Notes from the field

Last week I hunted a small parcel of land with my recurve bow and a wooden arrow. I moved slowly, knowing I've only got a 25-pace range, and I stopped quite a bit and sat, nervously, wondering if I should stay or move on a little more.

I found a good-looking spot next to a pine tree and dragged a couple of downed limbs to me for a makeshift blind. It took about twenty minutes, and just when I’d settled in, after scraping out a place for me to move a bit without crunching and snapping, I noticed first one, then another, then a third and more, very large ants crawling out of the forest duff, interested in this new creature. Was he tasty? Nutritious? Or merely a threat to be wiped out? I left, a bit frustrated that I'd spent a good chunk of the morning effectively playing in the dirt. But I also laughed at the notion of the hunter getting moved by, if not the smallest of creatures, still a tiny forest denizen.

I slowly worked my way down a familiar deer trail, remembering times I'd seen deer here while turkey hunting. They had always come from the East, they had always ratted me out to the turkeys (one doe in particular), and they had always been loud, advertising their presence like everything else out here in the hillside of corn flakes that is the California oak leaf in August.

Mule deer and blacktail stot: they jump on all fours when running from danger, a la' Pepe le Pew. This sound bears a striking resemblance to the kid-in-a-ball-pit antics of a grey squirrel through the fallen leaves when compounded by my over-reliance on my ears (I'm nearsighted). Towhees, too, make a scratching noise that, when first heard through the morning quiet, can sound just like a four-point buck. Needless to say, I get a tad twitchy when things start waking up. Add here the image of me hunched over the trail, following tracks and avoiding twigs, and you can safely throw out the imagined platonic form of some great square-shouldered, straight-backed hunter; I probably look more like an 80 year old with St. Vitus' dance.

Not to say that I'm dangerous, especially to my prey. I'd make a horrible second to the intrepid safari guide, as my first instinct isn't to pull my gun or draw my bow; usually I just make a grandiose head-swivel in the direction of the noise while the rest of my body stays stock-still. I get neck problems sometimes, but I've never drawn on an animal I didn't recognize by sight as legal.

I take that back. I did pull my gun up, once, after finding and following (it was the only way I could go) fresh, big mountain lion tracks for a couple of hours. Something came blowing through the brush straight at me, easily big enough to be a puma. I shouldered my rifle, but it was a doe that blasted through the bushes, about 8 feet away. She wheeled and took off when she saw me, and I never fired, which brings us back to why I wouldn't be good for a back-up gun on safari.

After finding and sitting for a spell in a couple of spots, I poked my way uphill into more open oaks, rimmed by a thick manzanita forest. I scratched out another spot (this time no ants) against an oak and, sheltered from the deer trail, I sat. Too comfortably. I didn't take the time to set up another blind, partly because it was well into daylight now, and partly because there weren't any downed limbs. I crossed my legs (bad), propped my back against the tree, and in a very short period of time, heard the unmistakable sounds of a deer, just over the ridge, and, of course, directly in front of me. I guess he hadn't been shown the perfectly good deer trail he was supposed to walk.

And it was a he. A tall, 3-point rack peeked over the ridge first, followed quickly by the rest of his lithe body. He wasn't a large-bodied buck, but he had a rack bigger than any deer I'd ever shot. Okay, that's cheating, I've only shot a doe in my illustrious hunting career, but still, he was nice. He proceeded to walk broadside to me, at about sixty paces, then a bit closer, and still a little bit closer, until he was inside of fifty. There he turned, and looked down the hill away from me, licked his side, and lay down. There, amidst the corn flakes and firecrackers that cover this forest floor, he slept.

Oh, he moved a bit from time to time, chewed his cud and twitched at some biting bug or bother. And he looked up, seemingly in my direction, a disconcerting number of times. Where he had chosen to lay was a perfect spot, and if I hadn't seen him come up, I'd have never seen him. His antlers looked exactly like lower branches, and his brown fur melted into the background.

