If you were wondering when deer hunting season starts, well, here in Pennsylvania (and elsewhere, probably) it starts when hunters start putting out bait like this to attract deer to their deer stands.
Like you I learned hunting by walking through the countryside. Learning how land affects vision and hearing. How shade and light can be used to conceal yourself. How to approach a likely hide from downwind. How to read an animals passage across ground and what a trail looks like. How to be still, quiet, and how to track a wounded animal.
None of these skill are learned by sitting in a hide or a stand. These people are not hunters, they're assassins.
I agree on assassin's additional motivations. I still say anyone who "hunts" in this manner isn't a predator, but is rather something entirely different.
Could never understand the urge to kill an animal-unless one or one’s family is literally starving. I think it’s hideous as a sport. Man against animal? Plaaaaeeese. Man is the most violent animal alive.
-Hunting is never a sport. Simply look up the definition of the word sport or in the alternative think what is required in order for something to be a sport whether at the individual or team level. Hunting involves taking life. Please name another sport that does.
-Myth: deer ticks. Seriously? Tick specific to one species. Same with dog ticks. There are many types of ticks, none of which originate with a deer or a dog. Would be a biological miracle for a mammal to hatch insects. Lyme disease doesn't originate in the blood of a deer that was bitten by a tick. Like so many other diseases it originates from rodents. Ticks feed on blood and aren't fussy whose blood it is. Still haven't read about a single case of someone getting Lyme disease from a deer or claim to have had an encounter with a free deer and next thing they knew they had Lyme's disease. Slaughtering deer aka culling doesn't kill ticks. Even the ones that are attached to the deer. DUH! What's next, shoot all the family digs cuz some have ticks?
Culling- is a euphemism for slaughter. Previously asked people to support their assertion of deer overpopulation. No takers. For good Reason. How about just slaughtering the overweight deer eating everything in sight (ever laid eyes on a Blubber Bambi?) That is what hogs and hog hybrids do (think Porky Pig). If one cannot tell the difference between a deer and a hog (including all attributes), then the person must be the one taking the Deer Census in states claiming w/o evidence there is a deer overpopulation. And where is the moral finding that a hooman is entitled to the land that is already occupied by others? Are rights only afforded hoomans who are the last, not the first species on the Blue Marble? And that would include freedom.
Never will get uncivilized yt-people and their singular solution to so many problems of, kill-baby-kill. Yes, applies across the board and to the entire spectrum. And the killing is always in all ways rationalized including making up chit (deer ticks-big bad ~wolf~. And ya wonder how WMD in Ir came about? Ot, let's go invade Af cuz UBL is prolly there. Now, that would qualify as a bona fide hunt as was proposed. But no. Let's go cull those who didn't attack us, indeed those who reached out to us, the Taliban (deer) while ignoring UBL and +/- 400 Arabs/dead enders from around the globe (the ticks).
The hunt must have a purpose that can be fully justified along w/its 2nd-X order effects.
And Abrahamic reared children are introduced to the killing of animals in the holy book's The Flood-Noah's Ark. All animals including 2legged hoomans including the elderly, the affirmed, the blind, the disabled, infants, children, young adults, prego-wimmin, wimmin, and men and all winged fliers, crawlers/gilled, swimmers, and 4legged. minus 2each. Is the first recorded Holocaust and the worst.
Note: A red-laced booty boy from Stormfront is certain Hilter got the inspiration to exterminate Jews from that story.
I am genuinely impressed that you still have the capacity for outrage. Between the most corrupt Supreme Court in history, DeSantis teaching that slavery gave African-Americans skills to use, the rollback of Roe v. Wade, banning books, and the latest thing that just finished me, the rollback of child labor laws, and the young people who have been dying in the workplace. I’m finally benumbed. Of course, this is what hunting has come to. I’m surprised they don’t just sit there drunk listening to Jason Aldean with assault rifles and blast away.
I've read that there's a whole "dark web" area devoted to videos made for people who enjoy watching baby monkeys being tortured to death. I suspect those viewers, virtually all male, come from your same psychopathic 3%.
