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Mar 29th, 2024
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| by Lloyd3 |
| Lloyd3 |
Just lost a huge thread to this !@#$#%^&!!! system (got to remember to take my own advice about saving regularly). Had an interesting situation develop in this last large family reunion I attended with my wife & son in eastern North Carolina. At least two of the young men in attendance there were seriously dedicated outdoorsmen. Considering where they live (the Virginia/Washington, DC metroplex) that is a very hard thing to achieve and then maintain. I was fascinated with their intensity and interest in fishing this man-made warm-water reservoir the reunion compound was located on. I had facilitated their pursuits somewhat by adding a pontoon boat to the rental for the week and they were using almost every waking minute to pursue the local fauna (in this case fish, and by my estimation, nothing very special). We discussed the usual subjects associated with the activity (tackle, tactics, bait, etc.) and then I raised the question about what type of hunting they pursued. Their answers somewhat floored me. The net, net of that conversation was this....what I've always taken for granted about my hunting activities they have to almost fight for. The planning, the scheming, the sacrifices and economic liabilities that they have to overcome to just hunt a doe whitetail is daunting to the point of unreasonable. Yet... they pursue it with a fervor (almost religious!) that I probably could have never mustered. The world has clearly changed dramatically since I hit the ground here in the late 1950s. Rural areas have shrunken dramatically and hunt-able game populations arguably don't even exist in many (if not most) of the now vast metroplexes on either coast. Yet here these young men are, desperately pursuing these time-honored traditions. Where does that come from? What drives them to go to those lengths to just have a few scant hours of time afield? Now...both of these young men either come from military families or are active military themselves so "the warrior ethic" is very familiar. One is active Marine Corp reserve, the other is an EMT. Both are early in their careers (and family life) and are just scraping by. After much consideration (& feeling very-much like a glutton that needed to do something decently generous), I have invited both to come out west to see what big game hunting is like out here (arguably before it is too-late to do so, for a number of reasons). Neither will be able to afford out-of-state tags (now $600 for a cow elk tag here in Colorado) so they'll be largely acting as Sherpas, but both jumped at the chance like I'd just offered a painfree trip to Valhalla. What says the cognoscenti here on the subject? Where does this visceral drive to hunt come from?
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| by KY Jon |
| KY Jon |
Hal, seven billion people can’t live by hunting or subsistence methods. Where people are forced to do it today, like Africa or India, the environment and wildlife suffer. Unless you can find a humane way to reduce the population by 80-90% intensive agriculture is the only answer.
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| 2 members like this |
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| by coosa |
| coosa |
We set aside three acres of land this spring that won't be planted to cash crops for 5 years, at least, and signed it up in the NRCS Monarch Butterfly enhancement program. It seems there is a decline in the numbers of Monarchs and they feel it is because of a decline in the plant population that they feed upon, which is butterfly milkweed. We bought milkweed/pollinator seed out of Texas (VERY EXPENSIVE) and planted it in the spring on those 3 acres. I'm hoping to get some pictures of Monarchs pollinating it later in the summer. Pretty cool. It's a program any landowner can potentially qualify for. NRCS has come a long ways in the last few years in promoting wildlife habitat, soil conservation and improved water quality with the programs they offer to the public.
Not targeting you, Hal, but I wonder often when I hear the hue and cry over "farm chemicals" being used if the same people buy all certified organic food, so that they can ensure they ingest nothing "foreign". I also wonder if they refuse to take pharmaceutical chemicals, "labeled" as medicines to alleviate the public's fear. They trust the FDA, and the EPA when it comes to believing their data on pollution, etc., but don't trust them when it comes to the labeling of pesticides. That's a bit disingenuous, eh? Wonder if they use only organic soaps and cleaning products in their homes? The list is endless, but anyone with a mind can see that we are surrounded by "chemicals" everyday that cause us no harm, but that enhance our lives and keep our bank accounts much fatter. If pesticides were banned, and the food supply was forced to be produced without them, there would be rioting in the streets over food prices and short supply. If people understood the years of testing that is necessary to get EPA approval of just one new pesticide for agricultural use they might pause and think before complaining............ with their mouths full. I'll be 70 in October, and have handled and applied pesticides myself for 50 years. I know dozens of other farmers that can say the same thing. I am on no prescription medications other than a drop of Timolol in my right eye each morning for glaucoma. If pesticides were as bad as much of the public thinks they are I'd have been dead years ago. Remember, I handle and apply them, plus I eat from the same food supply that most everyone else does. The same "chemicals" that are deadly to avians are deadly to mammals. If the quail are "gone" because of them why are the deer thriving? They eat our crops directly after we apply pesticides, by the thousands of acres, and can't wait to get back for more, and have two to three fawns every spring. Turkeys are so populous here as to be a nuisance at times. Doves can't wait to get their crop full of corn, wheat or peanuts, and we have them by the tens of thousands every season.
Think for yourselves, people. Don't fall for all the knee-jerk hype you hear from the treehuggers. You only embolden and give them credibility when you do that. Devoting 3 acres of a farm to butterfly production is quite impressive. There aren't many folks willing to devote their time, money, and resources to a project like that for a non-game species. Stan, don't you just love it when people who have never spent one thin dime of their own money for wildlife management are so willing to tell you how you are doing it wrong? Here's a suggestion for anyone who wants more wildlife of whatever kind you like - stop spending your extra money on things like bass boats, golfing trips, and expensive shotguns. Then take that money and buy your own tract of land and then spend the time and money to produce the kind of wildlife you want. Anyone can do it if you are willing to make it a priority.
