« Previous topic | Next topic »  
Topic Locked  
 First unread post  | 6 posts | 
by Blck-shouldered Kite on Fri Nov 20, 2015 1:27 pm
Blck-shouldered Kite
Forum Contributor
Posts: 2669
Joined: 31 Dec 2010
Location: Maine
I think he was referring to himself when he talks of the loafer in this woods quote.

What is your opinion?  

Have things changed much; i.e. regarding folks who love nature enough to speak out for its conservation vs. industrialists who consider nature laws to be a hindrance to progress?
Topic Locked  

by pleverington on Sat Nov 21, 2015 7:45 am
pleverington
Forum Contributor
Posts: 5355
Joined: 30 Jun 2004
I think it's not a matter of this way or that way about things, but more a matter as to how you want to look at it all. So we and our society need to decide that first....from which angle do we want to see things. And then over time things change, needs and wants are evolved to something else, so what was once the best way to look at things no longer is. For example 400 years ago we walked these lands and the resources and nature seemed limitless. So we carved, cut, killed without any regulation or thought about it. But now it's a total different ballgame. Everything is under scrutiny and it will only get more so. These facts are one of the reasons I have a problem with "sport hunting". It's an echo of what was once something vital and necessary for survival, but now is for a delusional source of entertainment or fantasy egoism. It just isn't the way anyone lives anymore...yet the sport hunter thinks he is getting so in touch with nature... It's pitiful ....Those days are gone now and virtually no one wants to spend all day every day trying to find dinner in the wild...

So Thoreau I guess could be called a loafer by some that didn't live as he did, but then again he could be called a pioneer for starting a thought process that takes us all back to our roots and one that celebrates the the value and beauty of the natural world. Cause he recognized that we were slipping away fro it...

It seems to me humans create millions of different realities based on what they are and what they want...but nature is rock solid just that which it is. It's like an anchor for us if we would just grab a hold of the chain that would bond us to it.....



Paul
Paul Leverington
"A great image is one that is created, not one that is made"
Topic Locked  

by Blck-shouldered Kite on Sat Nov 21, 2015 8:21 am
Blck-shouldered Kite
Forum Contributor
Posts: 2669
Joined: 31 Dec 2010
Location: Maine
During the years I hunted, I did get "in touch" with nature like not before or since.  Now, I am largely a vegan.  

Strange, now that you mention it, I can see that my nature photography has not brought me to the "depth" or intimacy of being in touch with nature that the deer hunting did.

I liked "still" hunting deer.  I dreaded the idea of killing a deer or anything else.  

AN ASIDE:
And in the end, killing deer at night in the Everglades, in the name of science, caused deep, trauma that I have never recovered from.  It is because we left the "newly unspotted" fawn motherless.  I cannot talk about it now Paul.  This is all I will say about it.  The Commission called it "special collections".  I hate them for having put me through it.  If I was a millionaire I would waste some money suing them for the irreversible trauma they have caused me.  Many other wildlife technicians and biologists went through it.  Some enjoyed it.  I can never understand how you can enjoy such a horror.  Some people love to kill.  I know.  I have learned this through the years as a biologist working with the public.  The Commission no longer conduct their damned "special collections".   I think someone screamed about it. In fact, now that I have started to admit it and bring it out, I may just start writing publicly about this dreadful practice.  The only consolation I have gotten through the years for having participated in this is that the young ones we left are long dead too; i.e. they do not have to suffer any longer the trauma of having their mother taken from them.  I should have requested I be excluded from the assignment.  It is so traumatic now that I find myself still asking for forgiveness from the animals for some of the things we did and that i participated in such a horrible, needless practice….. in the name of science.   

BACK TO TRADITIONAL DEER HUNTING
But deer hunting in Maine was a very deep experience, only because I "still" hunted and sometimes took a stand.    I was a loner when i deer hunted.  There were exceptions.  There were times when I hooked up with some schoolboy friend's deer hunting family and I found myself participating in "drive".   I look back and find those drives of absolutely no fulfillment.  They left me empty.

When I was a very little boy, my Grandfather bought a hand-built, old log cabin in north-central Maine (Salem).  There was no heavy equipment to put the logs in place in those days.  Anyway, it was at the foot of Mount Abraham and I spent much of my youth there.  I would climb that 4000+ foot mountain and be back for lunch with my Grandparents.  It was the best time of my life, alone with them and off hunting all day long.  I never killed a deer, but I can still smell those wood in the Fall.  We also did a lot of partridge hunting.  I did kill many partridge but today wish I did not do that either.  We did not need to kill anything.  We bought all our food from the market as we do today.