Me? I couldn't move a muscle but more than an inch a minute, it felt. I was completely exposed. Over time, my left cheek (and not the one getting sunburned) slowly lost all feeling, then proceeded to complain about it. Occasionally I would shift a bit, especially when the wind would rise and rattle some leaves to cover my noise, but for the most part I remained alternately, and sometimes simultaneously, awed and very pained.

After about an hour and a half of this, I heard, again, sounds of deer approaching, from the same general direction as the buck had earlier arrived. The West, of course. Over the hill, closer to the deer trail, came two does and three bucks, one spike, two forks. There was no way I could stand, not with the three-point, who by now I'd noticed had three on one side and two on the other, right in front of me. So I watched the drama play out. The bucks were pretty dumb, loudly prancing and bouncing around, oblivious to all but one thing: The wary doe. I knew her, as she had ratted me out on many occasions while turkey hunting this hill. She’s large (bigger-bodied than the three-point), light tan with gigantic eyes and bigger ears. All the better to see and hear me, my dear. Deer. She moved across to near the three-by-two, then looked right at me, not through me, but right at me, and began a stilt-legged series of one steps, closer, closer. Closer.

Did I mention you aren't allowed to shoot does? At eight yards her nose finally caught scent of me (not hard to do, regrettably), and she snorted, stomped, and the end. Her herd shot over that hill right quick, though she stuck around for a bit. The three-by-two, he stood up, and stepped closer to me, too. Quickly inside twenty-five paces. I tried to draw the way I was sitting, but no way. He stayed. I rose, and started to draw, and he stotted over behind the manzanita, snorted, and stopped. I followed, slowly, my blood complaining as it rushed back into my legs, my heart pounding and my arms shaking from the adrenaline. But as I came closer, he left. Down a gully and up, and over into the manzanita forest, and gone.

Notes from the field

Though I did not get a deer today, I did have an enjoyable time, and like almost every other time I've ever gone out in the field, I had some interesting moments.

The first deer sighted this morning, although it was on private property, was a gigantic four-point buck, laying in an old apple orchard. In fact, I thought at first he was a broken apple tree trunk, but after passing him, I realized that those branches seemed a bit too symmetrical. I backed up , and sure enough, he was a great, big buck.

I hunted a small patch of little-known public land where I've seen pileated woodpeckers, deer, turkeys, quail, mountain lion tracks (again today), and many, many tree squirrels. Today I added a new animal to that list, as I came upon a grey fox resting in a gulley. He was real long, especially with his fluffy tail, and very pretty.

Getting the chance to get out and experience a particular place and all therein is an amazing and wonderful deal. Over time, in the same place, you get to really feel a part, and also may see things that few can notice.

Dr. Krasny's fine show

Perchance you were able to listen to Dr. Michael Krasny's radio show "Forum" a couple of weeks back, say, August 5th? No? Well, in the 10 o'clock hour the show covered "the future of hunting" for an hour, with guests from Ca. Fish & Game, the Orion Institute, and Born Free. Guess which guests were pro-hunting, and which were against. Well, after some incessant telephone calling, I was able to get in and say about a half a cent (my two cents, as you know, tend to be long-winded). I did get a follow-up question from Dr. Krasny, who I respect and admire, but I don't think it was his best question: He refers to a middle-school short story and subsequent Ice-T thriller. You can hear the radio show here; I'm at the very end, the last four minutes or so.

Well, the program was purported to be about the "ecology and ethics of hunting", in light of the opening of deer season the following Saturday. They didn't get the date for opening day of "deer season in California" exactly right, as it was just opening day of the A-zone rifle season, archery having opened a month earlier. Unfortunately, they didn't get to the ethics of hunting, either. This is where I was frustrated, and my call in was an attempt to bring a little bit of the ethical conversation back.