An uncle of mine who lived in Maryland in the 50s and 60s would only hunt in certain areas of Pennsylvania to avoid all the drinking hunters. And he hunted the hard way by tracking deer. No deer stands.
In New Jersey our neighbor killed a deer and hung it by its back legs on his back porch which was right outside my daughter's bedroom window...for days. Every morning it made her sad and then she'd get mad. I was just mad. I can't understand shooting to kill an animal unless you need the food.
These would be the same guys who slip roofies into women's drinks, so there's no problem-o when the guys are ready to do their ram job? And that's probably after the guys' drug of choice, Viagra or Cialis, has kicked in.
My father used to take me deer hunting when I was a kid. I was given a rifle and ammo but never loaded the gun. When dad discovered this he was very angry at me and never took me hunting again. Many years later(1968) when I got drafted(kidnapped) into the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War I tried to get a conscientious objector deferment based on my unwillingness to kill animals or people. I told the draft induction officials in NYC my above deer hunting story. They laughed and the next day I was in basic training at the Fort Jackson School For Boys in South Carolina.
What and how you laid out is far closer to poaching than it is to hunting. And you are dead right in describing it as target shooting.
Must repeat, shooting (target) is a sport. To be considered hunting it must be a way of life and/or sustaining life. Additionally, there is no such thing as trophy hunting. Only barbarian take trophies. Hunters feed others, including other animals, insects, and the earth itself.
So right with your nexus of guns, accessories, attire, outright killing of our [animal] relatives, and alcohol. Is big busine$$ and bears no resemblance to the hunt. And what is insulting and offensive is co-opting aboriginal and ~indigenous~ ceremonial act of painting face red w/blood of our animal relatives. They skip all the most important aspects. Then again, yts love cultural appropriation and shat-cuts.
Good point that the name should not be "hunting," but "killing." It doesn't seem to be a sport anymore. Baiting deer, in my opinion, would only be acceptable if they were overrunning a town -- which likely would have been their real estate to begin with. (Observant Jews, by the way, will only hunt and kill to eat.) Real sport, to me, is shooting skeet.
And as part of the living enactment of ancient traditions on the lands of sovereign Native American tribal nations, no baited traps for deer, and an intense and profoundly developed use of every part of the prey, plus ceremonies saluting and honoring the spirit of the animal - could hardly get any further from the scenarios all-too-often engaged in by other hunters across the USA , blasting away with AR-15s, posing for photos, the lot.
Things have changed for the worse in that respect, since this traditional American folk song emerged:
Hunters highly disdain AR15 users anywhere. The hunters I know here in northern Michigan only need one bullet - more than one shot ruins the meat that feeds us all winter.
It certainly isn’t sportsmanlike, and I’m no hunter, but there are something like 2 million deer in Pennsylvania, and far fewer hunters than there used to be. Deer eat everything from the ground to the height to which they can rear up, depriving other smaller animals of food, and devouring the saplings that are needed to replace aging large trees. They have no other large predators, and are throwing off the entire ecological balance. So I’m actually not too bothered by this.
I think if you'll read my column again, I didn't say deer hunting was bad or shouldn't be done. I was critical of the deer hunters and the manner by which they hunt, not hunting itself.
Agree with what you wrote Lucian. Pennsylvania is a big time deer hunting state....Monday after Thanksgiving is an unofficial holiday, many primary schools are closed that day and most of the construction jobs in the state run a skeleton crews then.
On my side of the state (Western PA) many still go to their cabins to party before they go out to hunt.....er, shoot.
I love to go hiking but make sure I stay out of the woods in the late fall.
It used to be you would see a large amount of dead deer along the roadside during rutting/hunting season. Now it seams like is all through the year.
Probably a combination of suburban sprawl and deer population.
On the good side...coyotes are making a comeback in the area.
I got your point. Mine is different. We are in a crisis mode here in Pennsylvania. Even when saplings are planted and fenced in, the deer burst over the fences and eat them. I’ve seen videos of the failed attempts to protect the little trees from deer in the woodlands near my family’s home. Yes, these hunters employ unsportsmanlike tactics. But at this point, I’m glad there are still hunters, whatever their tactics. There are way, WAY too many deer in this state, and that is just a fact. It’s an ecological catastrophe.
