I had originally decided against writing another column this year about the slaughter of innocent, furry animals, but after having to watch the expression on the same dead deer’s face for the last three hours this afternoon while driving home on the freeway, the gloves are coming off, baby! As with my last column that basically labeled the hunting community as a color-coordinated group of homicidal drunks ready and waiting to prey on the lives of harmless woodland creatures, I’m assuming that this one might very well get a similar response, so before everyone gets all bent out of shape again, let me tell you the same thing that I told everybody else that has already written in, threatening to kill me and mount my head on the hoods of their trucks to serve as an example to the rest of you no-talent, idiot writers:

If you shoot me, then who will fix your computer the next time you break it? It’ll be awfully tough for me to help you resume your porn fest if I’m dead…

Yeah, that’s what I thought. So anyways, a year ago I took a gander at this topic, focusing primarily on concept that “Hunting is no more of a sport than my eating dinner…” and although I probably could continue to stretch this one even further, to a point where you could easily see things through it, I’ve decided instead to use this space to take a look at some of the reasoning behind hunting, not to be confused with seasoning, which is typically used to make otherwise disgusting dishes yummy and delicious. I know, I know – you’re thinking, “Reasoning…hunters…wha?” but just go with me on this one for a few minutes – I promise it’ll all make perfect sense by the end…

I think it’s first important for you to realize the mindset behind the hunters in my local area before we continue. Northern Michigan is known for its massive expanses of wildlife areas and accordingly, we also have a huge presence of conservationists on-hand and ready to help preserve said areas. Most of these men and women have found their jobs by being hired by our state government as members of the Department of Natural Resources, but there’s a brief period during the autumn months when our conservationist-numbers soar and it seems as if every him or her with a beard and a box of ammo in the pickup becomes a certified environmental enthusiast. I feel the need to point this out because when confronted about the moral and social integrities behind the slaughter of deer and other innocent woodland creatures, the most popular response from our camo-clad friends is always, “We’re just helping to control the animal population! Just think of how badly things would get out of hand if we weren’t out there…”

Yeah, it’d be crazy, with Mother Nature working the whole supply and demand angle, creating organic equilibrium and whatnot – we can’t let that happen, that’s for sure! Really, why would we want to let evolution take its natural course and maintain itself, when instead we can prove mother nature’s obvious inferiority to our battalion of fluorescent orange, intoxicated environmentalists toting loaded weapons and a half a ton of rotten vegetables…or bait, if you will – it seems like a no-brainer to me! This argument is supposed to convince me that if these warriors were to not make their journey into the wilderness to thrash down the numbers a bit, we’d have deer running all over the place, invading our towns, costing us valuable time in the grocery store check-out lines and generally making life miserable for every man, woman and child on Earth, much like the traveling political rallies of today. It would be horrible, except for one keynote…

Is there really that much of an abundance of deer these days, anyways? I honestly have yet to see a single one of the ferocious beasts on the roads this year, not counting those residing in the backs of pickups – of course, so I’m wondering if anyone has even bothered to crunch the numbers lately. Actually, I think that we’re all really pretty lucky that the deer haven’t done any number crunching lately or we’d be in for a hell of a surprise! Either that, or possibly they’re just more ethical than humans because you sure don’t see deer sneaking among the aisles at Wal-Mart, looking to drive out the largest of our species (try the house-wares department…). No, you don’t see that because deer are better people than that…

The other major argument that gets tossed around is that “It’ll make a man out of you…” as depicted best in the hit song Fred Bear, by the legendary hunter Ted Nugent. The verses of this tune lead us through every breathtaking stage of the slaughter process, describing the thrill of the hunt and even posting a challenge near the end of the ballad to promote hunting to all of the teenage thrill-seekers who are apparently wasting their time skateboarding, getting tattoos and not killing things simply for the thrill of the hunt – what’s wrong with these children?! I don’t know…they say that I just don’t understand because I’ve never experienced the thrill of the hunt for myself, but honestly, if it’s any more exciting than getting the last box of Corn Pops at the grocery store, I might not be able to handle the intensity anyways – I’ve gotta have my Pops…

It just seems to me that no matter what excuses you can come up with, rather they be population control, the thrill of the hunt, or even “Shut the hell up or I’ll kill you!”, I’ll never be able to look at hunting as anything more than an activity which allows guys to show their manliness by chasing their drunk friends around in the woods, occasionally stopping to either pee or shoot at furry, unarmed things which were previously frolicking, playing and otherwise minding their own business until these ruffians came along. If you’re still interested in killing defenseless animals and are, for whatever reason, looking for a method which bears my seal of approval, try fishing, which I oddly enough don’t seem to have any problems with whatsoever! Maybe it’s because fish don’t give you that sad, why’d you do that face when you pull ‘em out of the water, or maybe it’s because I don’t have to look at them mounted to the roofs of people’s cars while I’m driving home on the freeway…

…or maybe it’s because compared to sausages and steaks and jerky, smoked whitefish is absolutely delicious to the last bite and blows venison right out of the water – well, you know what I mean! Happy hunting!!!