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From: beal@paladin.owego.ny.us (Alan Beal)
Newsgroups: rec.hunting
Subject: Re: Dogs and Deer
Message-ID: <419@erb1.engr.wisc.edu>
Date: 22 Mar 91 13:45:35 GMT
Sender: news@erb1.engr.wisc.edu
Organization: The Design Committee
Lines: 41
Approved: hunting@osnome.che.wisc.edu



From: beal@paladin.owego.ny.us (Alan Beal)
Let me clarify my stand out hunting, especially hunting with dogs.  I grew
up in Maine and spent a good part of my fall hunting for deer and ducks.
As you may know Maine doesn't have an abundant supply of deer like 
Pennsylvania and Michigan; 20,000 deer killed in one year in Maine is
about average.  But one good thing about Maine is the amount of land that
is open to hunting including private land owned by normal citizens and
the paper companies.  Since the deer population is quite small, one must
really work to get one's deer, and one tends to find only serious hunters
in the woods after the opening weekend.  Relations between landowners and
hunters are fairly good; the only people I had problems with were out of state
(MA) landowners.  Hunting was an enjoyable and safe experience.  Most of
the hunters I met went hunting to enjoy the outdoors; you had to be this
way because one often spent weeks before you got your deer.

However, my hunting experiences in Michigan were completely different.  I went
once with a person to hunt on a farm which amounted to a small patches of
woods among the corn fields.  This was the only time I have ever been scared
in the woods!!!  There were so many people packed into these small patches
of woods, it sounded like a war.  I had slugs skipping through the trees
over my head.  After that day, I didn't go hunting for a long time, not
that I didn't try.  But the vast majority of the land was posted.  One thing
I noticed among my fellow hunters was the attitude that hunting was just
a means to get meat.  Get one's three deer and take them to the butcher.
Scary as well as boring.  Now I ask why was all the land posted in Michigan?

So when I hear about hunting deer with dogs, I think about the 'out for
meat' mentality.  Hunting is already viewed as an unnecessary evil by
many, especially by some landowners.  Can you imagine what those landowners
who are neutral on hunting would think after seeing deer being chased by
dogs being chased by hunters.  I can see the no hunting signs going up the
next day.  I think we hunters have to present the proper image of hunting
and I don't think the majority of people would find hunting deer with dogs
too sporting.  Hunting has a public relations problem and hunters just
out for meat contribute to the problem.
-- 
Alan Beal
Internet: beal@paladin.Owego.NY.US
USENET:   {uunet,uunet!bywater!scifi}!paladin!beal