Scruton writes about a mid-1800s book about the life of a fox, as if written by a fox itself, with deep sympathy for the fox and a hatred for human cruelty towards it. It was written by a master of hounds who was renowned for his drive in in hunting. A contradiction indeed. The book is well worth picking up and reading it for his entire thought process as it applies to not just fox hunting, but all hunting.
I don't hunt, but I let people use my land to do so- turkeys, deer, squirrels, rabbits. The ones who hunt here do it for food, and I get a bit in exchange for the privilege. We all use the animals in ways that honor their sacrifice, completely and deliciously. I thank God and the creature for feeding us, for the venison jerky, roast, meatloaf, and chili, the squirrel Brunswick stew and the fried rabbit. It's a privilege to eat so well, and I try to care for the animals while they're alive.
My sister and I argued all the time about the ethics of hunting. She hated it, refused to eat any wild game, preached to my father, brother and myself that it was inhumane to hunt and kill something just because we could. Dad asked her once if she had ever been at Five Mile Creek just after spring thaw. She never had. Dad, Jim and I had though (at different times) and I will never forget the sight and smell of all those deer that starved and died over the winter because there just wasn't enough forage for them. Why did the dying deer gather at Five Mile Creek? Sick and starving, they wanted water. As Dad bluntly told her that day: "At least the deer I take died quickly, without pain. They were in agony for weeks, So think on that, Miss Smarty Pants."
For years there was a nearly albino doe hanging around our piece of the mountain. Everyone knew her, everyone saw her, everyone liked seeing her. A student from my alma mater, Mansfield University, made a short film on her. Then a 19 year old out of state hunter shot her and no one was more furious than the hunters in our community. Local hunters had watched her for years; she was special to them. And to them that young out of state hunter was just a trophy taker, a hunter who killed her because he wanted that white hide. What made everyone more furious is that he took the hide, with skull, and the backstraps (tenderloins) and left the rest to rot in the woods. When he came back next year, HIS ENTIRE FAMILY was denied access to any private land for hunting. No one wanted them there because of what he had done. One farmer even said to his face: "Remember that doe you shot last year? We do too." They didn't come back after that. All of us cherished that doe and all of us remember the dead deer (and other animals) at Five Mile Creek. I can remember being with my Dad on a squirrel hunt where we just sat and watched the squirrels play. Never even loaded our guns. We didn't have to. It was a successful hunt we thought. We see and we remember and we honor what we kill. It's just that simple and that complex.
Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu.
I hope my amazing 7 year old grandson, who earnestly, out of no where, says " Grampa, I don't like that you kill animals" will some day understand what you describe in this post. And, I hope that he keeps thinking and acting on what is in his heart and understand that I did the same.
You've summed it up well. We like to reduce everything to a simple good/bad in our lives. Life and death are far more nuanced. As a follower of Jesus, I think there's an entire dimension we cannot see. Perhaps the animals we eat are part of that. I don't know but it's something I wonder about.
Great article! I have had the same experience while deer hunting with the 1790 Pennsylvania flintlocks I built as a copy of one built by Peter Berry. Doe came right up and sniffed my leg. Huffed at me , turned and walked slowly away..... many a cold morning I enjoyed watching them, and then came the time to take a life... The experience is as you say, part of being in the game/plan. And venison backstraps are a rare delicacy.
You've put down in one page what I've spent a lifetime trying to express and have never put the words together. Well done, and you speak for many. Thank you for making it happen.
I wish I had an article like this when I first started hunting. I got a lot of questions from friends and acquaintances who couldn't understand why I would *choose* to hunt. They seemed to accept that people who grew up hunting were just "that way" but they seemed absolutely confused by my choice to start hunting. Philosophy and ethics have always been at the heart of hunting and I think you did a great job of articulating your perspective here. Not an easy task for such a hot button topic.
