THE HUNTING ETHIC, AND SMELLING BAD

NO LONGER NEEDED

Wednesday, 8:30 AM.  19 degrees F on both thermometers.  Wind WSW, mostly calm with occasional moderate gusts.  The sky is mostly cloudy, the sun making a valiant effort to shine through.  The humidity is  72%, the barometer stands at 30.2" and is steady for now. High today will be around 30, warming and clearing some tomorrow, with rain showers on Friday.  lt is actually a beautiful day, contrary to its verbal description.
   It's deer season, and I am not out on my stand in the big country west of the orchards.  Goose season went by without me firing a shot, and the grouse are even safer in the woods now than before (which was pretty safe anyway).
    I no longer hunt. Not because some moral imperative forced me to quit, but because time and circumstance have taken their toll; a misplaced pacemaker makes it life threateningly risky to fire a shotgun or deer rifle, and a crossbow does not do it for me, particularly when mated with climbing into a tree stand.
   All this comes to the fore not because of nostalgia or some other psychological imperative, but because of yesterday's news: President Donald Trump's recent tweets regarding his opposition to big game trophy hunting, and in  particular the possibility of renewed legislation allowing big game hunters, particularly elephant hunters, to bring trophies (animal body parts) into the United States.  His sons are hunters of African big game, but the president is evidently revolted by the prospect.  An interesting family feud indeed.
   The ethics of hunting have long  been debated by far more expert, more passionate,  and frankly, just better writers, with whom I do not intend to compete, but I have developed my own hunting ethic over the years and it is pretty simple.

• Eat what you shoot and don't waste any of it.
• Using fur or feathers for warmth or honest decoration is not immoral, but only if the meat is eaten.
• Making an animal suffer unnecessarily is a sin, so make that first shot a good one.
• There is no better way to know an animal than to hunt it, and most hunters become sincere conservationists. 
• I don't care about the deer antlers over the fireplace, and an animal properly preserved by a taxidermist can be a tribute to its spirit, but disrespectful use of animal body parts is ugly and immoral.

   I myself still feel revolted when I remember entering the home of a noted big game hunter many years ago and being greeted by an elephant's foot and leg filled to the knee with sand and used as an ash tray.  And to kill a big cat or grizzly bear only for the thrill is akin to being a terrorist.  Only if the animal is a danger to human life,  endangering the survival of another species, or destroying scarce resources, is it justifiable.
   Captain Ahab sinned when he demonized Moby Dick, The Great White Whale, just for being a whale, and he paid for his sin with his life and the lives of those who followed him.
   There are many logical arguments that can be put forward which might convince the President to allow the importation of the trophies of big game hunting, but I hope he rejects all but those which fit the simple ethics I have outlined.
   That said, I will close with a humbling self assessment, in the form of a quote from the great outdoor writer Robert Ruark, which you have probably heard before:
   "Two things got no use on this earth, an old dog and an old man.  Neither serves any useful purpose, and both generally smell bad."