instead of Uggs, mukluk boots

[Owlie]

Just curious - why do you have a problem with someone hunting for sport if they actually eat the meat? If you eat meat yourself (and I do, too, don't get me wrong) you "hunt" too, you just don't actually hold the gun. And especially if you eat regular chicken or pork, the total suffering involved is significantly higher in store-bought meat - in my opinion.

I don't hunt myself, but I try to buy game whenever I can, sometimes in stores, sometimes from colleagues who hunt deer and moose.

I guess what I disagree with is the macho posturing part of hunting, but that's a very small subset and I think is played up by the media. If you kill it and eat it and happen to decide to have its head taxidermied, I have no problem with it. (Keeps the deer population down--my only concern would be chronic wasting disease!)

[OakLeaf]

What Owlie and Irulan said. Don't forget that since we wiped out all the other large predators in most of North America, humans are the only predators of deer.

Not that the game laws in most of the US encourage responsible culling of the herd. And not that they *don't* encourage macho posturing. I think that unfortunately, among gun hunters at least, that's way more common than Owlie suggests. If the gun season weren't so short, IMO there wouldn't be such a hoorah of people - yeah, mostly men - taking off work to "get their deer," having not aimed a firearm for the other 50 weeks of the year ...


(And as far as food shopping in rural areas ... I'm very surprised that a town of 2,000 is too small to have a full-service grocery store within 100 km. I was thinking about towns with populations of 100 to 500.)

[shootingstar]

Oak --you forgot the bears in North America --deer predators. There's enough of them in various parts of North America.

It's great a lot more people are vegetarians --meaning for years. That's real commitment which like cycling ...just becomes part of daily life.
I've scaled down a lot from having meat nearly every dinner to several times a month ...now like this for past 15 years or so. It was more just eating less meat for health reasons and just saving costs.

[OakLeaf]

When someone sights ONE black bear in most of the USA, it's a major event. Something like 120,000 white-tailed deer are harvested each year in each STATE. I'd be surprised if black bears hunt deer - are you sure of that? They're not much bigger than deer ...

Grizzlies, like wolves and large cats, not only are rare in modern times, but inhabit only a very small range.

[Irulan]

Some people hunt every season - upland game, duck, deer, elk, moose - each has its own season. For the hunters I know, and I know a lot of them, it's an ongoing activity, not something reserved for those two weeks out of the year that the not-real hunters go apesh*t about hunting.

In the west at least, bears are not a significant predator of deer, although they are known to take fawns.Cougars, coyotes and wolves are the main predators. I understand this may be different in the central/north central N America, as compared to the western states/provinces.

And no, I"m not a hunter. Many of my clients and people in my social circle and larger community are.

[TrekDianna]

What Owlie and Irulan said. Don't forget that since we wiped out all the other large predators in most of North America, humans are the only predators of deer.

Oh, not here. We have a cougar who kills deer on our property about once a week and I see cougar killed deer on my running/hiking trails just as often.

[lph]

I guess what I disagree with is the macho posturing part of hunting, but that's a very small subset and I think is played up by the media. If you kill it and eat it and happen to decide to have its head taxidermied, I have no problem with it. (Keeps the deer population down--my only concern would be chronic wasting disease!)

Ok, I just wanted to tell this - last winter a friend and I went halves on a third of a moose (these are BIG creatures) that a co-worker had shot. I wish I could post a photo, but this hunting co-worker is 24, petite, a little shy, cute as a button, has long glossy dark hair down to her waist, wears make-up, stylish clothes and boots with heels every day, and has guys falling over her wherever she goes. She's also a bureaucrat like me. She loves to hunt moose and is very skilled at it. I rather doubt she has the taxidermied head of anything anywhere.

I don't the like macho look-I-can-kill-things mindset either, but for many people it's really not about that at all :-)

[Crankin]

Great visual image, lph.
I know this will probably piss some people off, but my neighborhood decided to try to find a way to solve the increasing deer problem we have. There are about 30 homes on our hill, and all are far off the street, in the woods. Most people do not have yards in the traditional sense, i.e. little lawns. People do have gardens, shrubs, etc. The deer come down one side of the hill, where we have plants, cross our driveway, and down the other side of the hill, onto the street. On the way, they eat all of our hostas and other plants. We use deer scram (a mix of chili pepper, dried coyote blood) to keep them away. Anyway, the neighborhood decided to hire bow hunters, to come and cull the herd. Each individual landowner has to give permission. I didn't see the presentation they made, but DH did and we signed the permission. Based on the strong opinions of several of the people who live here, I was surprised by this, but it really has been an issue. As I said, DH's car had thousands of dollars of damage a few years ago, and was in the body shop for 2 months from a deer. I have narrowly missed being hit while on my bike, a very scary experience.

