The Lonely Goatherd Blog And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats - Matthew 25:32
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Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
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All original content on MoreThings.com copyright 2008 Albert Barger or the respective authors
December 04, 2002
Bambi must die How can YOU help me, Al Barger? Well, for starters, you could go kill some deer.
A lot of good liberal city folk who've never actually been around wildlife hate the very idea of hunting. Marisa Tomei's Oscar winning character in My Cousin Vinny gave a typical display about beautiful, perfect little Bambi taking a little drink, when BLAM he gets his brains blown out.
She's real cute, but also real damned ignorant of reality. Real deer are not like Bambi; for starters, they don't talk. Every creature on this earth has to die some way and some time. Being taken by a hunter actually constitutes one of the better ways to go. It generally is relatively quite quick, and serves some useful purpose- providing food, sport and garment. Kill them, eat them, wear their skins.
Nonetheless, Marisa Tomei gets to vote, and the votes of her ilk effect natural resource policy. Hunting seasons get shortened, bag limits on deer get reduced. Stupid PETA types show up to protest and disrupt.
Personally, I have issues with deer. I was cruising down the open highway at dusk a couple of months ago, doing a modest 60 mph. I was driving properly, eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel and WHAM! A deer jumped out from the left side of the road and placed his head in front of my driver's side headlight. The impact whipped his body around and against my door and open window.
I drove right through him and kept going. I was driving, and picking deer off my face and shirt. The car was driving fine, but my better judgment kicked in after a minute, so I stopped. First clue: I could barely open the door enough to get out of it. There was nothing left where the front headlight should be.
By the time I got back to the scene, there was no sign of the deer. The son of a bitch apparently walked away, never to be seen again. A pair of bucks will build up 20 mph ramming speed on each end, which adds up to 40ish that they do in their regular playing, so walking away from 60 mph from a Cavalier may not be that amazing. My evening plans suddenly halted, I limped it on home, and cleaned up.
An hour later I was thinking on the black hunks of deer I had on me. It wasn't blood. It wasn't fur... The goddam deer had shit on my face through the open window! By about this point I was starting to become maybe just slightly annoyed.
The bad part was that the deer did $2,500 in damage to the vehicle. There were good parts, though. One, I didn't get hurt. Two, it gave me a good story to tell on myself.
I should not have been surprised when my evil brother had my birthday cake made last month with a picture of me hitting the deer. My tale apparently made quite the hit amongst the sister in law's co-workers in the supermarket deli where the cake was baked. Their cake decorator helpfully volunteered to add some icing poop to the design. [CLICK HERE to see the results.] Naturally, at the birthday party my seven year old nephew, the Monkey Boy, called dibs on the poop. Yeah, that's my boy.
My little altercation merely ended up a nuisance to me. Insurance picked up the tab, and nobody got hurt. I got a funny story, and a birthday cake.
Make no mistake though, deer accidents are no laughing matter. Farm Bureau estimates $53 million dollars in property damage to deer accidents annually, just here in Indiana. Further, for the year 2000, Indiana State Police list 10,988 accident reports- which doesn't count the accidents where they were not called- such as mine.
Then we get to the more serious part. In Indiana during the year 2000, police report 380 human injuries from deer accidents. Four people were killed. Figure that out across the country, and you get THOUSANDS of injuries, and perhaps 200 or more fatalities.
Some of this is just inevitable. We're here, they're here, we're going to run into one another once in a while.
Some of this carnage, however, is absolutely unnecessary. If fools quit indulging their cheap sentimentality, injuries and loss of life could be reduced. More liberal hunting laws for deer would reduce human losses, and even be good for the deer. Call me crazy, but I would tend to favor whacking quite a few deer to save even a few human lives.
Deer strongly tend to overpopulate, certainly in Indiana. Besides human considerations, deer often get too numerous for the habitat. Too many deer means starvation and disease. Hungry deer will also be hunting for food further and wider, thus being much more likely to run out blindly in front of cars and kill people. Ultimately, cheap sentimentality kills.
Approached properly, hunting in itself is a spiritual experience. You can absorb yourself in your surroundings, and take your place in responsible dominion over the natural order. Become one with the deer, and then take him. This displays far deeper spirituality and appreciation for nature than some PETA fool carrying on about animals having "rights."
Also, you can double up on the practical good you do by donating fresh game to homeless shelters and food pantries. Ted Nugent has an organization for just that purpose, Hunters Against Hunger. Good old Nuge.
Killing excess deer can not only provide you with food, and the hungry with food, but can also help the deer themselves. It's a far better way to go to be taken by a hunter, than to be starving or diseased. It certainly makes life better for other deer and woodland creatures not to have the extra competition.
Most importantly though, it would make life better for me, Al Barger.
