Day 19: Hunt the Wumpus

The other night Will and I sat down to watch Life After People, which he had thoughtfully Tivo'd for me.  As we watched as nature slowly destroyed what man had built, we kept remarking that it didn't seem all that horrible. Save for the fate of domesticated animals, a world without people was pretty damn decent.

But it was the footage of the dog locked in the house, the dogs scavenging the streets that got me.  Daisy wouldn't make it, I whispered to him under my breath. 

He glared at me.  She'll be fine, he insisted, shaking his head no but pointing at Daisy as if she could understand that we were discussing her impending fate.

The fate we were really discussing was my own.  A soft spot for animals will be my downfall, as it truly is  the creamy caramel center that lies beneath my hard candy shell.  I am a sucker for animals.  I'm no Timothy Treadwell, mind you, and if someone was being attacked by an animal, I'd grab the nearest shotgun. (Or shovel, since I neither own nor know how to operate a shotgun.)   

I understand the idea of the food chain, and I do eat meat.  Of course, as my liberal middle class guilt dictates, I buy organic cruelty-free meat that's put to death by virgins singing lullabies.  I know this makes me an annoying hypocrite, but if I had to kill and clean my food? I'd be a vegetarian. 

In a Post-Apocalyptic World, I don't think I can hunt.

It's not the act of killing that scares me.  It's the idea that animals seem innocent.  Hapless.  Minding their own business.  If I knew that Mr. Deer was a jerk who cut people off on the freeway on the way home from his job at the puppy-kicking factory, I'd be picking venison out of my teeth as I type this.

Of course, if you follow this logic down to the bitter end, you could come to the conclusion that Rev. Phelps will be the main course at my first Post-Apocalyptic Dinner Party.   

I could probably live with that.

Fish are exempt from this ruling.  Sure, Finding Nemo made me cry...and then crave fresh raw yellowtail.  Maybe because I saw my grandfather - the same grandfather who escaped from Russia during World War Two with his wife and his mother and his child and his dog (so the soft spot for animals is hereditary) - catching, killing, and gutting fish while I grew up.  He'd slice then in half lengthwise and put it in the smoker, head on and all.

In junior high when the other girls had square slices of greasy pizza or PB&J with mini cartons of milk, I'd pull out that coppery half-a -fish-carcass with the glassy, dead eye and tear out chunks of the smoky meat while most of them screamed in disgust.  I didn't care. It was good.

Survivorman caught a turtle in his Georgia Swampland episode last night.  He cleaned it off-camera, but as he roasted it over his small campfire he said that he didn't like killing things, and it wasn't something he practiced in his everyday life.  But sometimes it comes down to survival, and in those cases, you don't have much of a choice.  So maybe I'm not as pathetic as I think I am.   

Either way, I hope I never have to find out.

Comments

[Fearsclave]

I used to think I would feel much the same way. But I really wanted to try hunting, and so I did, and after my first few grouse and rabbits, I realized that despite all the Disneyesque propaganda and PETA BS that we're fed, hunting your own meat is far more humane, and causes much, much less suffering than buying it at the supermarket.

Wild game is living a natural life. The rabbits and grouse that I've shot have had a most a few seconds of mild alarm at my presence, but no real fear; they flush out of caution, not terror. And I use a twelve-gauge, with heavy game loads; they don't suffer when shot. A shotgun pellet will traverse a rabbit brain in less than 1/10,000th of a second. They usually drop like they've been switched off.

Compare this to the life of a cow in a feedlot, before it gets processed into an abattoir and thence made into Big Macs. Hunting your own meat causes far, far less pain and suffering to your food.

So I no longer have any issues with hunting, or fishing, as I eat what I kill. I bring whatever I've bagged home, wave it at my wife, and make it into tasty meals for us.

And the most important thing is that regardless of whether or not I bag anything, I love to hunt. Being out in the woods looking for dinner is what we were evolved to do. We're descended from a long, long line of successful hunters. We're wired, deep down in our genes, to enjoy hunting. And you're no different, despite what being brought up on Disney movies has made you think. Given the opportunity, I'm sure you'd take to it like a duck to water; most people do. Especially if you have a husband and Daisy to feed.

[the slackmistress]

@Fear: Thank you for a kind and well-reasoned reply. I'd say I'd be happy to cook if my husband hunted, but his eyesight and fine motor skills suck.

The weird thing - and something I didn't get into - is that I would have no problem hunting for Daisy. (Not HUNTING Daisy, but for her food. That's probably weird, too.)

[Fearsclave]

Hey, no sweat. I've been doing a lot of thinking about the ethics of hunting over the past few years; I'm still all preachy and hey-wow-this-is-so-COOL-you-gotta-try-it! about it :).

Incidentally, if you're interested, I've got a little tutorial on how to dress (as it prepare it for the pot once shot, not put clothes on it) a rabbit up here. I should note that there's a fair bit of blood and guts involved: http://fearsclave.livejournal.com/484915.html

I've also got a recipie for a rabbit and grouse stew here, so you can see the tasty end results: http://fearsclave.livejournal.com/628644.html

[Damien]

To the both of you, well-said, and well-thought. Nina, most people don't think about that aspect, at all, and that you've given it real thought is very important to what you'll be able to do for yourself...

@fearsclave, you're quite right of course, but most people only think of Sport Hunting, when the word "hunting" is used. It would be nice if people could be made to understand the distinction.

Personally, I'd like to learn to track and hunt game on foot, with as little between me an the animal as possible. I think it's more respectful and more humane.

Then again, I have trouble when I think about rabbit families. :\

[the slackmistress]

I seriously don't mean this to sound cheesy, but when I heard the frickin' Survivorman (who I hadn't previously watched because I thought he'd be all macho BS) talk respectfully about killing animals for survival, I became a fan.

