Next Time, Hit It With a Rock

Careful, Chad. That link was for a 2003 hunt. I haven't seen anything about this hunt being canned. (I wouldn't be surprised if it were.)

Hah, my current school is the same way: we know not to schedule exams for the first week of deer season. The other funny thing is that the ecology faculty here all encourage their students to get out and blow away deer -- their population is out of control.

One of Cheney's spokesmen said that Cheney is a very good and safe hunter. I thought, "Why yes, he must be. He has shot only one person, as far as we know." But, Chad, I am not sure how shooting another hunter is part of the sport, unless you refer to the number of hunting accidents each year. I say "accident" generously, since many of those accidents are the result of stupidity. I have to include the Cheney incidence, since I was taught not to shoot unless I knew what I was aiming at, and certainly not if there were another person in the line of fire. Even if I really, really wanted to shoot in that direction.

This whole thing reminds me of the mandatory hunting safety course I had in high school (two weeks of health class). We saw lots of video clips, then were asked: "Is it safe to take the shot?"

The answer, of course, is "no" if you do not know everything that is in the area of your shot. There were plenty of examples when everything looked good, but were deceiving.

The more important lesson, of course, was that "no" is never the wrong answer. The only safe shot is not to take one, and you are responsible for everything that happens after you squeeze the trigger. Accidents happen, but you are responsible for preventing them.

It is easy to get excited when you see game, especially birds flushed out of hiding. That's all the more reason to be careful. Perhaps this will be a good lesson for a future safety class.

Maybe 'Dead-eye Dick', like a high school wallflower, doesn't like to be seen in public with glasses. Oh, the humanity!

But, Chad, I am not sure how shooting another hunter is part of the sport, unless you refer to the number of hunting accidents each year.

I mean that the risk of accident is part of the sport. Even if you're careful, you can never have absolutely perfect knowledge of what's going on, and there's always a chance that something can go wrong.

You can do things to minimize that chance, but you can never eliminate it.

OK, I buy that hunting is inherently dangerous, since discharging a firearm is inherently dangerous in that doing it the wrong way can result in injury or death. Of course, the same can be said for virtually every human activity. The difference is that good hunters know that discharging a firearm is inherently dangerous,whereas people taking a shower might not realize the magnitude of the danger. Thus the precautions one takes when hunting are proportionately stricter. If the rules were applied without error, they would virtually eliminate the risk of accidentally shooting someone by intentionally pulling the trigger while aiming the firearm. It should work in the same way that a pilot's checklist and preflight preparations, if followed without error, will virtually eliminate the risk of running out of fuel. Since pilots run out of fuel, it is obvious that a checklist and preparations do not eliminate the risk. Same for hunting. However, if a pilot flies into the ground or if a hunter aims, fires and hits a person (rather than legal game), the fault is entirely with the person in control. The Cheney incident was an accident in the sense that is was "an unfortunate event resulting especially from carelessness or ignorance." But I still hold him fully responsible, and he can no longer be referred to as a good and safe hunter.

Where was all that weapons training he received while in the army?

Matt, you should know by now that irony doesn't work any more. It went defunct sometime in the early 1980s.

The ethics of these hunts are called into question by rank-and-file sportsmen, who hunt animals in their native habitat and do not shoot confined or pen-raised animals that cannot escape.

Hmm. From the point of view of conservation of wildlife, I prefer the hunters to shoot tame birds instead of the wild ones.

Rank-and-file sportsmen harbor the conceit that they help conserve wildlife, and, in fact, some of their actions have (or apparently have) resulted in an increase in some gamefowl. The logic in that is somewhat contorted, since they want to conserve wildlife so that they have enough wildlife to kill. If it comes to game conservation, why not just have them hunt chickens from the huge commercial chicken farms, and still do all the game conservation activities that result in better wildlife habitats?