As a historian and researcher, I have to add this to my previous comments. All a person has to do is check out the official stats in Pennsylvania. The deer population is estimated at 1.5 million. THAT IS HARDLY THE 6 MILLION JUDY CLAIMED. And yes, in the areas where homes have been built on deer habitat the animals come and eat the shrubs of home owners. Do we call that "a crisis?" Look up the definition for that word.
I think in terms of ecological catastrophe, from point of view of the earth, it is humans that upset the natural balance. There are way too many. I live in Maryland, and the deer population has exploded here, too. But the combined promotion of hunting and baiting and alcohol is a very bad tactic.
A hunting course is required to obtain a license, and safety is emphasized, but of course, who remembers any of that if their drunk? And for those who employ the tactics of "kill 'em any way you can", well that's why there are rules and regulations.
(Oh, Damn, did I say regulations? I'm such a freakin' liberal!) Those regulations need to be enforced by DNR more successfully.
But the bottom line is, humans need to start behaving with common sense and compassion, and stop acting like (Dare I say?)...animals.
I -like Lucian - am not against hunting but against the baiting and the stands. The rich royals in the Medieval ages, had beaters push the game to them in their "stands" and then shot them with their bows. Yes, the populations have increased since we have killed their natural predators, but baiting and then killing from stands is so wrong on so many levels. I do have a problem with that and am surprised you don't. There are better more humane solutions like sterilizing for several seasons.
In short, empty ad hominem attacks instead of dealing with the ecological disaster of millions of deer. They have no other predators. Would you prefer all the smaller creatures starve, and the trees aren’t replenished? Because the deer will starve too, when they run out of browse to eat. Try to apply reason to the problem.
6M deer? Hmmm. According to the PA Game Commission the deer pop in PA was successfully stabilized. Can you share the source of 6M?
You omitted the naturally occurring predators to include ~coyote~, ~bear~ bobcat~, and of course the big bad ~wolf~. Their populations went south due to yt hunters, the ones you claim to iithah speak for or otherwise defend as being something they are not, hunters.
6M? Hmmm again. Those predators must be fat, happy, and plentiful cuz they have no requirement to buy guns, ammo, accessories, or hunting licenses/permits. Nor are they season restricted.
So, being ~indigenous~ and birthed under the Hunter Moon, suggest you may have misidentified the actual problem and/or someone has misrepresented it to you. FTR: Deer do not eat to the point of gluttony. Ever see a fat deer? There are so many myths in support of killing for sport. Have heard some whoppers.
Besides if there is going to be a 4legged overpopulation problem in northern tier states it will come from the nord, hybrid pigs genetically altered by Canadian hog farmers to survive cold winters. Makes the southern hybrid hogs look tiny and sort of adorable. Once again, a man-made problem unleased on the natural world. Solution: stay away with mucking with the natural world, Y'all phucked it since y'all first arrived cuz y'all aint the least bit interested in how it sustains self and others. You can't pray your way out of it nor kill your way out of it.
But do it without the concomitant set of marketing and other issues Lucian identifies, hardly too much to ask. Besides, then the wild accusations that culling a herd of six million deer in Pennsylvania alone is "the worst thing that ever happened" and such, hopefully won't reach the "You are just Ilse Koch! You Nazi!" level of stark absurdity, so there's that, too.
And notice what a careful examination of evidence showed about Koch, as well...major blunder to equate arguably very misguided subset of millions of hunters with with the Nazis, isn't it?
Koch (22 September 1906 – 1 September 1967) was a German war criminal who committed atrocities while her husband Karl-Otto Koch was commandant at Buchenwald. Though Ilse Koch had no official position in the Nazi state,[1] she became one of the most infamous Nazi figures at war's end.
Because of the egregiousness of her alleged actions, including that she had selected tattooed prisoners for death in order to fashion lampshades and other items from their skins, her 1947 U.S. military commission court trial at Dachau received worldwide media attention, as did the testimony of survivors who ascribed sadistic and perverse acts of violence to Koch – giving rise to the image of her as "the concentration camp murderess."
