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August 9, 2008

Dave Richey: Why do we hunt?

BY DAVE RICHEY

Dawn was blushing the eastern sky with a blaze of fiery gold, orange and red when a drake and hen mallard slanted down over the tree-tops, flitted low over the cattails, lost altitude in a banking, side-slipping left turn and settled to the quiet surface of a small pond.

One day soon, I thought, looking back on that late-summer incident, we may meet again during the open duck hunting season. I usually do not hunt ducks on the ponds during deer season, but I have done it on occasion.

Those waterfowling thoughts carried me back to past days when I asked myself the big question: why do I hunt?

It's a question every caring and thinking hunter should ask themselves, but very few of us can answer the question for another person because hunting means different things to different people. What trips your trigger may be a brand of hunting in which I don't participate for one reason or another.

Some people hunt to enjoy the whisper of duck wings ghosting over cattails in a marsh just before dawn begins to flare up in the east; others savor the damp, musty smell of the autumn woods or of marsh mud; and some seek the challenge of spotting and stalking a big buck. Loving the outdoor life means different strokes for different folks.

I love bear hunting, and my first glimpse of a black bear moving slowly through a dense cedar swamp, idly rolling over logs in search of ants is a meaningful experience. There is something about hunting an animal that can hunt you that adds a certain spice to a hunt. Bears are fully capable of hunting or killing a person, but the adrenaline rush of a live bear sighting at close range is what endears this sport to me. It's not necessary for me to kill another bear to have a wild adventure hunting them.

Other people may delight in the call of a hen mallard directly overhead as she flies through pea-soup fog. The sound of cackling ducks in the thick, wet cottony low-hanging murk, seems to echo off the fog banks. The chuckle of another duck seems to come from all points of the compass. Where are those ducks?

I ask you: Is there a more forlorn sound than that of a muffled fog horn as we hunt the Lake Huron or Lake Michigan shorelines for ducks and geese on a gloomy day. The sound seems to hollowly pierce through the drifting tendrils of layered fog, and we know the safety of land is nearby. Anyone who has been lost on an autumn lake in a heavy fog, and hears a lonesome noise of a foghorn, knows they are no longer alone.

Other people delight in that first glimpse of snow-white antlers as a nice buck moves slowly through a dense tag alder thicket. The deer itself may be nearly impossible to see, but late afternoon sunlight glinting like tiny candles of light off the antlers and such a sight can rattle even a seasoned hunter. We wonder if the animal will keep coming, stay its course long enough to walk out within bow range, or if it will turn and head off in another direction. Hunting often means not knowing what will happen, but praying that it will be something we've hankered nine months to enjoy once again.

It's the challenge of pitting some knowledge and limited skills against a wild animal that becomes part of the equation, but other factors also are a part of the outdoor package for sportsmen. For many, it means the chance to enjoy eating wild game at almost every meal.

Perhaps it's knowing that the hunters role in conservation has always been one of keeping game bird and animal populations in line with their available food supply and habitat requirements, and protecting them whenever it becomes necessary to do so. Hunting means being afield with bow or firearm in hand in all weather, studying the animals and game birds, trying to predict how and where they will move, and admit occasionally that you've been snookered by a savvy buck.

Humans are nothing more than visitors to the fields, swamps and woods. We may think we know the terrain well, but the animals know their home range far better. We guess, and calculate with a small degree of success, where animals will feed or move. Just when we think we have a bear or deer figured out, it throws a hard-breaking curve ball that we never catch up with. The truth is that if a deer really knows it has been singled out and is being hunted, it can pull out all the stops, kick sand in our face and make us look pretty foolish.

Michigan's 2008 hunting seasons will soon be starting, and they will offer millions of licensed sportsmen the freedom to work the woods and fields, lawfully carry a bow or firearm, and peaceably follow a pastime as old as man himself.

Hunting means many things to me, as it does to almost anyone that shares my love of wild places and wild things. The out-of-doors has so much to offer, both to hunters and non-hunters, and it's important that we never miss a chance to enjoy it.

Hunting has never contributed to the decline of any game animal or bird during modern times. Hunter license dollars and excise taxes on hunting equipment often have been used to increase game habitat, fund studies or offer protection to wild game during severe weather conditions, and to train young hunters how to hunt safely.

An overpopulation of any wild game results in death by starvation, surely a less humane way to perish than by an accurately placed hunters arrow or bullet.

But the actual killing of wild game is something I've done for almost 60 years, and I've taken my share of antelope, bear, bobcat, caribou, coyotes, deer, ducks, elk, foxes, geese, grouse, moose, pheasant, raccoons and woodcock. That said, whitetail deer are my major quarry of choice these days.

I am not, and never have been, against any form of legal hunting, but I hold my hunted animals in high regards and deep respect, and hunting them becomes almost a sacred rite to me. My belief is that hunting plays a definite role in proper wildlife conservation. Man cannot be a sophisticated hunter without having respect and love for the wild game we pursue.

This pastime can be more of a mental experience than physical. Perhaps as much as 90 percent of the enjoyment from a hunt is derived from a deeply felt anticipation. We dream, look forward to, and pine away the days getting lost in thoughts of yesteryear's hunts.

We touch our bow, marvel at the feel of blue steel on a rifle barrel, and take pleasure from honing our shooting skills. We strive to become a better shot, to harness our nerves when a buck steps and offers a clean shot. The smooth feel of a beautiful walnut rifle stock is almost as moving as gazing on our first-born child. We cherish our children, and in some way, we cherish the wildlife and the wild areas that we hunt.

We don't hunt so much to kill but we kill on occasion to have hunted. This is a deeply felt and held concept that some people fail to understand. Killing game isn't the sole reason we hunt, and in many cases it is one of the least understood facets of hunting. We hunt, frankly, because we need to. There is something in us that has been carried forth through countless generations, since the day of the cave man, that makes us head for the woods every fall to hunt.

Hunting is a feeling, something described by many as a deep inner experience. Man, as the ultimate predator, holds the power of life and death in his hands, and how we exercise that power is very important to the future of this pastime.

This power means that hunters must know their equipment, know what it can do, and be skilled enough to place a shot so the animal or bird is killed cleanly, without suffering. It also means that hunters must know and obey hunting laws and respect the rights and property of others, and respect the opinions of non-hunters as well.

A hunting license gives no one the right to a full game bag, or a two-buck limit. It grants sportsmen the privilege of hunting ... nothing more, nothing less.

I hunt because I need to hunt. It satisfies a deeply rooted need within me to go out in pursuit of wild game and enjoy the countless blessings and wonders of nature.

It offers me the thrill of an exciting stalk through thin cover, the fleeting glimpse of a wide-antlered buck, the explosive sound of a ruffed grouse thundering from an alder run, or simply the chance to hunt and be able to enjoy nature.

The taking of game is and always must be secondary, ranking far below the mental and physical experience of the hunt.

The hunt, and not the kill, is what hunting is all about. And it is enough.

Dave Richey also writes a daily Weblog. Readers can visit it and his other features at www.daverichey.com.

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