Trying to find the bright line in a pile of sand...

At the recent Orion and Backcountry Hunters and Anglers joint Board meetings this issue came up as it relates to smart rifles and other technologies. Below is a slightly edited post that was on this Blog in 2012 as it relates to canned hunts:

In a recent article, “Canned Hunting: Don’t Call It Hunting!” outdoor writer David Petersen discusses the difference between fair chase and canned hunts, and he quotes Orion founder Jim Posewitz approvingly. 

“A fenced shoot,” Posewitz writes, “is just the sale of a fabricated image to people who have neither the skill nor the inclination to obtain the real thing.”

Petersen agrees, and argues, “There is honorable hunting, and there is cowardly captive killing. The motivations and characters defining each are as distinct as day and night.”

Petersen is wrong.  The motivations and character of hunters are NOT as distinct as day and night.  There is no distinct line between canned hunts on the one hand, and fair chase on the other.

The difference between honorable hunting and cowardly hunting does not depend on the presence or absence of a fence.  Ideals of honor and cowardice, however, as well as ideals of fair chase, depend crucially on the hunter, and upon the hunter’s skills and aptitude. 

Fair chase has traditionally been defined relative to the animal—in particular, to the animal’s ability to escape. 

What’s missing in most debates about fair chase is the awareness that we need also to define fair chase relative to the human hunter—and to be specific, to the individual hunter’s ability to hunt. (And here we also know that hunters come in all shapes, sizes, interests, and abilities.)

Furthermore, we must acknowledge that there is a fundamental ambiguity to the very concept of fair chase. This ambiguity involves the philosophical problem of vagueness, a problem that has long been identified by philosophers as the sorites paradox, from the Greek term meaning “heap” or “pile.” 

The paradox is this:  start with a pile of sand, and begin removing the sand, one grain at a time.  At what point does the pile or heap become a “non-heap”?

The thought experiment can also be run in reverse: start with a grain of sand, and add to it another grain of sand. Do you now have a pile of sand?  Of course not.  Now add a third grain.  Is it a heap yet?  Of course not.  Now, continue adding sand, one grain at a time . . .  at what point do you have a heap of sand? 

The upshot is that there is no clear dividing line between having one or two grains of sand (that might constitute the concept dust) and having a pile, or a heap, or even a mountain of sand.  Thus the very concept of heap or pile or mountain is ambiguous.

Baldness is another inherently ambiguous concept (my own baldness, however, is clearly unambiguous). Begin with a full head of hair and remove it one hair at a time. When do you cross the line from having hair to being bald? (For me, it was around the age of 20!) 

Author Jim Tantillo

 

Trying to define fair chase is exactly like this—like trying to define “baldness” or “pile.”

So what does all this have to do with hunting?

On the one hand, or to be more precise, on one end of the spectrum (and spectrum, a term from physics, is exactly the right term to use) we have hunting practices that are clearly akin to a single grain of sand or to my gloriously bald pate. 

 

To illustrate the point: imagine a deer chained to a post in a 10’x10’ chain-link enclosed pen, being shot at close range. Clearly this is not fair chase:  the deer has no ability to avoid death, and the hunter needs no ability at such close range either to pursue or to shoot the tethered animal.

Remove the tether.  Now the deer is in a 10 x 10 enclosure, but can move around.  Is this fair chase?  Clearly the hunter is at more of a disadvantage than in the first scenario: the deer may jump at precisely the same moment as he/she squeezes the trigger, and the hunter may wound the animal or possibly even miss entirely.  It may take two shots to bring the animal down, particularly for a poor marksman.

Does this second scenario constitute fair chase?  Clearly not, the animal is still enclosed, and little to no skill is needed on the part of the hunter.

Let us now imagine that we expand the enclosure—how about a full acre?  And while we are at it, let’s add an acre’s worth of brushy vegetation.  The deer has the ability to roam about, but the hunter must still stay out of the fence to shoot the animal.

All the hunter need do in this case, is wait patiently for the deer to come along within view inside the fence, and take a killing shot.