However, the most serious of these allegations were found to be without proof in two different legal processes, one conducted by an American military commission court at Dachau in 1947, and another by the West German Judiciary at Augsburg in 1950-1951.[2] Harold Kuhn and Richard Schneider, two U.S Army lawyers tasked with conducting the official review of her conviction at Dachau, noted that “in spite of the extravagant statements made in the newspapers, the record contains little convincing evidence against the accused… In regard to the widely publicised charges that she ordered inmates killed for their tattooed skin, the record is especially silent.” [3]
That the wild claims were dismissed as lacking evidence did little to sway public opinion. She was known as "The Witch of Buchenwald" (Die Hexe von Buchenwald) by the inmates because of her suspected cruelty and lasciviousness toward prisoners. She has been nicknamed "The Beast of Buchenwald",[4] the "Queen of Buchenwald",[5][6] the "Red Witch of Buchenwald",[7][8] "Butcher Widow",[9] and "The Bitch of Buchenwald".[10]
Thanks for identifying the absurdity of the Nazi accusation, though it’s not clear to me why you appear to be defending my position by pointing out that Ilsa Koch wasn’t actually as bad as they all said.
I’m not advocating these measures for culling the deer, just saying that the deer problem is massive and getting worse. And there are fewer hunters. So who’s going to actually do something, and what will it look like?
At first glance at the photo this looks like a white sack that doubles as a KKK hood thinking I was going to read about drinking the booze, putting the hood over one's head (see "eyeholes") followed by hunting down people of color - whew ! There is an upside to easy pickins deer hunting in that the deer population all across the USA needs culling. Deer carry Lyme ticks and they carry covid as easily as humans. Another upside here is that modern deer hunters/Tractor Supply people lean red to trumpism and if they are drinking booze and shooting one another in the woods this fall what's the downside?
My parents moved just across the PA border south of my hometown of Binghamton, NY to a nine-acre country place with their horses and my lil sister's pony during my college years. Deer season in NE PA back then was like beware the dimwits with rifles. One time I came around a bend on a narrow 1.5 lane road and almost hit a car full of guys was driving in the middle of the road with their guns out the window on both sides checking the surrounding fields for pre. Another time one of our dogs came home with its snout full of shotgun pellets.
My uncle used to deer hunt, but at least there was some skill and sport to how he did it, waiting in a tree with a bow & arrow for one to come by.
Having hit a deer in a car – regular occurence thereabouts – I get the need to cull the herd. But there has to be a better way.
I’ve read that killing a deer by rifle with “one shot” is less painful and more humane than bow and arrows since about a third of those deer are only wounded and run off to slowly die from their arrow wound.
Our local hunters here in northern Michigan rarely if ever need a second shot - it would destroy the meat. And they and their familes eat every edible part of it, as our Ojibwe peoples have always done, and set the example. (By the way, these hunters all left the NRA years ago).
Like you I learned hunting by walking through the countryside. Learning how land affects vision and hearing. How shade and light can be used to conceal yourself. How to approach a likely hide from downwind. How to read an animals passage across ground and what a trail looks like. How to be still, quiet, and how to track a wounded animal.
None of these skill are learned by sitting in a hide or a stand. These people are not hunters, they're assassins.
Or predators
Assassins. They kill for fun. Predators kill to eat.
You’re right about animals, but I’m thinking of humans. Assassins also kill for money and in the pursuit of ideals.
I agree on assassin's additional motivations. I still say anyone who "hunts" in this manner isn't a predator, but is rather something entirely different.
Thank you
Could never understand the urge to kill an animal-unless one or one’s family is literally starving. I think it’s hideous as a sport. Man against animal? Plaaaaeeese. Man is the most violent animal alive.
Reminds me of the plea I saw years ago on one of the buttons in The Magus, local "Occult" bookshop, selling also herbal potions and lotions:
EVOLVE, DAMN IT!
Respect for your framing.