[lph]

Wow! How come a bow hunter? I don't know anything about bow hunting (vs gun hunting), but it's not legal here, and I thought it was for humane reasons, ie. you have to be a lot better at it to get a clean and fast kill. But as I said, I know nothing about bows.

[Becky]

Wow! How come a bow hunter? I don't know anything about bow hunting (vs gun hunting), but it's not legal here, and I thought it was for humane reasons, ie. you have to be a lot better at it to get a clean and fast kill. But as I said, I know nothing about bows.

My guess would be range and thus safety. An experienced, responsible bow hunter will generally not take a shot longer than 50 yards. Rifles, by comparison, can accurately kill a deer a few hundred yards away.

(I don't hunt, but my father hunts both archery and rifle.)

[OakLeaf]

Yep, it's the range of the projectile that's the issue. (Also that they still have to have a state license, and bow season here is four months long as opposed to the gun season, which is never more than two weeks plus special seasons.)

We don't allow deer hunting with rifles at all in Ohio. The range is too long. Shotguns only in the main deer gun season, then there at least used to be a weekend handgun season - not even sure if they do that any more. Small game can be hunted with small-caliber rifles in their seasons.

A lot of municipalities near us have licensed a handful of bowhunters to control deer. AFAIK though, there are few if any places near us that have both municipal hunting regulation *and* lot sizes large enough to require homeowner permission. As I understand it, they hunt only in parks.

Still, the patchwork of property lines and jurisdictions is an issue. There were a couple of incidents I've read about already this fall (not on our land), where a deer was wounded, either by a car strike or a less-than-perfect shot, and kept crossing political boundaries or property lines, making it exceedingly difficult for anyone to finally put it out of its misery. Even though our property is posted, I'm aware that it's pretty much inevitable that sooner or later, one of our neighbors will track a wounded deer across our property line, and we'll have no real choice but to let them finish it.

Which I still much prefer to our other, former neighbor's "target" shooting in random directions that used to have bullets bouncing off our roof ... thankfully they were at least far enough away that there wasn't enough velocity to penetrate ...



... this thread has drifted, hasn't it? <guilty>

[lph]

Oh, and I can get back on-topic. Sorta ;-)

I've lusted for kayaking mukluks for several years now. They're high waterproof boots with a soft low-profile foot, and are designed for kayaking in cold water. If you have to get out of your boat in the water and drag it up on land, even in summer the water can be cold enough to make it an unappealing prospect. Up north where the water is always frigid and the tide effects ensure a lot of boat dragging they're a huge bonus.

I googled the traditional dry-wear mukluks and was surprised by one thing, though. The calf is so much wider than the foot, which seems to have very little insulation. They're supposed to be for cold, dry weather, but to me they look like they would let the cold in through the sole.

[Irulan]

Wow! How come a bow hunter? I don't know anything about bow hunting (vs gun hunting), but it's not legal here, and I thought it was for humane reasons, ie. you have to be a lot better at it to get a clean and fast kill. But as I said, I know nothing about bows.

Something to keep in mind is that in in the US, you have 50 states with 50 different Fish & Game departments, plus the Federal Forest Service. The hunting regulations vary greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, as do game management policies.

[roo4]

Oakleaf,

Here in PA, Black Bears and Coyotes are significant predators of fawns. They might not pull down an adult deer on a regular basis, but they do target fawns. And we have a lot of bears, last year's harvest was over 3500 statewide.

[lph]

But isn't what the Arctic can support based on traditional hunting lifestyles with a tremendous emphasis on meat? Hard to replicate these days.

If I were to base my intake of food on local produce it would be severely limited. Potatoes, onions, cabbage, beets. I'm not saying I couldn't, and I do try to keep my intake of off-season and greenhouse vegetables to a reasonable level.