Recently in a Letter to the Editor section of a local newspaper was a criticism of the paper’s photo of a deer hunter situated in a tree stand on the back cover. The commentator complained that hunting in this manner offered little sport; hunters should be afield and on the ground when chasing their quarry. Although I hunt deer using a tree-stand most of the time, it was not this micro-discrepancy that most interested me, but rather the broader perspective that some may have of hunters.
The perception that hunters are sportsman has always boggled me, probably because this notion assumes that hunters’ intentions are homogenous. Individuals hunt for many different reasons. Sometimes intentions for hunting can change for a person from one day to the next. In other words, there is so much more to hunting than a mere sport or game.
I grew up playing sports in New Paltz: outdoor soccer, indoor soccer, basketball, baseball, and wrestling. These activities include an expected behavior, or sportsmanship. According to Wikipedia, sportsmanship “refers to virtues such as fairness, self-control, courage, and persistence…” Hunting does demand some of these virtues, but the layers surrounding it are thicker and deeper.
Hunting as many can imagine is not practiced on a field, grid, or court. It can take place in the backyard, back-woods, the back-back-woods, or somewhere in between or beyond. Although Environmental Conservation Officers (ECOs or Game Wardens) can be perceived as umpires and deer as opponents, few are ever nearby to call the shots or to tell him right from wrong. There are no whistles or playbooks, but only the silence of the hunter’s thoughts between patience, skill, persistence, and enough other things to fill a large book. The terrain is rarely level, and conditions change day to day due to weather, habitat conditions, or uniqueness of the deer present.
I could see how a photo of a hunter stationed in his tower – waiting for a deer – could be seen as “too easy.” Although I would be just as guilty if I was to show up to an orchard the day apples were being picked, unaware of the work that preceded its harvest too. In choosing a good site to hang a stand, many factors about habitat, deer biology and behavior, wind direction, and good gut feelings, must all be taken into consideration. When a location is selected, still nothing is guaranteed since deer can be unpredictable. If a deer does present itself after many hours of waiting, a good shot must then be applied no matter the weather conditions, or condition of the hunter. If you miss, there is no one else to blame, but you. No teammates to point to.
Deeper than a sport is hunting’s other connections. Hunters say they feel more connected to the woods, and there may be some merit in this. They must learn a lot about these woods-wise creatures: eating habits, hangouts, bedding areas, forest types, behavior, courting practices, etc. Can this be done without hunting? Yes, but it seems less likely. Even after earning a B.S. in Forestry, and working as a Forester for almost 7 years, I have yet to encounter someone who is more woods-wise than my friend’s father who grew up in the woods logging, hunting, and trapping.
Hunting praises more than traditional sportsmanship virtues. Some virtues are more practical, while others more spiritual. It is true that sometimes I do hunt after a deer for the challenge, but also what follows harvesting a deer. Deer bring home more than a hand-shake or a head on the wall. Harvesting a deer opens the door to another world of culinary pursuits. Venison can be delicious and its table application can be as challenging and rewarding as the initial kill. Other practical rewards include its hide which when added to other products from the forest – hemlock or oak bark – can make some pretty fine tanned leather. The deer’s fat can be rendered and made into soap. These products help me to remember the deer, its life, and where both of us came from. These products further strengthen our connections to the deer and its surroundings just as a farmer to his farm. In this way, deer hunting also praises self-sufficiency, individualism, and freedom of choice; something many hunters feel are important traditional American tenets.
One last thing about deer hunting I realized this year was the camaraderie it still brings about. Although hunting was more popular before I was even born, it has not died by any means. On the evening of Opening Day of gun season I was driving through Ulster County making my way home. After a while it became apparent how many times I saw a group of men standing in a circle or leaning against the side of a pick-up truck shooting the breeze. Still decked out in camouflage, they were probably going over their first day out hunting. I thought, is there another activity that brings this many men together, for this long? Super Bowl? Christmas? Most of these are one day events; a few hours or more at best. Hunting is normally all day and stretched over a season. The sum of its participants would add to the largest army in the world! It involves all age classes, and multi-generations, sometimes hunting upon land owned by multi-generations! If a deer is harvested, many partake.
Gatherings like these add viscosity to a running life; hunting stories are shared between men and women of things seen from a stand or from the ground. Even better would be those same stories gathered around the dinner table over a plate of freshly killed venison tender-loin. www.catskillforest.org