Final thoughts to add to this is just so wrong:
-Hunting is never a sport. Simply look up the definition of the word sport or in the alternative think what is required in order for something to be a sport whether at the individual or team level. Hunting involves taking life. Please name another sport that does.
-Myth: deer ticks. Seriously? Tick specific to one species. Same with dog ticks. There are many types of ticks, none of which originate with a deer or a dog. Would be a biological miracle for a mammal to hatch insects. Lyme disease doesn't originate in the blood of a deer that was bitten by a tick. Like so many other diseases it originates from rodents. Ticks feed on blood and aren't fussy whose blood it is. Still haven't read about a single case of someone getting Lyme disease from a deer or claim to have had an encounter with a free deer and next thing they knew they had Lyme's disease. Slaughtering deer aka culling doesn't kill ticks. Even the ones that are attached to the deer. DUH! What's next, shoot all the family digs cuz some have ticks?
Culling- is a euphemism for slaughter. Previously asked people to support their assertion of deer overpopulation. No takers. For good Reason. How about just slaughtering the overweight deer eating everything in sight (ever laid eyes on a Blubber Bambi?) That is what hogs and hog hybrids do (think Porky Pig). If one cannot tell the difference between a deer and a hog (including all attributes), then the person must be the one taking the Deer Census in states claiming w/o evidence there is a deer overpopulation. And where is the moral finding that a hooman is entitled to the land that is already occupied by others? Are rights only afforded hoomans who are the last, not the first species on the Blue Marble? And that would include freedom.
Never will get uncivilized yt-people and their singular solution to so many problems of, kill-baby-kill. Yes, applies across the board and to the entire spectrum. And the killing is always in all ways rationalized including making up chit (deer ticks-big bad ~wolf~. And ya wonder how WMD in Ir came about? Ot, let's go invade Af cuz UBL is prolly there. Now, that would qualify as a bona fide hunt as was proposed. But no. Let's go cull those who didn't attack us, indeed those who reached out to us, the Taliban (deer) while ignoring UBL and +/- 400 Arabs/dead enders from around the globe (the ticks).
The hunt must have a purpose that can be fully justified along w/its 2nd-X order effects.
AMEN!
"Man is the most violent animal alive."
Without a doubt.
And Abrahamic reared children are introduced to the killing of animals in the holy book's The Flood-Noah's Ark. All animals including 2legged hoomans including the elderly, the affirmed, the blind, the disabled, infants, children, young adults, prego-wimmin, wimmin, and men and all winged fliers, crawlers/gilled, swimmers, and 4legged. minus 2each. Is the first recorded Holocaust and the worst.
Note: A red-laced booty boy from Stormfront is certain Hilter got the inspiration to exterminate Jews from that story.
I am genuinely impressed that you still have the capacity for outrage. Between the most corrupt Supreme Court in history, DeSantis teaching that slavery gave African-Americans skills to use, the rollback of Roe v. Wade, banning books, and the latest thing that just finished me, the rollback of child labor laws, and the young people who have been dying in the workplace. I’m finally benumbed. Of course, this is what hunting has come to. I’m surprised they don’t just sit there drunk listening to Jason Aldean with assault rifles and blast away.
MOST hunting of non human animals is not about food gathering, its about the KILL. Just ask Donald Jr.
About 5 percent of US population are these hunters.
About 3 percent are likely psychopaths.
And drunk!
Yes
I've read that there's a whole "dark web" area devoted to videos made for people who enjoy watching baby monkeys being tortured to death. I suspect those viewers, virtually all male, come from your same psychopathic 3%.
Cruel children is a huge study from torturing Ants to serial killers
The older I get — and i’m getting pretty old — the less I feel like killing anything, except maybe mosquitoes and ticks.
An uncle of mine who lived in Maryland in the 50s and 60s would only hunt in certain areas of Pennsylvania to avoid all the drinking hunters. And he hunted the hard way by tracking deer. No deer stands.
Loved the first day of hunting season...drunks blasting away at Orange deer...lots of casualties on that special day of thinning out the herd!
In New Jersey our neighbor killed a deer and hung it by its back legs on his back porch which was right outside my daughter's bedroom window...for days. Every morning it made her sad and then she'd get mad. I was just mad. I can't understand shooting to kill an animal unless you need the food.