A LONE DEER HUNTER
But hunting does bring a person so much closer to nature.  It is difficult to explain.  In my twenties, the same time i was a young wildlife student, I began deciding that I would become a stealthy white-tail hunter.  And it did!  I got so I could walk right up on to a deer, although I did not even know it was there. I did it many, many times.  They would jump up and "blow" and then bound off with that white rump bouncing through the woods.  I had walked right up onto them.  Literally, in the woods, you can walk right by a deer that is on the ground and within 6 feet of you and you will not see it.  How did I do this "still" hunting?  I just would pick an area that was "loaded" with fresh tracks and then began to slooooow…..waaaay, down, so that it would take me say, an hour or so to walk just 100 yards or maybe even less distance.  In snow storms and in steady rain, I would hunt all day long.  Those were the days of no Gore Tex.  You wore cotton, waffled long johns next to the skin and all wool outer clothing.  You got soaked early on but just kept walking.  In fresh, shallow snow it was fun be hunting white-tails in the woods.  I would pick up a track and eventually get frustrated and begin jogging with my little carbine by my side.  And sure enough the deer would begin trotting to stay ahead of me.  The evidence was right on the ground in front of me.  I was a kid having fun.  If I had actually seen the deer and shot it…the misery would have begun.  I just hate killing things and do not mind saying it.  Shot a bear once not far from from that old log cabin.  The whole family (well all on my Father's side) was proud of me.  I regret it to this day. I did eat it.  Anyone who says that bear is good eating is nuts.

Used to teach hunter safety courses in Florida.  That experience, combined with what I see today in Maine….and I do not go in the woodsanymore in the Fall knowing what I know now.  I listen to deer hunters today and I see the ignorance….the same thing I had.  And they do not listen to other's mistakes.

Gotta gitta deer!!!!  
It is an ego thing.  The just do not see it.  They do not even see the horror and misery they put the animals through.   

IRRESPONSIBLE HUNTERS LEAVE HORRIBLY WOUNDED ANIMALS IN THE WOODS
LISTEN!….there are lots and lots of mortally wounded deer, many with their appendages shot off….just because most of today's hunters cannot control their emotions.  They will shoot at a deer or moose or anything else in season….that is way too far off.  They talk about the miss and the deer running off wounded, with no regret for the animal.  The deer dies that night because coyotes find it and take it apart.  Wild canids are merciless killers, literally eating the big pray animal alive.  Big cats kill by crushing off the trachea or snapping the spinal cord….it is quick.  Not so with wild canids on big ungulates.  Sorry, this is just the way it is.  

I heard a moose hunting story just two days ago:  The "hunter" took 8 shots….EIGHT….at a moose and missed evey time.  Now folks, the only way that happens is if the animal is too far away to shoot because you risk maiming it or causing it to die a long, miserable death.  The moose is not known for its intelligence.  It stands there and looks at them while that big high powered rifle roars off in the distance….over and over.  That is not fun.    But these guys do it anyway…..and they do not regret it.  They are desperate.   

THE LOTTERY
Today's moose hunting and bear hunting are a desecration of the hunting tradition.  The lottery is a desecration of the tradition.  It has destroyed the tradition…corrupted it forever more.  I hate it.  I have lost ALL of any respect that remained for Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.  Which reminds me….it is time for another Letter to the Editor of the paper.    

And there is no way to interview for a hunting license.  There are lots and lots of immature, irresponsible little boys in mens bodies…in the woods.

THE BOW HUNTER
Some do see the enjoyment of it.  Mark Chase, a friend of mine, is about the best hunter I have known.  He has many stories about the things he has seen in the woods while bow hunting.  If you really want to commune with nature and do not mind killing, then you might take up bow hunting.  I will close with the time Mark told me about the Great Horned Owl that came swooshing right by his face as he sat up in a tree with his bow.   Wow! You don't make up those stories.  


Last edited by Blck-shouldered Kite on Sat Nov 21, 2015 9:34 am, edited 5 times in total.
Topic Locked  

by pleverington on Sat Nov 21, 2015 8:51 am
pleverington
Forum Contributor
Posts: 5355
Joined: 30 Jun 2004
That's a tough memory to have on the mind. I wonder often that  maybe all these so called animal experiments and researching are not really necessary.

I'm sure the main reason for people to go sport hunting is to  get back to or in touch with nature. This is what it does for the simple fact they are out there and not on the couch or at work.. My only point is that one can do this without killing anything. Killing for pleasure, not just for food, is a different concept than being in touch with nature. In fact in todays hunting world things have gotten so perverted that even the old hunters who hunted in the 50's-60's-70's are rather disgusted. Killing is a deeply rooted characteristic of our own nature maybe....
Paul Leverington
"A great image is one that is created, not one that is made"


Last edited by pleverington on Mon Nov 23, 2015 7:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
Topic Locked  

by Blck-shouldered Kite on Sat Nov 21, 2015 9:57 am
Blck-shouldered Kite
Forum Contributor
Posts: 2669
Joined: 31 Dec 2010
Location: Maine
You are right Paul:

A few weeks ago, while I was getting haircut, one of the two girls, Courtney, came out with "I'd love to go hunting, just to get out in the woods and enjoy nature.  I am not interested in killing anything….not that I am against it.  I just want to get out in the woods."

Now I love that attitude.  I like people who like the woods.  I do not like people who have no use for nature.  It is that simple.  We all have likes and dislikes.  