Is this fair chase?  Probably not, although now the lines are getting a little more fuzzy.  How does waiting outside the fence differ from an archer sitting and waiting in a tree stand?  But I’ll leave that question for another essay.

Let’s keep going, trying to get closer to fair chase.  Let’s put a gate in the fence, and allow the hunter to enter and pursue the animal within the one-acre confines of the enclosure.  The animal can still move around and has plenty of early-successional shrubland (let’s go ahead and fill the enclosure with thorny multiflora rose and honeysuckle) in which to hide.

Now it takes the hunter the better part of a morning to locate, stalk, and shoot the deer.  But after several hours of patient stalking, the hunter is successful.

Does this “hunt” now constitute “fair chase”?  Observe that we have come a fair way from shooting the animal that was tethered inside what was essentially a dog pen.  

Most hunters still would not be comfortable labeling the one-acre stalk on a deer--multiflora rose or not--as a fair chase hunt.  And yet notice that some hunters might . . . .  We can imagine hunters with disabilities, for example, who might be content with such a one-acre stalk if confined to a wheel chair. Or a young hunter, just starting out, may appreciate and learn from such an experience.

Note that I am not implying that this necessarily would be a good hunt, for young hunters or hunters with disabilities.  I am simply suggesting that the hunt might provide sufficient challenge to each individual hunter, and each hunter might possibly go home satisfied with their hunting experience. 

Now let’s continue the sorites part of our thought experiment.  Let’s rerun the thought experiment a thousand times, adding one additional acre with each repetition.  First the hunter pursues the deer in a two-acre enclosure, and then in a three-acre enclosure . . . and so on, and so on, and so on.  (And let’s, for the sake of argument, assume there is only a single, individual deer to be pursued—not legions of overpopulated deer as occur in many areas of the country.)

At what point does the enclosure become large enough that we cross a line between canned hunting and fair chase?

Perhaps never, for some hunters.  For them, hunting inside a fence is always unethical.  But for others, trying to pursue a single deer in a 1,000-acre enclosure, or a 5,000-acre enclosure, or a 20,000-acre enclosure, would be challenging and fair regardless of the proximity of the fence. 

So now let’s just remove the fence.  And imagine the same, solitary, single deer roaming about unrestricted over a 20,000-acre, or 50,000-acre, fenceless area.  Would this hunt now constitute fair chase?

I’m pretty sure if you plunked down a hard-core deer hunter, and took away his tree stand, and made him stalk a single deer over 50,000 acres (that’s 78.125 square miles!), he or she would most likely call that a fair chase hunt.

While I myself might never hunt a captive animal in a high fence setting, unlike David Petersen I am not about to tell someone else that they should not do so.  As long as a hunter conscientiously strives for a clean, quick, one-shot kill, and does so safely while respecting the law, then that hunter acts ethically and morally.

The difference between canned hunting and fair chase is like the difference between a grain of sand and a pile of sand.  When viewed on each end of the hunting spectrum, fair chase and canned hunting are clearly different.  But there is no distinct line, no clearly unambiguous boundary, to be drawn between fair chase and canned hunts, or between honorable hunters and cowards.

____________________________

Jim Tantillo is the Executive Director of Orion, The Hunters’ Institute. He has M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Cornell University, where he currently also teaches ethics and environmental philosophy in the Department of Natural Resources.

A grouse hunting purist, Jim will generally argue until he is blue in the face that the One, True, Correct Way to Hunt Grouse is with a 16 gauge Parker double gun over the staunch point of a well-trained English setter.  In the spirit of political toleration, however, he also argues until he is equally blue in the face that his retriever- and spaniel-owning friends be permitted to hunt grouse legally as they see fit, despite their aesthetically misguided preferences for flushing dogs or 12 gauge autoloaders!

A Caretaker and a Killer: How Hunters Can Save the Wilderness

From the Atlantic on line by Tovar Cerulli, co-chair of the Back Country Hunters and Anglers

Stereotypes of gun-toting brutes and tree-hugging hippies miss the basic facts about who is protecting nature—and why.