[Gnat!]

I am speaking as a former deer hunter, back in the wilds of Wisconsin. It was shooting and field dressing my first one that really taught me about where meat comes from and how wonderful and complex life really is.

This is going to sound cheesy, but the closest I've seen to fully expressing the love-yet-hunt for animals is Ted Nugent on his short-lived "Ted or Alive" reality show. He took a bunch of city slickers and had them catch pigs, kill chickens, track deer, and live in a tent for a few days. Crazy as that punk is, he had some good logic on "if you don't like it go vegetarian; or eat meat and understand what makes that happen and respect the animals that give you this nourishment."

[Chris Kreitsch]

I am of the firm belief that if your hungry, you'd be surprised at what you would do and eat. I met a military guy who was a POW in Vietnam and due to his conditions and lack of food, they ate everything from bugs to small rodents when caught. So, I am confident all people are quite capable of hunting when pressured with starvation, besides haven't you ever watched Fox's when animals attack, deer can be vicious.

[Fearsclave]

Damien: you're regrettably right. A lot of people who don't know any better buy into the media-perpetuated stereotype of the rich man who pays through the nose to be taken out into the wild and shoot something with a big rack for a deocration to be hung on his study wall.

There may be some like that, given the fact that the hunting literature constantly denigrates them, but every single hunter I've ever met to is into it for the hunt, the closeness to nature, which in some cases borders on religious experience, and the meat, in no particular order.

Gnat: I saw a few episodes of that. Uncle Ted is a complete and total loon, and his politics are appalling, but on two things, gun rights/politics and the importance of hunting and nature, I am in complete and total agreement with him. And I want to get one of his camouflage Stetsons one day.

Chris Keitsch: you've put your finger on something that really bugs me about modern life. It overcoddles us. We're buried in comforts to the point where most of us never ever get the chance to realize just what we're capable of (which, given that we're human beings, is actually quite a lot). And a lot of what I do for kicks these days lies in the area of escaping the safety blanket and doing things that push my envelope a little...

[astrothsknot]

naw, I'm not starving. I'm going to eat meat and if I have to kill it, then so be it.

Think it'll be safe to eat the zombies?

[Jodi]

I lived in a rural area of Virginia as a young child and a lot of people hunted for food. I remember one New Year's Eve, after my parents were divorced, when a bunch of my Mom's friends dropped off a fresh deer on the front porch. They had drained it, but my Mom butchered it. All.by.herself. I've eaten venison, but never cared for it too much. I'd probably starve if I had to kill and butcher my own meat. I get grossed out dealing with bought-from-the-store chicken breasts. I'm happy to eat them if someone else prepares them though!

[Ornithopter]

"In the 1980s Fred Phelps received awards from the Greater Kansas City Chapter of Blacks in Government and the Bonner Springs branch of the NAACP for his work on behalf of black clients." (From Wikipedia)

So, yeah, his stance on gays is horrific and makes him an easy target, but there's more to him than just that.

[the slackmistress]

They also say that Hitler was good to his dog.

[Brooklyn Sea Hag]

But Nina! It's OK to eat fish 'cause they don't have any feelings.

[ZooKeeper]

I hunt groundhogs to protect my horses from injury. You see they burrow large holes in the pasture and if a horse were to step into one there is a good chance it would break its leg and have to be put down. It is quite an enjoyable past-time, oddly enough. I used to be anti-hunting but I've come around. My bf hunts and I have butchered a couple deer. I've also raised my own livestock for food (pigs & a steer.) It was a lot harder to send the animals I've raised off to the butcher than it was to kill a wild animal and hack it up on my kitchen table. The bf keeps wanting me to go deer hunting with him but I'm not sure if I could do it, I mean I probably could but I don't like thinking that I could. Deer are kinda cute. Ugly or Annoying animals are easier to shoot, isn't that just horrible. I could definitely do it in the case of survival though, and I think you could too.

[the slackmistress]

Everyone, thank you so much for your input. Also, Zookeeper, I agree that ugly or annoying animals are probably easier to kill...

[Ornithopter]

Did you just compare black people to dogs? Also, Godwin's Law.

Just so we're clear, I'm not trolling. I love what you're doing, and I was just sharing some little known information about Phelps that I thought was interesting.

[the slackmistress]

@Orin: No, I'm not comparing black people to dogs, and a comment like that IS trolling.

I'm pointing out that just because someone has the capacity for some decency doesn't erase all of the fucked-up, debased, horrific crap they've unleashed onto the world.

[Ornithopter]

That was a joke, but I guess it doesn't translate into text, especialy if you don't know me already. Clearly, I started off on the wrong foot here, and there's no going back now, so I'll be around, but I doubt I'll be talking much. Sorry I was a dick, even if it was accidental.

[the slackmistress]

Tone is tough online, 'tis true. Speak out as you'd like - if I truly thought you were a dick I would have deleted the comment. ;)

[Complete Geek]

I'm from the South. I'm not from one of those towns of less than 500 where even grandmothers have gun racks in their trucks, but Louisiana can be a crazy place to live and grow up in.

Hunting is a big right of passage here. My dad must be so disappointed to have raised a son that is more into computers then his latest trophy buck.

I have been hunting though, and I have killed animals. The cute ones, too...sorry:(
I'm a big guy, 6'2", 250 pounds. I can't possibly live on a vegetarian diet, nor would I want to try. I enjoy eating meat, and I think that I would be able to do the hunting in a post apocalyptic society.

I agree that if you do eat meat or go hunting, that they should be killed in the most humane way possible. I hate all these stupid rednecks in my town that just go hunting for the "sport", and don't do anything with the meat.