These would be the same guys who slip roofies into women's drinks, so there's no problem-o when the guys are ready to do their ram job? And that's probably after the guys' drug of choice, Viagra or Cialis, has kicked in.
My father used to take me deer hunting when I was a kid. I was given a rifle and ammo but never loaded the gun. When dad discovered this he was very angry at me and never took me hunting again. Many years later(1968) when I got drafted(kidnapped) into the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War I tried to get a conscientious objector deferment based on my unwillingness to kill animals or people. I told the draft induction officials in NYC my above deer hunting story. They laughed and the next day I was in basic training at the Fort Jackson School For Boys in South Carolina.
What and how you laid out is far closer to poaching than it is to hunting. And you are dead right in describing it as target shooting.
Must repeat, shooting (target) is a sport. To be considered hunting it must be a way of life and/or sustaining life. Additionally, there is no such thing as trophy hunting. Only barbarian take trophies. Hunters feed others, including other animals, insects, and the earth itself.
So right with your nexus of guns, accessories, attire, outright killing of our [animal] relatives, and alcohol. Is big busine$$ and bears no resemblance to the hunt. And what is insulting and offensive is co-opting aboriginal and ~indigenous~ ceremonial act of painting face red w/blood of our animal relatives. They skip all the most important aspects. Then again, yts love cultural appropriation and shat-cuts.
Am grateful to you for your expressed outrage.
Good point that the name should not be "hunting," but "killing." It doesn't seem to be a sport anymore. Baiting deer, in my opinion, would only be acceptable if they were overrunning a town -- which likely would have been their real estate to begin with. (Observant Jews, by the way, will only hunt and kill to eat.) Real sport, to me, is shooting skeet.
And as part of the living enactment of ancient traditions on the lands of sovereign Native American tribal nations, no baited traps for deer, and an intense and profoundly developed use of every part of the prey, plus ceremonies saluting and honoring the spirit of the animal - could hardly get any further from the scenarios all-too-often engaged in by other hunters across the USA , blasting away with AR-15s, posing for photos, the lot.
Things have changed for the worse in that respect, since this traditional American folk song emerged:
youtube.com/watch?v=PfaOi6aSla8
The Sow Took the Measles
How do you think I begin in the world?
I got me a sow and sev'ral other things;
The sow took the measles and she died in the spring
What do you think that I made of her hide?
The very best saddle that you ever did ride;
Saddle or bridle or any such a thing,
The sow took the measles and she died in the spring
What do you think that I made of her nose?
The very best thimble that ever sewed clothes;
Thimble or thread or any such thing,
The sow took the measles and she died in the spring
What do you think I made of her tail?
The very best whup that ever sought sail;
Whup or whup-socket, any such thing
The sow took the measles and she died in the spring
What do you think that I made of her feet?
The very best pickles that you ever did eat;
Pickles or glue or any such thing,
The sow took the measles and she died in the spring.
Hunters highly disdain AR15 users anywhere. The hunters I know here in northern Michigan only need one bullet - more than one shot ruins the meat that feeds us all winter.
“Real sportsman” use AR-15s! Pathetic.
It certainly isn’t sportsmanlike, and I’m no hunter, but there are something like 2 million deer in Pennsylvania, and far fewer hunters than there used to be. Deer eat everything from the ground to the height to which they can rear up, depriving other smaller animals of food, and devouring the saplings that are needed to replace aging large trees. They have no other large predators, and are throwing off the entire ecological balance. So I’m actually not too bothered by this.
Did I mention ticks and Lyme Disease?
I think if you'll read my column again, I didn't say deer hunting was bad or shouldn't be done. I was critical of the deer hunters and the manner by which they hunt, not hunting itself.
Agree with what you wrote Lucian. Pennsylvania is a big time deer hunting state....Monday after Thanksgiving is an unofficial holiday, many primary schools are closed that day and most of the construction jobs in the state run a skeleton crews then.
On my side of the state (Western PA) many still go to their cabins to party before they go out to hunt.....er, shoot.