Tovar Cerulli Mar 14 2014, 10:12 AM ET

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For those that are "Condemed to the core of relentless citizens" advocating for conservation.

Get a cup of tea, pull up a chair and soak in this mindful video from Shane Mahoney at Pheasant's Forever's Rally for Conservation:

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0A1AJvLpU0&feature=youtu.be

Beyond Fair Chase

A wonderful memory and endorsement of Orion's founder Jim Posewitz and of his influential book Beyond Fair Chase in the blog The Starving Sportsman :

...We were all given a book in these classes.  Beyond Fair Chase by Jim Posewitz.  I remember sitting and reading this book in my room from front to back in one sitting.  It’s not a big book but when it took my literally 5 years to read “Five Years to Freedom”, you get the idea I'm not much of a reader.  I found my original copy that was given to me while sitting in that high school study hall room so long ago this past weekend.

I remember some stories in it vividly.  The one about the hunter not knowing if he should take the shot.  The bow hunter who vowed to never hunt the next season if he did not find his bull, yet after 30 days of searching he was able to finally tag his bull in a clearing he had walked by many times the previous month.  This book is filled with so much of what a hunter should be and strive to be.  ETHICS…

Read the entire post here.

Senate passes ‘conservation-minded’ Farm Bill

This is very good news for wildlife and wildlife habitat. Thanks to everyone who called and wrote their Congressman and Senators.

 

Photo courtesy USA.gov.

After three years of hard work, the Farm Bill has passed the U.S. Senate and is on the way to President Obama’s desk. This afternoon, the Senate voted 68-32 in support of the bill, advancing the mammoth legislation and helping secure critical private-lands conservation programs key to hunting and fishing in the United States.

Read more on the TRCP website.

IRIS active alert system for hunters. Field demo

Interesting technology from New Zealand.
Another back up to reduce mistaken for game shootings, but certainly not to be relied on. I think it may be more valuable as a reminder to keep your muzzle in a safe direction with in your hunting group.
The most compelling argument against it's use is not all hunters will have the sensors needed to make it work. and non-hunters even more so. But, that was the argument used against hunter orange, and it has definitely reduce shooting related hunting accidents.

Watch IRIS in action

Hunting - Time Magazine Article Calls for More

America's Pest Problem: It's Time to Cull the Herd 

After nearly wiping out many wildlife species 50 years ago, Americans are once again living close--sometimes uncomfortably so--to all kinds of feral creatures. Why wildlife in the U.S. needs stronger management

Read more: TIME Magazine -- U.S. Edition -- December 9, 2013 Vol. 182 No. 24 http://content.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601131209,00.html#ixzz2mzvPaCii

As a young Vermont Game Warden in the early '70s I wasn't called on to handle many damage wildlife complaints. Most Vermonters had the means and knowledge to take care of a skunk in the shed or a deer in the garden. That changed as new folks moved in, more land was posted and hunter/trapper numbers declined.

I remember one lady calling me complaining about beaver cutting down her trees. I asked where they were coming from - "Oh from my wildlife pond." I politely informed her that beaver were wildlife. She didn't care, she wanted them removed. I suggested a trapper could help her out, preferably during the open season when the hides were worth selling. She declined, but a month later she wanted some names and phone numbers of area trappers.

As the number of nuisance animals rose I worried that overpopulation would be a greater threat to hunting than anti-hunters or posted land. My thinking was that if deer became horned rats, who would care enough for them to be sure humans wouldn't wipe them out again? In the late 1800's it was hunters who cared, out their money up, became conservationists that lead to the recovery of wildlife in the US.

A Mass Conservation Officer told me about a hearing on overpopulated deer on Martha's Vineyard. A fellow asked why they had so many deer. The CO replied lack of hunting to reduce the numbers and good habitat with plenty of food. The guys reply was to get rid of the habitat by paving it over!

This cover story in Time was interesting to me because the author takes the stance that over populations or wildlife is driving greater hunter access, more hunters and greater knowledge of wildlife and their habitat.