The two gentlemen who defended hunting, with Fish & Game and the Orion Institute, focused almost exclusively on two important contributions of hunting to conservation: 1) the creation of the conservation movement by hunters like Roosevelt, and 2) the continuing contribution of the lion's share of conservation dollars and volunteer time to habitat restoration and protection. The lawyer for Born Free, and to a bit of an extent, Dr. Krasny, focused on the personal act of killing something, and of human's effectively trespassing on wild land. At one point, the Born Free rep. says that wild animals should be left in the wild, and that people shouldn't be bothering them.

Needless to say, most of the time the folks just talked past each other. Animal rights folks called in and said that hunters were probably exhibiting psychological disorders, and that people should be leaving animals alone (I've got a blog on that here), and pro-hunting folks called in and said that hunters are the backbone of conservationism, and either they or the ones they know are very respectful of their game. Anti-hunters couldn't come up with an alternative to hunting as a revenue stream for real conservation measures, and pro-hunters shied away from the personal experience that includes killing something.

My call was to bring up the personal ethical implications of hunting vs. vegetarianism, and when I was asked by Dr. Krasny if I'd ever thought what it would be like to be the animal, I responded that everybody dies, and that the act of killing and taking responsibility for one's food and the sacrifices that requires can make a person more human. I'd hoped the whole show would look clearly at the ethics of hunting, at the nature of death and life and food and sacrifice, in addition to conservation and heritage and a true, real, and contemporary understanding of wildlife and the wild. I was disappointed, because everybody just went back to their safe corners, instead of really stepping out. But, I'm glad this topic was broached in a broader venue, I learned one sad statistic from it, that fewer than 1% of Californians hunt, and I re-learned an appreciation for Mr. Posewitz of the Orion Institute. He's a good guy.

Hunting this weekend

Well, I'm off for the wilds of the Sierra Nevada foothills, bowhunting after the elusive mule deer. As my Dad said, "it's no worse than growing corn."

I hunt with a recurve bow made by AIM/Samick. You may see the brand at the Olympics, but only if you spend 30 minutes delving into the bowels of the NBC website. If you do, check them out, because it is one of the most dramatic competitions you will see.

Anyway, my bow isn't of the caliber of the olympic ones, but it has given me the chance to take a deer for the first time in my life, two years ago. I switched to a recurve, and became a better hunter, because I slowed waaaay down, and listened more, and tried to hide myself much, much more. As I've said, I've since taken my first deer, and I've also seen the largest buck of my life, a moving, powerful experience that I'm sure to write about in the future.

I generally hunt with wooden arrows, cut-on-contact broadheads, and no sights. I hunt with a 25 pace shot restriction. For those of you who are interested in hunting, but have a problem with firearms, I recommend two things: 1) Go out shooting, with guns, with a person who has experience and also is nice enough to treat your unease with respect (I'll go, just ask); 2) go to a good archery shop (Jerry's Archery in Stockton and Wilderness Archery in Rocklin are two great ones) and ask to shoot a 30 lb. draw recurve or longbow at their range. Stay away from compound bows at first, unless you want to spend near to a grand and enjoy really techy gadgets. You can't hunt with a 30 lb. draw, but it will give you a good idea of the feel for a bow. If you like it, then shoot it for a few weeks, to build your back muscles (don't pull with your arms, but by squeezing your shoulder blades together), and then get a 45-55 lb. draw recurve or longbow. Shoot a few to get a feel for the one you like.

You can always ask questions here, or give comments on the nature of hunting and bowhunting.

On omnivory

If you are looking for a great, mindless Summer thriller to read before heading into Fall, don't pick up "The Omnivore's Dilemma". It's got mysteries, and gruesome killings, and racy scenes all right, but probably not in the sense you'd hope for a Summer book. However, I took it upon myself to read it, because it tackles the ethical implications of humans in relation to the environment in probably its most profound realm: what we eat.