Powerful piece, thank you Hank!! You are such an amazing writer. I don’t hunt but my husband and I raise and slaughter livestock on a small scale, just for our personal consumption. I cannot, will not eat factory farmed meat. Before I had land to raise animals on I traded things that I made for wild fish and game meat. I get into this type of conversation a lot with people- they say, “how can you eat something after you’ve nurtured and taken care of it for its whole life?” And I say “how can you eat something when you don’t know how it’s lived or what it’s been fed?” Of course there is no “right” answer…. My “right” answer is right for me and me only, and I’m fine with that. I do feel that in the emotionally and physically difficult process of raising and slaughtering my animals that I have earned my right to be an omnivore. Once I hit “post” on this I am going to put on my parka and slog up to the barn and let my ducks out, then the chickens, and chop through the ice on all the water troughs, and take some extra grain up for my goat and llama because it’s so stinkin’ cold outside that I feel bad for them. Then I’m going to take out the duck confit out of my sous vide and start thinking about what to make for dinner…. Thanks again for the great piece that reminds me of why I do all of this every day. Also, I think “Retrograde Neanderthals” would be a great name for a band! LOL
Beautifully written. You put into words the mind of us hunters.
Hank, like your other posts, this is a great one. You cite the Bible, as I often do as well. Genesis makes very clear when God gave us permission to eat meat. I do know where I am going when I die and I expect you do as well. If not, I invite you to investigate it and to join me in South Texas for a hunt and some good discussion.
I find it fascinating that people view nature as "other" than human. Great article, I started hunting in my fifties. So have more questions than answers. Which led me to you. Had shot a black bear and he was tough. It was during COVID and had no idea how to make eating him enjoyable. That bear led me on a creative process that was new to me. My least favorite harvest, but taught me a lot about who I am and who I choose to hunt with. We are all students and teachers. Thank you Hank.
Great piece. I hunt deer, grouse, and turkeys on my land. Taking an animal's life should always be done with respect, and with thanks for the food that animal will provide to the hunter and his family. Most anti-hunters I know grew up in an urban world, and really have no direct connection with the natural world. Food comes from the store, not from nature, and killing any animal is viewed as a bad thing. Had I grown up in that type of environment, I might feel the same way now......I'm not sure. I was fortunate to have grown up in a family that hunted, where my dad and uncles taught me to not kill anything that I don't intend to eat, and to appreciate the natural world that supports all life.
Well said! Another version, of this topic you have touched on before, short concise and to the point.
We just arrived home in MT after driving through crazy bad weather from our favorite rabbit hunting spot a couple of states away. In total 6 hours extra driving due to snow storms and closed highways.
This time I had 3 kids with me, my oldest 14 year old to my middle kid who is 10. I introduce them to hunting through our annual rabbit hunt - prepared for with many hours before on Appleseed shoots to backyard rifle mentorship by yours truly. It’s beautiful when you see the marksmanship pays off.
During these precious winter days my kids get to practice stalking, patience, adjusting clothing for weather and activity, understanding their bodily needs for intake and output 💩 and handle it. They do mistakes, they learn, they get frustrated, they feel satisfaction when it all connects.
In the midst of all of this they at some point successfully connect hours of practice and failed spot stalks with a standing headshot and a quick kill. A rabbit is down. We clean it, put it away and talk about how it went down and rabbits that got away, and the rabbit that didn’t get a clean kill.
In the middle of a nature we are surrounded by beauty and death. We take life and we see life. We see evidence of other animals struggles, dead on fences, frozen to death, sometimes witnessing an eagle or hawk or even an hermine closing in and killing a rabbit. Without philosophizing a lot on it we reflect on what we see, we observe and feel part of it, of nature - as it should, because we are.
Thank you Hank for this piece of your soul brought to daylight to resonate with so many. I’ve been hunting since I was a child, born in Juneau ,AK . My religiosity (I think I made that word up ;-) was always at the fore when quietly melting into the eyes of the downed animal. Taking a Dall sheep was a searing --yea, to the bone-- and life altering experience. It was the pinnacle for me personally of a hunting /gathering life encouraged by my father when I was a teenaged girl. The campfire backstrap was communion at its best.
I am so glad I found you and eagerly devour your writing. Bless you in your journey and thank you for taking us with you.