But there is that other group Paul.  They are the ones who just love to kill animals.  I know they are there from the years I have worked with them and listened to them.  They are sick….but there is no law against loving to kill animals….and if there was, I can guarantee you that Maine Fish and Game would hate to enforce it.  

I know someone I will call Brian.  He walks up to any bear he has caught in a trap and photographs it before he puts a bullet through the terrified animal's head.  I am not lying. The only way I learned Brian was doing that to a bear in the trap is because he was showing the photograph to someone else and I happened to be there.  I saw the poor bear pulling on the trap while looking at Brian.

Now, there is nothing you or I can do about these people except expose the ugliness of their pastimes.  And that is what I try to do.  I like Brian because he needs the woods just as I do.  In fact, we are friends.  But I hate his trapping and his bear baiting and so on.  And I tell him so.  I will continue to fight it.  It is a strange relationship because we know that most other folks who we know….do not care at all about the woods.  And we both love the big woods and so it bonds us.  You see what I am saying?  

I am learning that I need to gain the ear of the people.  I need to convince the people that they own the wildlife just as much as the hunter and trapper does…oh yes they do Mike in Oregon.  The non-hunting public has just as much say over what happens to the wildlife as the hunters who pay into the Pittman-Robertson taxes.  The trouble is that the non-hunting public has not taken the "podium".  They are not bonded into an organization that effectively counteracts that hunting lobby.  Audubon and Sierra have different agendas.   But the non-hunting public does have just as much right and power as the hunting public does Mike.  I know.  I need to reveal to the people what is really happening out there.   And I sometimes do get that opportunity.

EXAMPLE:  Maine northerners have recently voted on rejecting Roxanne Quimby's land offer to create a North Maine Woods National Park.  Now, they rejected it with their town meetings up in those small northern towns.  Here is my point:  Those town's people in northern Maine should have no more right to decide the course of this than we in the City of Portland……WE ARE MAINE RESIDENTS TOO AND WE USE THE NORTH MAINE WOODS.

And that is why I am writing a short letter to the editors today…on this very subject.
Topic Locked  

by pleverington on Sun Nov 22, 2015 10:07 am
pleverington
Forum Contributor
Posts: 5355
Joined: 30 Jun 2004
I also have very good friends who hunt. And yes they share and understand my own profound love of the natural world. It's probably just that they got their conversion by some means either family, friend, or  other outside influence or an in satiable need  to prove themselves at something  A.K.A.   EGO....

Ego is not all bad we all have  one and need it for many  things. It's when ego overrides all else that it always perverts. But  as you say Robert you no longer hunt. A lot of hunters who when young hunted no longer hunt when older I have found. It's because the older man is wiser, smarter, and does not need the ego to feel a sense of self worth. I would take a guess from my own experience that 80 % older mature people who did hunt when young no longer do...many strongly against it. But sometimes people get stuck in their own dogma.. It's like a tattoo one may regret 30 years later getting, but won't admit it cause that would make them feel like they had been wrong at one time in their lives. So they keep on pretending that they are still proud of it.. People never want to be wrong, and that's ego.. But to go on and on ignoring one's own evolution for the sake of saving face is just plain stupid.

I've spent years of my life backpacking. Going up into the mountains and on trails into isolated areas and just lived for a while in nature. That's all one has to do. Maybe the camera is a distraction...or maybe the camera like a gun or bow gives a reason or extra reason to be out there, so an association forms between the weapon or camera in that person that these things are causation for the nature high they are getting from the natural  world. That might explain why the hunter see's hunting as THE way to real nature. But certainty anyone should see these things are just venues.

Killing is a part of us. Just look at our entertainment. Violence sells. Killing sells, blood sells. No one can deny these things cause they are all around us. Is it power? Ego? Spiritual? Programmed into our most basic thinking?  Survival of the fittest? Is it for a feeling of of self worth?  Is it the kicks?  I suppose at one time before technology if a hunter came back to his tribe after having killed a bear  with a spear made from a stick indeed they would sing songs of his bravery and strength. Hunters now with that technology that hunters of old could never have  imagined I think are trying to get a bit of that...but...it's a delusion.  They are pretending and reenacting. This is what is behind the trophy hunter mostly...the bigger and badder  the animal killed, the more it proves them as something special.


One more thought....killing IS a thrill. Nothing comes quite so close as killing as far as touching some incredibly deep emotions and sensations. Killing can be like a drug...it's very seductive. Even the deep sadness of what one has done if they kill can be a strong compelling emotional stimulant. Just watch those young people play all those video games where they blast away and run gauntlets that blow away dozens of opponents. There's your full proof that a lot of people love killing. Look at the Nazis and their sanctioned killing or any of the other thousands of examples in human history. Only enlightenment and maturity and a willingness to embrace one's own sense of humanity and empathy seems to  evolve a person past his  primitive and puerile ways.
Paul Leverington
"A great image is one that is created, not one that is made"
Topic Locked  

Display posts from previous:  Sort by:  
6 posts | 
  

Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group