Spending about a third of the book in industrial ag., organic ag., and hunting/gathering, Michael Pollan delves deeply into Americans' relationship with food, coming to many interesting and compelling conclusions about why and how we eat, and pointing a direction for eating better while maintaining a journalist's distance vis a vis moralizing, for the most part. In laying out his descriptions of current mainstream agricultural enterprises, he doesn't rely upon controversial chemical analyses to condemn them, but he does provide as bulletproof a condemnation as I've seen. He uses (gasp!) economics, and is so effective at explaining it that this book should be required reading in every economics class.
And I used to teach the stuff.

American (and world) agriculture is a vastly complicated, horribly designed system, with too many incentives for genetic hoarding, market manipulation, and artificial scarcity. Add to this mix political boundaries, and fully one fifth of the world goes hungry each night, though we grow enough for everybody. Pollan's book outlines just how we've settled into this industrialization of our food supply, including one of our most hideous creations, the industrial slaughterhouse. He focuses on the manipulation of corn as an industrial commodity rather than a food commodity, and how the largest ag. corporations have gotten past the "problem of the fixed stomach", that while people only eat a certain amount of calories per day and our population only increases about 1% per year, corporations typically need to show 5-8% annual growth in profits in order to stay in the market. Wanna know how it happens? Read the book.

But he spends equal portions of the book discussing organic agriculture, and the manipulation of this term as it applies to what he calls, "big organic". He compares this with locally grown foods such as one might find at farmers' markets or roadside stands, and spends a week at the Platonic version of this ideal, Polyface Farm. This place, owned by a conservative Christian, Bob Jones University graduate, "Mother Earth" magazine reader, shows a beautiful way to farm, working chickens, pigs, cattle, grass, and forest in an amazing orchestration. The farmer also constantly touches on a concept I have often considered in the ethical implications of places like slaughterhouses, and in my defense of hunting: The ability of an animal to get to be that animal. He talks about the pigness of a pig.

Last, Mr. Pollan tries hard to be a hunter/gatherer, and does a great job of it, in my opinion. He did get a bunch of help, including the ability to hunt for pigs on private property in Sonoma County (about which I am jealous), and hunting wild fungus, but the camaraderie, the relationship, the apprenticeship are equally important aspects of hunting. He toys with the philosophy behind vegetarianism, ultimately labeling animal rights a, "parochial, and urban..." ideology because of his getting to actually experience animals, and in killing them for his food. "It (animal rights) could only thrive in a world where people have lost contact with the natural world...", surely a stinging rebuke to people who consider themselves saviours of animalkind. Mr. Pollan seems to fall squarely into the land of people who abhor animal cruelty, and feel that killing and eating animals has helped them to more clearly comprehend the world's realities.

This is a wonderful book, well-organized and eye-opening. Michael Pollan delivers a fascinating expose' into what we put into our bodies every day, and how we interact with nature, every day.

If you've read it, or haven't and have questions, please comment!

Impacts on the Resource

I often get the chance to hear about issues facing visitation to our wilder lands. These conversations usually shake people into one of three groups, and such a polarizing effect tends to retard debate by eliminating the subtleties and complexities of the threats. What may help, in this case, is to get a real understanding of each group's sense of a place, and move beyond stereotyping and demonizing, to get to honest land management.

The three categories: 1) People who believe that the wild lands should be left alone; 2) people who believe that visitation should not be limited at all, and; 3) people who believe that access should be restricted for everybody but them. Of course, there are variations among people, and very few people hold strictly to one view, but the ensuing battles always bear the threat of regression into hostile camps, and these tend to be the camps. Let's consider the merits of each of these positions.

The first group usually has a serious love for the idea of wildness. These are typically the crunchy, gorp-munching neo-hippies, right? But, to take the extreme case, we all know it's wrong to eat the last puffin (and not just because they probably taste like rotten sardines). And we all know that we do impact natural resources by our physical presence, and sometimes the negative impacts of that presence may precipitate a total collapse. Also, people who believe this way about a place deeply feel a sense of inherent worth they know that place to contain. We do, too, or else why would we protect a place like Yosemite from resource extraction?