I hope he is right.

Cornell Kicks Off Analysis of Public Trust Doctrine

This from the Wildlife Management Institute:

Cornell Kicks Off Analysis of Public Trust Doctrine

Wildlife Management Institute Western Field Representative, Chris Smith, shared thoughts on the implications of the Public Trust Doctrine (PTD) for state fish and wildlife agencies, kicking off an in-depth analysis of the PTD sponsored by Polson Institute for Global Development at Cornell University. Smith’s presentation, hosted by the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, was the first in a series of discussions through which practitioners and scholars will explore the opportunities and constraints related to this fundamental element of conservation law. The discussions will culminate in a 3-day workshop in the spring of 2014 designed to contribute to the academic literature, teaching and training related to the PTD, and enhancing application of public trust principles in daily work of resource professionals. The concept that government holds fish and wildlife in trust for the benefit of current and future generations is explicit in the statutes and constitutions of countries around the world, and is implicit in the norms, customs and governance arrangements of many more. In 1842, the United States Supreme Court articulated this legal duty as the Public Trust Doctrine. Interest is increasing among scholars and natural resource management professionals in the potential for PTD to meet persistent and emergent challenges in natural resource conservation and governance. However, the specific questions that public trust doctrine is able to address and the challenges for implementation have not been fully examined. Concerns have also been expressed about the PTD’s current ability to affect conservation outcomes. Cornell University professors Dan Decker, Bernd Blossey, and Charles Geisler along with PhD student Darragh Hare have organized a multi-disciplinary “reading group” that will meet six times to analyze the literature and application of the PTD. Academic participants come from Cornell’s Department of Natural Resources, Department of Development Sociology and Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future. To ground the analysis of the PTD in real world issues, the organizers have invited participants from several state and federal agencies to join the discussions. Dr. Decker said the objective of the effort is “to explore the promise and limitations of public trust thinking as a basis for policy leading to sustainability of natural resources and the principles of natural resource practice that will guide effective management.” (cs)

Gayle Joslin Honored with $1000 Cinnabar Grant Award

Gayle was a long time Board member of Orion. Congrats Gayle!

Montana BHA Member Honored with $1000 Grant Award

Gayle Joslin, Montana BHA member, wildlife biologist and lifelong wildlife advocate was recently awarded Leonard and Sandy Sargent Stewardship Award through the Cinnabar Foundation. This award was given Gayle for her lifelong effort on behalf of wildlands and wildlife resources. After 32 years with Montana Dept of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, Gayle has continued as a volunteer since 2007. Having worked with a number of government agencies and their complex planning processes, Gayle generously shares that experience with a variety of non-governmental wildlife conservation groups, advocates and litigators. Much of Helena Hunters and Anglers organization’s efforts has the touch of Gayle’s work.  Montana BHA and Helena Hunters and Anglers, along with Montana Wildlife Federation, Hellgate Hunters and Anglers and Clancy-Unionville Working Group, are currently working together to protect elk security and promote improved travel planning in the Helena National Forest’s portion of the Blackfoot drainage.
The Sargent Stewardship Award recognizes outstanding achievement in environmental advocacy, preservation, and education within the Montana and Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. This award was accompanied by a special opportunity for Gayle to designate monetary grants to conservation organizations.   Other organizations benefiting from Gayle’s recognition are Helena Hunters & Anglers, Montana Environmental Information Center, Montana Wilderness Association, and Northern Plains Resource Council.

Naturally Rich

Essay by Bradley Carlton

Many of the problems in my life have been the cause of a poor relationship to money.  When I was young I did not learn the value of working hard for commensurate remuneration (I never had to “earn” anything.) All I had to do was beg or be stubborn and I would get what I wanted.

Let me say that this set me up for a significant struggle. When I got in trouble financially I believed that someone would come along and “bail me out.” I don’t fault my father for this. He was the 10^th child of a very poor coal mining family in Pennsylvania. All he wanted was to give his children everything he could not afford. He was very successful in his early business career and the family was perceived by many to be “rich.” I based my entire self worth on what my family could afford to lavish on me. This was to become one of my greatest challenges in life.