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| 2 members like this |
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| by Hal |
| Hal |
We started out as either hunters or gatherers. Did the hunters evolve toward domestication of animals and the gatherers toward agriculturalists? Even though hunters killed off the large Pleistocene mammals in many areas, I believe the agriculturalists have caused far more environmental harm and loss of species diversity by deforestation, wetland drainage, impounding water, and turning the grassland sod upside down than have the hunters (trappers and fishermen included).
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| 1 member likes this |
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| by LGF |
| LGF |
I think we were both hunters and gatherers for the great bulk of human and pre-human history and we certainly eradicated all the large mammals (and huge birds) from most of the world - Africa was the exception because the gradual evolution of human hunting gave that fauna time to evolve antipredator behavior towards human hunting. Subsequent to those extinctions, I don't think that agriculture per se was responsible for environmental devastation - that has been due to the immense increase in human numbers that agriculture, domestic livestock, and much more recently, medicine, has made possible. The earth would be in fine shape if there were perhaps one billion people; with eight billion, we and our children are witnessing the eradication of a vast number of species and the destruction of most ecosystems. All environmental problems are the result of too many people.
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| 1 member likes this |
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| by Ghostrider |
| Ghostrider |
It’s my heart not my stomach that drive me to get up at 4:00 AM. I love eating quail but it’s the excitement of hunting with my dogs with a nice gun that fires me up.
When I open the back door at that time of day the dogs already know we are going hunting. It’s the rhythmic tap of their tails against the side of the dog box letting me know how excited they are to be going hunting.
It’s the whine and pawing at the doors as all 3 or 4 dogs dogs all shake with excitement wanting to be the first on the ground.
It’s the knowledge they have of knowing the tracking collar needs to go on before the hunt and with the strapping it on their excitement knowing the game is about to begin.
It’s the tweet on the whistle and at the sound launching like a horse from the starting gate out into the hills.
It’s the amazement again as I watch them cut into the wind making wide casts across the oak covered hill sides. Watching as they cover 100’s of yards in mear seconds.
Watching as at one moment they are on a dead run the next moment slamming on the brakes to become staunch as a statue.
It’s the walking up to that dog and observing it with its head held high and it’s mouth slightly open pulling the scent through its nose and out its mouth tasting the scent of the birds.
It’s that few seconds when you push ahead flushing the covey. The sound of the birds with their distinct TWURRRRRRRR as they rise up screaming through the opening in the oak trees.
It’s your heart racing and the adrenaline pumping that although you know it’s about to come always makes you jump just a little as you are flooded with excitement.
It’s the memory you will carry of the sight picture you capture as you swing on the bird and the at the report the dropping of a bird and with feathers still in the air. That secondary flush that seems to come many times yet still catches you by surprise and seems to jump start your heart once more.
Finally it’s your special hunting partner racing past you to make the retrieve. With her locating the bird many times out of sight for a moment, then the reappearance with the bird held in her mouth as she brings it to you.
Then as quickly as you put the bird in your vest she launches out back to business and refocused on finding that next bird.
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| by Hal |
| Hal |
Of course intensive agriculture is the 'only answer' to feed humans and has been for many centuries. But it has been the main cause of our most serious environmental problems, among them lower air quality, drought, soil erosion and loss of natural productivity. That is why we are forced to fertilize with nitrogen from natural gas and obtain potassium and phosphorus by mining. It is the reason we need to develop and restore perennial food crops for ourselves and our domestic livestock. We are working on the problem, for example development of perennial grains like wheat (Triticale) and production of fruits and vegetables indoors. I read of a system that would employ nut trees with an understory of vine crops. All is not lost, as a recent study predicts a population peak of 8.7 billion people in the not too distant future followed by a slow decline. So hopefully subsistence and sport hunting will not totally disappear as a human activity, especially among the few, the proud, the doublegun shooters!
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| by Hal |
| Hal |
Sure true that farmers have been forced to use synthetic or mined fertilizers and manmade molecules to stay competitive in the global food market. I am not complacent about that development. Seems like just yesterday I was dusting potatoes with Paris green in the WWII Victory Gardens and a few years later filling gallon jugs with DDT laden fly spray for the cows. Then came Silent Spring and feeding the world got very complex. Today around here we have black flags flying around the cropfields as warnings that Dicamba has been mixed with the usual Glyphosate when sprayed on genetically modified ("Round Up Ready') soybeans and corn. Farmers, not environmental whackos, are suing one another because of Dicamba drift.
All this because of the development of herbicide resistance in weeds. Another rather frightening way to fight such resistance is to use compounds that stop photosynthesis completely. This is what we call "Double Knock" where Glyphosate goes on first, followed in a few days by a Paraquat "burn down' before seeding. Now there is talk about genetically modified wheat. So field weeds like pigeongrass, wild mustard, and pigweed have almost disappeared and seem to have taken our good dove hunting with them. Guess I'm just a worry-wart, but it has dampened by urge to hunt those wonderful little gamebirds that used to be seen by the hundreds in the wheat stubble and come to my waterholes every evening during the late summer and fall.
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