Next, consider those who want access to be unlimited, or nearly so. Though I'd be willing to guess those who read this blog are more likely to be turned off by this notion, we all use materials taken from these lands - wood, petroleum products, and mineral resources. But even on a smaller scale, removing resource extraction as a "visitation", and just considering visitors to, say, Yosemite National Park, we would be remiss to disallow visitation. The same sense of inherent beauty felt by the first group actually pulls this group in like a magnet. And, visiting beautiful places creates experiences that lead to a desire to protect them. As more and more people become urbanized, they visit these places less, and care about them less. In time, they won't want their money squandered on things they don't understand or care about.

People usually have a gut reaction to the last group. How can you feel so superior that only you should be allowed to visit a beautiful place?!? And yet, how many of us have a place or two where we go to get away from folks - a little backwoods spot, or little patch of overlooked land? How many of us would gladly tell people about this spot, and encourage them to visit, too? Belonging to a place is important for people. Knowing a beautiful place's nuances and little secrets, knowing how a place moves and lives over time, because of your time, is vital to humanity. People don't just visit sometimes; sometimes they belong, sometimes they are a part of the land, as much so as the other animals, the plants, and the soil. And just because they live next door to a place as gorgeous as Yosemite doesn't necessarily mean that they have to have their connection diminished by the masses come to buy their coffee mug.

All three groups fight because of the beauty and power of these special places. They also bring in other agendas (business, animal rights, etc.), which tends to cloud the proper choices, but hopefully, by honestly considering each perspective, we may come to some better management decisions.

Who'll feed the birds?

One great way to create a controversy is to bring up the idea of feeding wild animals. Signs have been posted in many parts of the country now to either discourage or prohibit people from feeding animals. At the same time, many folks are encouraged to do so at their own residences. Our family embodies this dichotomy, actively discouraging brewers blackbirds and Canada geese from begging at our picnics, while putting up seed feeders, nonnative flowers and sugar water for birds and bugs in our backyard.

So, which of our double standards should we do without? Actually, as I alluded to in a previous post, there is no double standard here. Backyard feeders are simply one small attempt to recreate a semblance of habitat, where once there stood sufficient resources for native birds and insects. Feeding those animals with the least compunction to cohabitate with humans, however, is rarely a re-creation of previously existing conditions.

That gaggle of gangsters hanging out at the local watering hole does not represent the natural condition of previous eons. Geese, for many thousands of years, have known to fear people, while still taking advantage of people's actions on the land. People, for thousands of years, have actively tried to eat geese, as well as to keep them out of our grain fields. However, in recent decades hunting bans in urban areas (a move I fully support) and the park movement (another great idea) have teamed up to create an entirely new phenomenon, and those animals who have succeeded due to their tolerance of humans have taken up residence, or have been planted by people to create a sense of wild or rural in the city. Cowbirds roam coast to coast, canada geese take up permanent residence at California fountains, and eastern gray squirrels happily steal from my walnut tree in the Central Valley. The conditions under which these animals had prospered in the past, taking advantage of new niches created by farmers and ranchers, has been greatly enhanced by eliminating the check that people had on these critters: namely, killing them.

In contrast, backyard bird feeders more often attempt to replace food and water sources for the bird species that had previously lived at the residence. As people become backyard bird feeders, they tend to look for the foods that are most appropriate to the local populations of lbb's, little brown birds, though most are nowhere near that drab. What they find are proprieters who often offer feed to most effectively mimic the native nutrients the birds would have found. They also find that, in order to attract many species, a person has to be quiet or largely absent from the space. These behaviors do not encourage tame behavior from the birds, but actually train the people to give space, and respect, to these tiny tufts of feathers.

Especially encouraging children to be quiet and see truly wild animals, rather than chucking cheese crackers at slightly menacing geese, can help to improve habitat, instill a proper respect and admiration for wildlife, and hopefully add something nice to look forward to at home. Also, you won't have to kick a goose.