In my teens I began to hunt and the first thing I learned was that it didn’t matter how much money my family had, nature treated everyone equally under the same conditions.

I was 30 years old before the lesson hunted me down and presented itself in a way that I could no longer ignore. As they say, “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

My father, through his magnanimously naïve nature had made several poor business decisions and managed to lose all the income he had created. He could no longer support the delusions of grandeur that I had created.

This was to become the starting point for my sacred path. Hunting, fishing and foraging were to become my teachers. To quote Red Cloud, a late 19^th century Sioux Chief, “…I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation. We do not want riches but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love.” This struck me one day as I stood weeping for my condition. What was it that I wanted? What did I need to feel like I was worthwhile?

My answer came to me as I hunted.

I thought I was hunting for deer, squirrels, turkey or rabbits, but what I was unconsciously seeking was my need to feel as though I had value in the world. Since I had equated “value” with monetary measures, I did not find what I was looking for externally. I tried guiding for  waterfowl for a little more than a decade and it seemed that taking money for providing clients with a chance to shoot a limit of ducks or geese seemed to diminish the value of what I was striving to exchange. It almost seemed that the birds became a commodity that had an assigned value that could be purchased with currency. It felt demeaning after a while.

But during that time I also discovered that what I was searching for all along was the “meaning” behind what I enjoyed so much. It was the beauty of a wood drakes’ herringbone patterned flank feathers, the iridescence of a redlegged drake’s crown, the inimitable cupping of wings of a lone Canada goose dropping in from the heavens after a long migratory journey. I wanted to share the love of his lonely her-onk in the moonlight. I felt drawn to communicate the exquisite aromas of wood smoke, decaying nuts, and the majestic display of a tom turkey strutting for attention in the early morning light of the spring woods. I found myself speaking of the impending arrival of fiddleheads, ramps and wild asparagus as the earth warmed up to 63 degrees in the spring. I languished over the taste of fresh brook trout with nothing but some lemon and butter in a pan over an open fire.

More than anything I had known before, I wanted to share my love and my experiences with others.

As I became aware of what I wanted, I began to realize that my values were shifting. Away from material possessions and a consumptive lifestyle. I wanted to, at least, partially support myself and my wife with food that I had grown, foraged or harvested.

As my values shifted, so did my self-image. Over time I began to feel wealthy. Rich, even. I was filling my freezer with nutritious food. I was growing my own vegetables and finding my own mushrooms. I was eating pure, natural, local food. My household grew to include chickens to provide us with eggs. I didn’t even eat eggs before I had chickens, now an omelet starts off my day three mornings a week. When we have guests over for dinner, it is a production. I cook venison backstraps in a plum pepper sauce and we celebrate our feast with a good bottle of merlot.

All of this has lead me to the conclusion that despite my lack of monetary income, I have learned that true riches, which I believe is better described as “wealth”, comes not from how new my truck is, nor what cell phone I use, but the abundance of natural elements in my life and how conscious I am of all that is available to me. With this, my definition of wealth has changed and my self-image is now based on how much love and gratitude I have in my life.

So the next time you are feeling poor or are not sure how you define value in your life, I would propose that you pick up your gun, your fishing rod or a basket and walk into the woods. Nature provides us with all the riches we need.

           

Bradley Carleton is Executive Director of Sacred Hunter.org, a non-profit organization that is being formed to educate the public on the spiritual connection of man to nature and raises funds for Traditions Outdoor Mentoring.org, which mentors at-risk young men in outdoor pursuits.

