THE HUNTING LOOPHOLE

I've been thinking a lot lately about the white tailed deer mating season and how it coincides with that species' hunting season. Having been a fly fisherman all my life, and on those rare occasions when I manage to emerge intellectually victorious over a trout, I carefully remove the little hook, give the beautiful fish a kiss and release him to continue his life's journey.

I first encountered my deer hunting dilemma up in the state of Maine. First, I must tell you that I have nothing against the sport if the motivation is to put  food on the table through the winter. But getting back to the incident in Maine, a woman by the name of Karen Wood was hanging out the laundry in her backyard when a hunter, mistaking her for a deer, blew her head off. And he was found innocent of all charges by claiming the HUNTING LOOPHOLE. After all, he had been hunting. He had made a simple hunting mistake.  What if he was only 90 feet from her clothesline. It was surely understandable when you consider that he had been HUNTING. Can you imagine what the authorities would have done to you and me if we had been slinking around a neighborhood with a high-powered rifle, and, in the process, shot a human being to death----if we could not claim the HUNTING LOOPHOLE?

Again, hypothetically, I have no problem with shooting a deer's head off for the culinary reason stated above. But it seems that hunters throughout the Northeast are complaining that they can no longer locate any "trophy" deer. You see, nature's way of balancing the deer herd is for coyotes and other predators to bring down the weakest animals, allowing the so called trophies to reproduce. So when I hear the trophy hunters bemoan the disappearance of the best and the brightest, I just ask them to look at their walls for an explanation.

Which brings me back to the coincidence of the mating season and hunting season of this proud animal. And I have a theory. Since there are estimated to be 330,000,000 guns out there (one for every man, woman and baby in the country), it would be a fair and just assumption that the majority are in the possession of Conservatives.  (Remember Cheney shooting his own companion). And it is equally obvious that hunting is the sport of choice for the right wing. So do you see what the dovetailing of the mating and the hunting season means? The Conservatives are committing abortion on a grand scale. Oh no, the hypocrisy is too much for my sensibilities.

Well, there is a rumor going around. I can't guarantee its validity. But the few remaining trophy deer are supposedly armed with AK47s and waiting in ambush for the two-legged trophies. And supposedly these deer have access to the very best taxidermists in the Northeast.

December 12, 2013