Dilemnas and Deer Hunting

I don't know if I should take my rifle or my chainsaw with me out in the woods this morning. Most of the people that I've talked to around here are saying they're seeing little or no deer. The other day walking down the trail I noticed an old, dead red oak that had blown over and pinned down a young white oak. It was still alive but bent over in the shape of the St. Louis Gateway Arch. So instead of sitting on my stand waiting for deer that aren't there I might just save this white oak since it produces more acorns than any other oak tree around here. Hopefully then my kids and their kids won't have to sit around and talk about the deer they aren't seeing because the deer will have something to eat. Plus, running a chainsaw is warmer than sitting on a deer stand when it's only 15 degrees out there.

Dilemnas like are common place when I finally make it out to the woods. Things could get out of control if I spent any significant time out there.

Day 4 of The Hunt

It's day four of the sacred Wisconsin-nine-day-gun-deer-hunt. Yesterday we were blessed with close to 6 inches of fresh tracking snow. My morning will be spent not out in the woods following tracks made in that snow but watching it blow out the chute of our Cub Cadet snowblower as I wrestle it up and down our driveway. By about noon that snow will no longer look like a blessing but a curse. I've done this before, can you tell?

I'm reminded of a statement often repeated by a fellow mail-carrier whenever he's asked how it's going. The carrier, who's been at it for over 40 years, milked cows for just as long and is well into his seventies, will pause, take a breath, and sometimes even put down what he's doing and say, "Oh, it's gotta go." Ever since I first heard him say that I often find myself wondering what the undefinable "it" that has to go is. Especially on days like this where I'd rather be out in the woods hunting but can't be because I have to make sure the driveway is clear, the cars are free of snow and full of gas, so we are ready to deliver mail at a moment's notice (Annie got called in at 6:30 yesterday morning).

But the hunt for the meaning behind the undefinable "it" is going to have to wait for now. Because, well, I hate to say it but "it's" gotta go. I'm off to blow snow.

He Read My Mind

I had something interesting happen to me this morning. Before I head out to the woods to my deer stand (It's the gun deer season in Wisconsin) I usually try to get some reading in. This morning I had the intention of reading some passages out of the Book of Job and Ecclesiastes. I'd read the other day in "Fragments"--a book about Heraclitus that James Hillman wrote a forward to-- that those two sections of the bible are considered books of wisdom. And I've heard James Hillman say that he assumes the readers of his work have a basic western education and therefore know the bible well. I don't. And since I can't seem to leave his work alone I've had the intention lately to become more acquainted with the bible. Anyway, the sun was about rise. So I got my bible out and put it on the kitchen table before I walked out the door. I had the intention on reading a few sections when I returned from the hunt. Well, a few hours passed by and I returned from the hunt. I stepped in the door to put my rifle away before I had to do my daily chores. I looked across at the kitchen table and noticed my bible was open. I didn't think I left it open so I asked Annie if she'd opened it. She laughed, and said, "No, Hayden (Our 4 year old) did. He opened it up Ecclesiates and I read the first section. It's fascinating writing. There is a lot of truth in it."

They beat me to it.

An Auden Quote

Deer hunting is over, for the most part. I'm back with a quote I picked up out of James Hillman's Kinds of Power.

"We are lived by powers we pretend to understand."--W.H. Auden

No Quinn Quote This Week

There will be no Quinn Quote Saturday this week. It's the first day of the nine-day Wisconsin whitetail rifle hunt.

Deer Hunting Starts In a Few Days

Wisconsin's traditional nine-day gun deer hunt starts Saturday. In years past I've always experienced strong emotions during the season. One of the emotions has been a deeper sense of grief than usual. Of course, that is usually followed by a nervous tension that I'll find myself standing in a depression and my whole life will fall apart. It's complicated, and I'm sure there are many reasons why the grief's presence is more present than usual. But this excerpt out of Robert Bly's Iron John has always stuck with me when I start to ask what is going on here? Or to put it like the archetypal psychologist James Hillman has: What is Psyche doing now?

"So many roles that men have depended on for hundreds of years have dissolved or vanished. Certain activities, such as hunting or pirating, no one want him to do anymore. The Industrial Revolution has separated man from from nature and from his family. The only jobs he can get are liable to harm the earth and the atmosphere; in general he doesn't know whether to be ashamed of being a man or not.

"And yet the structure at the bottom of the male psyche is still as firm as it was twent thousand years ago. A contemporary man simply has very little help in getting down to it."[Pg.230]

I'm learning there are different levels of hunting.

Whitetail Doe

Last week I shot a whitetail doe during the Wisconsin nine day gun deer season. I couldn't help but feel gifted. I couldn't help but feel that the universe took notice of me, much like a gambler must feel when their pick wins the race. On the other hand, I couldn't help but feel sadness that she will not see another sunrise or enjoy her motherly duty of having her fawns around.

I too often forget that my life will come to an end just as the deer's did a few days ago.

Out of all the mixed feelings and thoughts about this hunting experience, I know I come out of it feeling more alive than usual. There is something to be said about that.

I love deer hunting.

Wisconsin Deer Hunting and Competition

This morning I listened to Joy Cardin's call-in radio show about deer hunting in the state of Wisconsin. One of the issues that was brought up during the show was that there are to many deer in the state, so hunters need to shoot more deer to bring the numbers down. The part of the show that caught my attention was Frank's (He was from Portage, WI) call at about 45 or so minutes into the hour long program. What I heard Frank saying in his comment is that part of the problem is that we're not letting the natural predators like wolves, bear, and cougars do their job of consuming deer because we have taken over their territories, therefore bringing their numbers down so they can't make an impact on the deer herd. He also mentioned that we keep taking from the land and its inhabitants, and we have been doing this since we decided to take the land from the Native Americans that lived here.

I was disappointed with Keith Warnke's response to Frank. Keith is a Big Game Specialist who works for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The main reason why is that he didn't mention our total dependence on agriculture to produce our food. And most importantly, because of this dependence on agriculture we are breaking The Biological Law of Limited Competition. The law simply states:

You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down your competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food. Lions and hyenas will kill competitors opportunistically (as will other creatures, like baboons), but the law as stated holds true: they do not HUNT their competitors the way they hunt their prey. That is, they'll kill a competitor if they come across one (especially in conflict over food when food is scarce), but in the absence of a competitor, they won't go looking for one to kill. Such behavior would be evolutionarily unstable. (See THE SELFISH GENE by R. Dawkins.) As a strategy, it just doesn't pay off to use your time and energy hunting competitors that you DON'T eat (and that will fight back to the death) instead of using your time and energy to hunt prey that you DO eat. It's not a matter of ethics, it's a matter of calories.*

Spraying pesticides on fields, killing wolves because they kill whitetail deer, shooting deer because they eat our corn, are all examples of killing our competitors because we don't want them to have our food. That's breaking the Law of Limited Competition. The problem is that over time a species will go extinct from breaking this law. Experts and citizens alike, I think, really need to start talking about this more.

I would like to be a guest on Wisconsin Public Radio talking about this and other ideas brought up in Daniel Quinn's work. Perhaps there needs to be an organization started in the state that focuses on those ideas. Anybody out there with any ideas? In the ten years I have been listening to WPR I have not heard a guest voice the B Attitudes, but I have heard callers like Frank touch on them.

*Source