Call to support fair chase hunting on television

From the Montana Wildlife Federation:
(note Randy was a longtime board member of Orion)

 

Show support for the hunting show that supports conservation MWF supporters, This month hunter/conservationist Randy Newberg is featuring our effort to conserve some of the best wildlife habitat in Montana on the Rocky Mountain Front on his popular TV show, Fresh Tracks with Randy Newberg. The hard-core mule deer hunt will air at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. on the Sportsmen's Channel on Oct. 24. In this day and age, it's refreshing to see cable television embrace fair chase effort and the conservation of our public lands and public wildlife. Randy's show told the true story of not only the big game on the Rocky Mountain Front, but of the habitat that is the foundation of North America's world-class hunting opportunities. We know that the Front is incredible habitat and that's why we're working hard to protect this remarkable landscape with the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act currently in Congress. Fresh Tracks harkens back to an era of hunting shows when the focus was on conservation and habitat. He stresses that when it comes to wildlife, it's habitat, habitat and habitat. That can make for some difficult hunts but also rewarding ones. And sometimes he doesn't kill an animal - that's hunting, as we all know. Randy's stood with us for a long time. Now it's time for us to stand with him. Please take a moment to contact Randy's prime sponsor: Federal Ammunition and thank them for sponsoring Fresh Tracks. You can contact Federal here. Let them know if you use Federal ammunition. Also, please contact the Sportsman's Channel and thank them for allowing Randy to portray hunters as thoughtful, educated and conservation-minded stewards of our public lands and public wildlife. You can email the Sportsman's Channel here: sportsman@thesportsmanchannel.com Please cc your emails to mwf@mtwf.org. Thanks for supporting one of our biggest conservation partners.

Use of Drones While Hunting

Orion-The Hunters' Institute Position Statement

Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems (commonly called “drones”) to aid or assist in hunting.

It is the position of Orion-the Hunters’ Institute that the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems (UAVs) to aid or assist in hunting should be banned.  We believe that the use of airborne camera and sensing equipment gives an unfair advantage to the hunter over game and is therefore a clear violation of the principles of fair chase.

We further urge States to immediately ban the use of UAVs in hunting before it can become established.

The Waiters

Hunters wait. Or so I was told. I’d never hunted from a tree stand before, and couldn’t imagine wanting to. I didn’t want to sit around and wait for something to happen. I know how to hunt walking, sneaking, crawling, sometimes running. But hey, I supposed I could give waiting a chance, if I got the opportunity.

I got it in Germany, a pretty exotic locale for me, so why not try this waiting business there?  After all, the rural German landscape is dotted with Hochsitzen, mostly permanent tree stands, many outfitted with blinds, on the edges of meadows or farm fields. So off I went, with a farmer-hunter (a distant relative), driving down the cobblestoned road to a dirt track in-between two fields. At the end of the track was the Hochsitz he had in mind, and we got out and snuck in the rest of the way. I thought (whisper-style) to myself: “well at least I know how to do this.”

But I didn’t, really. I was paying attention to sneaking into the Hochsitz, but my hunter companion was watching for prey on the way there. And he saw one, off in the distance. I guess I should have known better. Regardless, I thought, let’s get closer to it, close some distance. But that’s not how they do it over there, because it doesn’t work. We were hunting rehwild, roe deer the size of a big dog, and it’s simply not possible to stalk them. They will hear or smell or spot you and run away in the grass before you realize they have.

So we moved towards it with our eyes. I can’t even remember if I managed to spot it at this point. We climbed the ladder, opened the door, and settled into the blind as quietly as possible. Just that was weird for me – I was climbing a ladder trying to make sure something that we had spotted wouldn’t spot us. I wouldn’t have guessed that climbing a ladder was hunting. But it was.

Inside, we shortened the distance with Ferngläser, far-seeing glasses. Turns out the roe deer was a rikke, a doe. We had a license for a rehbock (almost sounds like the shoe company) with antlers shorter than its ears. But we didn’t want the rikke to be startled, lest she scare off any legal bucks out there. And then she disappeared.

I don’t imagine she was lost, but we lost her. So we sat down to wait the appearance of another. Waiting for appearance. Things can be there, apparent, an apparition – or not there, disapparent, nothing. We waited for “there” to happen. The word “existence” comes from the Latin exsistere, “to stand forth.” When something stands forth, it exists. When it does not stand forth, it does not exist. We were waiting for a deer to exist, because from where we were sitting, no more deer were there.

