Hunting, by Will Stanton

I know a little about hunting, but I have no first-hand experience.  So I cannot speak from the perspective of an avid hunter.  I do have, however, my own thoughts about the matter.

I know that, for millennia, human beings were required to supplement their diet of fish, fruits, nuts, and vegetables, with meat through hunting game.  Eventually, nobles and the aristocracy turned hunting into a sport, sometimes even declaring certain forests off-limits to the common folks under threat of punishment for any trespass.  Too often, this macho inclination to prove one's manhood by killing resulted in the shooting of literally hundreds of birds or numerous animals within a day.  Many so-called “hunting lodges” of the nobility still sport the skulls and horns of thousands of slain animals.  In theory, if I were to inherit such a lodge, I would remove and dispose of all those morbid skulls.  Only relatively recently, the British outlawed fox-hunts, a long-time tradition among the British aristocracy.

Only in more recent times in history, with the development of domestically raised animals, has modern man been able to sustain life without hunting.  Understandably, people living in homesteads outside of urban areas continued the tradition of hunting, even if game actually was not a necessary component of their food-source.  I also do recognize the occasional necessity of culling herds of wild animals that have become so overabundant that they threaten their environment or even their own species.

But, I also recognize in America that this so-called hobby became combined with some people's love of guns, a phenomenon that has resulted in this country's gun-collectors possessing nearly four hundred million firearms.  So, among people of today who are avid hunters and gun-collectors, the phenomenon of hunting is deeply entrenched in our society.

As for me, whose hunting is limited to the isles of the local food-market, I sometimes look askance at those people whose love of guns and hunting seems to me to be overly passionate.  I, myself, have a passion for the beauty of nature, for the exercise of wandering through the woods and bathing in the beauty of the environment.  I do not, however, feel a compulsive need to shoot and kill things while I am enjoying nature.  For modern society, I do not see learning how to hunt as an absolute necessity for obtaining manhood.  And, I never have had the slightest interest in joining the NRA.

That's why I was amused when a 1961 New Yorker magazine-cover sported an autumnal, Charles Adams cover showing an illegal hunter trespassing in a bird sanctuary and being flown off in the clutches of a giant pterodactyl.

Also, as a consequence of my personal discomfort with the concept of hunting as a sport, I understand and appreciate the satirical “Hunting Song” written more than half-a-century ago by Tom Lehrer, the humorist who was an apparently ambivalent academic who seemed to prefer to write funny songs.  So, here is his “Hunting Song.”            

I'll always will remember,

'twas a year ago November,
I went out to hunt some deer
On a mornin' bright and clear.
I went and shot the maximum the game laws would allow:
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.

I was in no mood to trifle,
I took down my trusty rifle
And went out to stalk my prey.
What a haul I made that day.
I tied them to my fender,

and I drove them home somehow,
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.

The law was very firm, it
Took away my permit,
The worst punishment I ever endured.
It turned out there was a reason,
Cows were out of season,
And one of the hunters wasn't insured.

People ask me how I do it,
And I say, "There's nothin' to it,
You just stand there lookin' cute,
And when something moves, you shoot!"
Ten heads are stuffed and mounted in my trophy room right now,
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a pure-bred Guernsey cow.

© 25 May 2016  

About the Author 

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories.  I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones.  Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group.  I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.