By Glen Wunderlich Outdoor Columnist Member Professional Outdoor Media Association
“It was a crime scene, in my opinion, the minute that it was shot,” said Lynn Gorfinkle of Fairfield County, Connecticut. She went on this way, “”If someone’s going to eat that deer, I want it to be natural predators,” she said. “Not some hunter.” And so it goes – to waste that is – a perfectly legal archery kill by a hunter that had the misfortune to have had his deer expire on another’s property. Certainly Ms. Gorfinkle was well within her rights and, as CEO of Animal Rights in Redding, such as response is to be expected. But what law had this hapless hunter violated?
The hunter did the lawful thing by knocking on the door of the Gorfinkles and asking permission to retrieve the downed animal. He paid an exorbitant $60 for an archery permit and mandated excise taxes on equipment. He was diligent enough to practice so that his arrow would be precisely delivered through the lungs. He was helping to manage an overpopulated herd estimated at 62 deer per square mile with some areas as much as an astronomical 100 deer per square mile. In fact, this volunteer was doing the job that sharpshooters were hired to do just a few years ago, because of the high deer density numbers.
While I understand the conflict with animal rightists, I cannot understand why man cannot be understood as a natural predator. Certainly he is a predator and has been for thousands of years. And, if anything was, and has been natural, it is hunting. Man exists today for these very reasons. He has competed with beasts for eternity; they just go under the moniker of animal rightists today.
Hunters have long been a part of the “green movement” so popular today. Millions of us choose to carry on a tradition of a simpler life, which involves a harvest of Mother Nature’s renewable resources. Far away from supermarket refrigerator shelves and plastic wrapped mystic meat, the hunter continues his organic ways handed down by generations. His nourishment, rich in protein and low in fat, is unencumbered by hormones and processed feed; still he is termed unnatural.
Maybe it was the market hunters that nearly wiped out the buffalo by killing them for their hides that started the image challenge we hunters face today. However, we must also understand that ethical hunters have led the way to our modern bag limits and seasons that have successfully regenerated numbers of buffalo, whitetail deer, turkeys and a host of other animals we – non-hunters and hunters alike – enjoy. It’s called conservation and hunters are behind it, not the goody goodies. Each year, hunters contribute more to conservation in the way of license fees and excise taxes than any other source. They not only pay taxes but also go far beyond that by managing wildlife on private property at their own expense and from the sweat of their brows.
As for Ms. Gorfinkle, she said she is uncertain what to do with the rotting deer on her property. Underground burial is out of the question, she says, because it would require too much work to dig such a large hole.