Waiting for existence. It occurred to me then that those who wait do not control that for which they wait. Rather, they rather place themselves in what they hope will be the right spot at the right time, situating themselves where they hope something might come into existence. But the rightness of the spot is not up to the hunter. Roe deer go where they will, like the Spirit or the wind. They do their own existing, or so it would appear to us, those who wait.

Of course when and where one waits is not random. A great deal of practical knowledge and experience goes into making that call. I had no such knowledge, although having grass nearby seemed to be a good bet. Yet no amount of practical knowledge or experience will make the appearance of the prey certain. For that we would have needed theoria, the kind of knowledge that’s supposed to drill through the veils of flesh which keep existence hidden: x-ray vision, infra-red goggles, camera-equipped drones, that sort of thing. But no, we were stuck in our spot with nothing that allowed us to see past the apparent world into the hidden places where the rehbock might be. I bet that’s why those technologies are illegal for hunters anyway, because they take away our human perspective and give us something like what might be the God’s-eye point-of-view. Reality-stripping certainties are not supposed to be in the hunter’s cards.

Appearances are sudden. All at once, a rehbock was there. Wasn’t he always there? Apparently not. He was only always there to himself, I suppose. Perhaps he had been waiting for something too. Or watching. Because of course we weren’t just waiting either. We were watching. Waiting without vigilance is of no use. We watched for his arrival, we watched a lack of existence and waited for it to exist. We held vigil.

He was far off. Much too far for us to shoot him, unless we were mathematical masters of physical logic. Mostly we were not. The mathematical physics logic of our far-seeing glasses brought our human gaze close enough to see that he was a “big one,” with white-tipped antlers and other distinguishing features that would help my companion remember him. We could watch the buck’s existence, walking a route through the grass, circling around to our right, and then back in front of us and close enough to shoot.  But we were not to shoot bucks with tall antlers that year. As if on cue or in response, he disappeared.

So we waited, watched, again. The sun was going down. Our waiting was becoming urgent. But then, in the same place where the first buck had come out of nothingness into somethingness, another one appeared. Maybe this was the right place! My eyes could not tell if it was a buck or a doe, glasses or no. But the hunter could tell it was a legal buck. So our waiting was finished, except that it was not.

Watching was easy. He was already there. He was in our vision, but vision does not catch. But now that the buck was apparent, we had to wait for him to present himself to us. We needed him to come to us. Even when present in the field, the wild thing continues to go where it wills. And so we watched and waited to see what would happen. He seemed to follow the same path that the larger buck did, but more slowly – stopping to eat at places, loping along at other points. The sun was fading; we needed him to come closer!

All we could do was sit there and will him to come closer. We groaned inwardly and sometimes outwardly as he did what he willed. We threw our wills towards him, to catch and pull him in with the power of our hearts. We urged him. We called him earnestly, but in silence – in spring there is no use of “calls.” It was like a kind of prayer.

And so it was a futile battle of wills, where only one side knew of the battle, and the other side did not know that he ignored it. Such was the struggle, that we the hunters might be overcome by an entirely oblivious counterpart. The rehbock needed to present himself to us for a shot, and we were helpless to make him do that. Nor would he have done that willingly anyhow. Our only hope was that we would be obliviated to him in our Hochsitz – that we would not exist – and that he would happen to walk by in range and at the right angle.

He did not. Nor did he the following night, when we threw ourselves into the field again. He was lost to us in the darkness, standing out only when the night took him back.

However, we hunted as waiters, the taste of which I had never savoured before, and may not again. The hunter waits because the hunter makes itself a nothing in the environing embrace of the world. The hunter waits because the hunter can only will inefficaciously that a free thing will present itself at all, and then present itself to the hunter unawares. Because the hunter waits, control is relinquished. The hunter can only call silently and hope. Compare with the gardener, the farmer or the builder, the urban dweller. We are always some of these too, but none waits in the world like the hunter.

Breaking Down and Packing Out Backcountry Big Game

This from a collaboration between Orion, TRCP, and Backcountry Hunters and Anglers.