I have a big soft-spot in my heart for animals. From my home office window I have a view of both woodland and farmland, and often gaze out at them when I’m writing. I watch squirrels gathering nuts, woodpeckers rat-a-tatting, cats prowling, opossums lumbering, and deer grazing. I especially love when spotted fawns venture out of the woods onto my back lawn, sometimes coming close to my window. It makes me feel at one with nature.Until I hear the shotguns.
Two days ago, I paused to watch a herd of deer grazing in the farm field. A buck with big antlers monitored a group made up of does and young deer just out of fawn stage. I went back to my writing and suddenly heard the deep BANG, BANG, BANG of a powerful shotgun. The herd scattered, but the shooting went on for at least an hour. Later, at dusk, the herd were back, minus the buck and one deer. Obviously, someone had a new trophy for his wall. It is open season for deer hunting, after all.
Seeing the herd, I held my breath, praying the hunters were gone. Had I not had an injured foot, necessitating the use of crutches on a snowy, slippery deck, I would have gone outside and banged pots together to shoo off the herd. All I could do was open my door and yell.
I don’t understand hunting for sport. For food, out of necessity, yes. To cull a herd to keep the deer from starvation, okay. But for sport? Absolutely not. What’s fun about using a weapon to kill a defenseless animal? I mean, seriously, why not shoot babies? It’s just as unfair. If someone wants target practice, use clay pigeons, or tin cans on a fence.
A year or two ago, a court case made the local news wherein a woman DID bang pots together to warn deer in her yard that hunters were nearby. She did this on her own property. The hunters sued – AND WON. Seems crazy, doesn’t it? If I want to bang pots together on my property, can’t I?
According to my husband the lawyer, the answer is yes, if the hunt is for sport, but no if you’re interfering with a cull sanctioned by the DNR. Public domain rights supercede individual rights. He said it comes under Public Safety and Welfare. For example, we have the freedom of speech, but it’s against the law to cry “Fire” in a public place.
Yet if a hunter is looking to kill a deer, cull or not, he’s still doing it for sport, so why can’t he kill it on the move? Does it have to be standing still, a stationary target? I understand why the woman banged her pots and pans. I wouldn’t want to see deer shot from my window either.
There are many issues I haven’t addressed, obviously, because of space limitations, such as canned hunts, or hunting from helicopters. What are your views on the subject? Do you support hunting for sport? Would you take action if you saw an animal about to be shot?
Kate, hesitant to glance out the window
10 comments:
I totally agree with you, Kate. That's just horrible that you have to hear the gunshots all day long. It's bad enough knowing it's going on, but to have to hear it... (((hugs)))
Kate, I feel your pain. Tell you something else that upsets me. Take a 250+ pound man, carrying a high-powered rifle with a state-of-art scope and he's overjoyed because he shot a 60 pound deer. What sport is that?
I'm speechless with dismay!
I don't like it at all. And I can't believe you do not have the right to bang posts on your own property. Makes no sense at all.
Hunting makes me sick, and it's very popular here in Vermont. I would do everything possible to stop it if it were happening on my land. I wonder how these "men" can feel like "men" killing an innocent animal out minding his own business.
Hunting is not allowed in the county where I live. If it were, I would bang pots too!
Kate, I agree with you. I know that a lot of people enjoy being outdoors and hunting, and that many of them do so responsibly. My brother-in-law is one of them. He hunts with bow and arrows on his own property, and what he gets (beyond what he actually uses) he donates to Hunter For Hunger in Virginia. Unfortunately, though, I know of way too many who hunt for reasons that give me the creeps.
Most of the folks I know who hunt, do so for the meat. They enjoy the hunt, pitting their wits against those of the deer, but they aren't just out to kill something for killing's sake.
It does concern me that anyone would be close enough to your house to shoot a deer -- hopefully they'd be shooting away from any houses!
I do not agree with trophy hunting in any form. Canned hunts should be illegal. It sounds as if hunters were way too close to your home shooting. I don't see anything wrong with banging pots on your own land to help the deer you enjoy watching. I would do that, and I would not let my husband hunt on our land.
With that said, my husband is a hunter. He does not hunt for trophys. His lease is way off in the middle of nowhere. The meat goes in the freezer and is used during the year.I do not go with him because I could not stand seeing it. (There is no way I'd go to a slaughter house, either.)The deer he shoots are not tortured, unlike cows, pigs, chickens and anything else at slaughter houses that are also innocent animals.
I cannot stand hunting for sport and anybody that kills an animal just for a trophy of antlers or a head on their wall is lower than pond scum in my books. I personally don't even want to meet people like that. Another thing that really ticks me off is how they trick the animals. Before hunting season began in Oklahoma (I read this in an article) the hunters were baiting (I think it's called baiting when they lure the animals into certain spaces by scattering food there for the animals to eat and making the animal think that is a good place to go for food then when hunting season is open the hunters are there waiting for the innocent hungry animals to come back and eat then they kill them)an area for the animals so they could make sure they got one.
This is just so wrong on so many levels. It breaks my heart and wounds my soul.
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