I love to go hiking but make sure I stay out of the woods in the late fall.
It used to be you would see a large amount of dead deer along the roadside during rutting/hunting season. Now it seams like is all through the year.
Probably a combination of suburban sprawl and deer population.
On the good side...coyotes are making a comeback in the area.
I got your point. Mine is different. We are in a crisis mode here in Pennsylvania. Even when saplings are planted and fenced in, the deer burst over the fences and eat them. I’ve seen videos of the failed attempts to protect the little trees from deer in the woodlands near my family’s home. Yes, these hunters employ unsportsmanlike tactics. But at this point, I’m glad there are still hunters, whatever their tactics. There are way, WAY too many deer in this state, and that is just a fact. It’s an ecological catastrophe.
And what happened to the predators ? Maybe we also had something to do
with eliminating them as well??!!
We have created this unbalance by systematically killing the predators who cull the deer naturally.
As a historian and researcher, I have to add this to my previous comments. All a person has to do is check out the official stats in Pennsylvania. The deer population is estimated at 1.5 million. THAT IS HARDLY THE 6 MILLION JUDY CLAIMED. And yes, in the areas where homes have been built on deer habitat the animals come and eat the shrubs of home owners. Do we call that "a crisis?" Look up the definition for that word.
If it is indeed an "ecological catastrophe," what if hunting is not the most effective solution?
I think in terms of ecological catastrophe, from point of view of the earth, it is humans that upset the natural balance. There are way too many. I live in Maryland, and the deer population has exploded here, too. But the combined promotion of hunting and baiting and alcohol is a very bad tactic.
A hunting course is required to obtain a license, and safety is emphasized, but of course, who remembers any of that if their drunk? And for those who employ the tactics of "kill 'em any way you can", well that's why there are rules and regulations.
(Oh, Damn, did I say regulations? I'm such a freakin' liberal!) Those regulations need to be enforced by DNR more successfully.
But the bottom line is, humans need to start behaving with common sense and compassion, and stop acting like (Dare I say?)...animals.
These are not hunters and sitting in a deer stand and luring deer with bait does not
sound like hunting to me.
WOLVES
I -like Lucian - am not against hunting but against the baiting and the stands. The rich royals in the Medieval ages, had beaters push the game to them in their "stands" and then shot them with their bows. Yes, the populations have increased since we have killed their natural predators, but baiting and then killing from stands is so wrong on so many levels. I do have a problem with that and am surprised you don't. There are better more humane solutions like sterilizing for several seasons.
My comment smacks of logic.
jb-g,
your "logic" befits nazi germany.
In short, empty ad hominem attacks instead of dealing with the ecological disaster of millions of deer. They have no other predators. Would you prefer all the smaller creatures starve, and the trees aren’t replenished? Because the deer will starve too, when they run out of browse to eat. Try to apply reason to the problem.
6M deer? Hmmm. According to the PA Game Commission the deer pop in PA was successfully stabilized. Can you share the source of 6M?
You omitted the naturally occurring predators to include ~coyote~, ~bear~ bobcat~, and of course the big bad ~wolf~. Their populations went south due to yt hunters, the ones you claim to iithah speak for or otherwise defend as being something they are not, hunters.
6M? Hmmm again. Those predators must be fat, happy, and plentiful cuz they have no requirement to buy guns, ammo, accessories, or hunting licenses/permits. Nor are they season restricted.
So, being ~indigenous~ and birthed under the Hunter Moon, suggest you may have misidentified the actual problem and/or someone has misrepresented it to you. FTR: Deer do not eat to the point of gluttony. Ever see a fat deer? There are so many myths in support of killing for sport. Have heard some whoppers.
Besides if there is going to be a 4legged overpopulation problem in northern tier states it will come from the nord, hybrid pigs genetically altered by Canadian hog farmers to survive cold winters. Makes the southern hybrid hogs look tiny and sort of adorable. Once again, a man-made problem unleased on the natural world. Solution: stay away with mucking with the natural world, Y'all phucked it since y'all first arrived cuz y'all aint the least bit interested in how it sustains self and others. You can't pray your way out of it nor kill your way out of it.