The concept was true in medieval times, when there was no understanding (or the need) of the effort to conserve wildlife. The hunters (upper class) protected the forests (often via harsh punishment) against poachers (lower class) in order to have enough animals to hunt. For example, the last remaining primitive forest in Europe -- Puszcza Bialowieska on the border of Poland and Byelaruss -- remained because it was the domain of Polish kings. However, this protection was not as solid as it is touted to be, since it did not manage to protect the aurochs (tur) -- an animal bigger than bison, which once roamed East European forests. Nowadays, the argument falls flat: we don't need hunters to take care of the forests and animals, we have public officials who do it.

' we don't need hunters to take care of the forests and animals, we have public officials who do it.

Well that isn't working very well. A large percentage of state fish and game budgets are derived from hunting and fishing fees. Here in Maine, that has resulted in highly managed wildlife and fish populations. There isn't much 'wild' left in the wildlife. Most of the fish caught are from fish hatchery stocking programs. To those more interested in non-game wildlife, they are known as the 'Hook and Bullet Crowd'.

The logic in that is somewhat contorted, since they want to conserve wildlife so that they have enough wildlife to kill.

There's no necessary contradiction in that, as long as the hunting is limited to what's sustainable - i.e., don't kill animals faster than they can reproduce. Odd as it may seem, and notwithstanding the suspicion with which they eye each other, hunters and environmentalists really are on the same side. No responsible hunter wants to drive his prey to extinction, after all.

Ebonmuse: yes, but, an environmentalist wants to protect wildlife because of its inherent qualities, and a hunter wants to protect wildlife so he can kill it. I call that a qualitative difference in motivation. But I do agree that the goals can be compatible despite the difference in motives, and I do not condemn hunting or hunters.

I draw the line between hunters who eat what they kill or catch and those who just blast away for the 'sport' of it, or want a trophy to hang on their wall. I don't know how anyone could kill an animal - wild or otherwise, just to hang it's head on a wall. Take a photograph and have it framed.

Hunting/fishing to eat is not that much different than buying meat or fish at your local grocery store. An animal dies either way.

Even Cheney's canned 'hunt' in Pennsylvania, might be a little bit excused if the game went to food pantries supporting low income folks. I don't know if that was the case, but it sometimes is. Deer hunters in Maine often donate a portion of the meat to food pantries. I have met people who grew up in Northern Maine who have told me logging truck road kill deer and moose were not an unusual part of their diet.

Deb, you make a good point about eating meat from the grocery store. Most people would find the way we raise livestock to be abhorrent if they saw it firsthand. I don't consider it any more inhumane to kill a wild animal with a clean shot than to raise cattle (or pigs, or chickens) the way American agriculture does and then slaughter them the way we do. In fact, I think it's actually more humane. The way we raise and kill livestock is a far more serious indictment of American culture than the fact that some people like to shoot wild animals.

Mark, you are right. I think that is another topic, but interesting. I have raised rabbits, chickens and pigs for my own food. I can tell you it isn't easy to kill an animal eventhough it will be put to good use. The Natural/Organinc agriculture movement is gaining ground and one tenet they try to adhere to is that animals are raised in healthy 'natural' drug free conditions and slaughtered humanely as possible - of course slaughter is always human, humane or otherwise.

I was mulling over this hunting business and I think I have a parallel - fireplaces. We have known for a couple centuries now that fireplaces are wasteful, inefficient heat sources. But, we still are drawn to a fire, and people still have them built in houses. So, maybe hunting is acting on some subliminal instinct, like fire, it was central to our survival in the past. I know somebody will jump on 'subliminal instincts', but I am not that science literate, so please excuse me in advance. In any case, there has to be a reason why we do irrational things.

Fireplaces and hunting both have a large amount of irrationality to them. If you don't think so, try cutting and splitting wood or freezing your buns off on a cold winter morning while hunting.

Mark, that's particular to America. Europe has much higher standards for keeping livestock (compare the required minimal cage sizes for hens, for instance). I wouldn't even try to compare this with Poland, where a lot of hens roam freely on the fresh air. (I'm not saying Europe is OK w/r to livestock, but it's better than America).

Well, now that the victim is more seriously ill than thought (he suffered a birdshot-induced heart attack) we might not be able to joke about it. And my take on Cheney as a "good, safe" hunter might turn out to be untrue (good = he hit the guy; safe = the guy lived).