This morning I was driving the four mile stretch of southbound freeway that is part of my normal route to work. A pickup truck passed me, going about 75 miles per hour. In the back of the pickup truck, and prominent in its size, was a four-wheeler, which barely fit between the sides of the bed. Crammed in the space beneath the four-wheeler, between the wheels, was a dead deer, a four or six point buck; its head and antlers nearly hung over the edge of the tailgate, lifeless eyes gazing at the road behind.
The positioning of these two elements, "hunting gear" and prey, seemed to say something about the essence of this person's hunting experience. The four wheeler was clearly in a position of dominance and power. The deer was an afterthought, secondary to the whole excursion. Nevertheless, the positioning of the head, antlers exposed and visible to all, suggests that the hunter is shouting to the world "I am victorious! I have conquered a deer. Not just any deer, a buck!"
And so the human species rolls on.
4 comments:
I find that image so disturbing. That doesn't sound like hunting, it's more like an exercise in expensive high tech toys versus wild animal. There's just no contest there. It's really too bad.
oh man. that is disgusting. before you even came to the conclusion, the image you described was so vivid and so wrong that i felt the same way. the idea of the deer, a beautiful, interesting animal when alive, crammed into the bed of the truck underneath the four wheeler, destroyer of peace and quiet, wetlands, headwaters, is just sick.
i never responded to your deer hunting post the other day, but i thought you were right on. i haven't hunted deer, though my grandpa did his whole life and i imagine i might within the next couple years, but i sure won't use a four-wheeler. i'll use a 12 gauge with slugs rather than a high-powered rifle firing an object that i couldn't imagine where it might stop. and if i kill one i'll remember a distinct moment in which i sat so still in a field in a park for so long that a deer walked right in front of me and stopped and we made eye contact for one or two minutes and i understood deer in a way i never had before.
When it's easy, it really isn't a hunt. If I opened my french doors, I could literally shoot a deer while sitting at this computer...wife kind of frowns on shooting in the house tho.
But the point is, I never will take one where the challenge is nonexistent. I'm with the pirate, if I take one, it'll be simple and personal...and I won't mind coming home empty handed.
Hey, those guys are paying a fortune in license fees, ammo tax and other sources of good conservation revenue...every cloud has that shiny whatchamcallit thingy.
I sure wish hunters would get over the whole "-- point buck" thing and go after does instead.
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