But do it without the concomitant set of marketing and other issues Lucian identifies, hardly too much to ask. Besides, then the wild accusations that culling a herd of six million deer in Pennsylvania alone is "the worst thing that ever happened" and such, hopefully won't reach the "You are just Ilse Koch! You Nazi!" level of stark absurdity, so there's that, too.
And notice what a careful examination of evidence showed about Koch, as well...major blunder to equate arguably very misguided subset of millions of hunters with with the Nazis, isn't it?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilse_Koch
Koch (22 September 1906 – 1 September 1967) was a German war criminal who committed atrocities while her husband Karl-Otto Koch was commandant at Buchenwald. Though Ilse Koch had no official position in the Nazi state,[1] she became one of the most infamous Nazi figures at war's end.
Because of the egregiousness of her alleged actions, including that she had selected tattooed prisoners for death in order to fashion lampshades and other items from their skins, her 1947 U.S. military commission court trial at Dachau received worldwide media attention, as did the testimony of survivors who ascribed sadistic and perverse acts of violence to Koch – giving rise to the image of her as "the concentration camp murderess."
However, the most serious of these allegations were found to be without proof in two different legal processes, one conducted by an American military commission court at Dachau in 1947, and another by the West German Judiciary at Augsburg in 1950-1951.[2] Harold Kuhn and Richard Schneider, two U.S Army lawyers tasked with conducting the official review of her conviction at Dachau, noted that “in spite of the extravagant statements made in the newspapers, the record contains little convincing evidence against the accused… In regard to the widely publicised charges that she ordered inmates killed for their tattooed skin, the record is especially silent.” [3]
That the wild claims were dismissed as lacking evidence did little to sway public opinion. She was known as "The Witch of Buchenwald" (Die Hexe von Buchenwald) by the inmates because of her suspected cruelty and lasciviousness toward prisoners. She has been nicknamed "The Beast of Buchenwald",[4] the "Queen of Buchenwald",[5][6] the "Red Witch of Buchenwald",[7][8] "Butcher Widow",[9] and "The Bitch of Buchenwald".[10]
***** Wiki article continues.
Thanks for identifying the absurdity of the Nazi accusation, though it’s not clear to me why you appear to be defending my position by pointing out that Ilsa Koch wasn’t actually as bad as they all said.
I’m not advocating these measures for culling the deer, just saying that the deer problem is massive and getting worse. And there are fewer hunters. So who’s going to actually do something, and what will it look like?
At first glance at the photo this looks like a white sack that doubles as a KKK hood thinking I was going to read about drinking the booze, putting the hood over one's head (see "eyeholes") followed by hunting down people of color - whew ! There is an upside to easy pickins deer hunting in that the deer population all across the USA needs culling. Deer carry Lyme ticks and they carry covid as easily as humans. Another upside here is that modern deer hunters/Tractor Supply people lean red to trumpism and if they are drinking booze and shooting one another in the woods this fall what's the downside?
My parents moved just across the PA border south of my hometown of Binghamton, NY to a nine-acre country place with their horses and my lil sister's pony during my college years. Deer season in NE PA back then was like beware the dimwits with rifles. One time I came around a bend on a narrow 1.5 lane road and almost hit a car full of guys was driving in the middle of the road with their guns out the window on both sides checking the surrounding fields for pre. Another time one of our dogs came home with its snout full of shotgun pellets.
My uncle used to deer hunt, but at least there was some skill and sport to how he did it, waiting in a tree with a bow & arrow for one to come by.
Having hit a deer in a car – regular occurence thereabouts – I get the need to cull the herd. But there has to be a better way.
I’ve read that killing a deer by rifle with “one shot” is less painful and more humane than bow and arrows since about a third of those deer are only wounded and run off to slowly die from their arrow wound.
Our local hunters here in northern Michigan rarely if ever need a second shot - it would destroy the meat. And they and their familes eat every edible part of it, as our Ojibwe peoples have always done, and set the example. (By the way, these hunters all left the NRA years ago).
And they like to call themselves "sportsmen".