Is hunting morphing into some very odd 21st century, “green”, environmentally and ecologically sound pastime being supported and promoted by those once thought to be anti-hunting? Perhaps but don’t get your hopes too high or relax thinking it’s never going to happen, depending on your perspective. Something is stirring out there that’s sure to make many of us scratch our heads.

We hunters have waged a few battles in our day against lawsuits aimed at putting us out of business. I contend that most of us wage a similar battle everyday in answering questions or looking for justification as to why we hunt. We all have our reasons and they are legitimate ones as well. But can we now say that more people are discovering that hunting’s not bad and they may actually be encouraging others to do it?

Weeeellllll………………..maybe! In debates about hunting and fishing and who’s got more power than another group, we are all guilty to some degree of using any number of hand-picked facts and figures to get our point across. Depending on whose data you want to listen to or believe, there are probably somewhere between 10 and 20 million licensed hunters in the U.S. and considerable more than that who call themselves hunters when polled but haven’t hunted in awhile, etc. Those who oppose hunting will spin that statistic and make a somewhat false leap of logic and pass on to others that 80-90% of people in the U.S. are opposed to hunting. We all know that’s not accurate because the same polls indicate that around 80% of Americans support hunting even though they may never have done it. Why is that?

There are various reasons. For some it was something their family did once upon a time but for a myriad of reasons a particular person opted not to become a hunter. For others they understand the science behind wildlife management and therefore support hunting as a tool. Others may see it as simply an American heritage and they honor the wishes of those who chose to carry on that tradition. In short, the list is long.

Can we now add another group of people to the list of those who understand and appreciate hunting and actually may find real value in doing it? Yes, at least to some degree.

Take a cyber-journey for a minute over to a website called Locavores.com. Here’s what you’ll find near the top of the page.

We are a group of concerned culinary adventurers who are making an effort to eat only foods grown or harvested within a 100 mile radius of San Francisco for an entire month. We recognize that the choices we make about what foods we choose to eat are important politically, environmentally, economically, and healthfully.

The site is full of little buzz words including “foodshed”. I guess we could liken that to a watershed. Your foodshed is food that is available to you locally. Obviously, this is a “green” movement. They believe when you buy food locally it’s good for the environment.

Remember that other buzz word, “locavore”. Locavore was actually a word coined by the four women founders of this website and they promote doing as many things locally. Locavore has caught on dramatically enough that the word has been awarded the New Oxford American Dictionary’s “Word of the Year” award.

“The word ‘locavore’ shows how food-lovers can enjoy what they eat while still appreciating the impact they have on the environment,” said Ben Zimmer, editor for American dictionaries at Oxford University Press. “It’s significant in that it brings together eating and ecology in a new way.”

Could this include hunting locally for your own food?

Before some of you think I have gone “green” and have taken up companionship with the earth people, relax and just pay attention for a moment because you need to understand where people are coming from these days, what their thinking and how we can use this to our advantage.

For many Americans, the sky is falling. Yes, many believe that if we don’t do something about the carbon dioxide gases we humans are responsible for releasing into our atmosphere, the water in the oceans will be competing with the hot springs of Pocatello, Idaho. Aside from this giant scare, we, as good stewards of the world we live in, should be doing low cost, reasonable things to improve our land, air and water.

For the Locavores this means buying your food from a local fruit and vegetable stand and avoiding the supermarket. Because at the supermarket, too many green house gases were emitted by the trucks, planes, trains and automobiles that got the produce to the market.

Often times the food you buy locally grown has fewer chemicals used to grow it and of course this is good for our environment as well. We use less gas in our cars by not traveling to the market……well, you get the picture.

Now we have those believing that hunting game, especially deer is also good for the environment and good to eat. Imagine that? What’s driving this epiphany for locavores is the discovery that too many deer carry disease, they destroy ecosystems by over browsing, they eat up backyard landscaping and they cost millions of dollars a year in property damage from auto accidents, etc. The other aspect that these groups are finding is that deer meat is natural and good for you to eat.

In support of this theory, a reader sent me a tip today about an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times called, “Locavore, Get Your Gun“. The author, Steven Rinella, who grew up in Michigan as a member of a hunting family, says that we hunters need to jump on this bandwagon and use it to protect and promote our hunting heritage.

Nowadays, however, with Vice President Dick Cheney blasting a donor in the face while shooting pen-raised quail, and the former rock star Ted Nugent extolling his “whack ’em and stack ’em” hunting ethos, American hunters do not have a very lofty pedestal from which to defend their interests. We could gain a great deal by refocusing the debate onto our relationship with a sustainable, healthful food supply.

It’s a bit unfortunate that Rinella decides to blast V.P. Cheney and Ted Nugent in trying to make a point. I think he is assuming that the hunting world is modeled after those we make mistakes in following shooting etiquette and shooting on a game ranch and how rocker Ted Nugent carries out his hunting. But his point is well taken.

I’ll further support Rinella’s contention that hunters could use this “green” movement to help their own cause.

First off, in my work as a writer and blogger at the Black Bear Blog, I have actually received non threatening emails from readers who don’t hunt. Some have even shared that they have always actively fought against hunting but are now changing their minds. The reasons for the change of heart aren’t all that varied. Most believe they want to take up the sport for two major reasons. The biggest reason is because they are not vegetarians nor are they interested in becoming one. What they are interested in is healthy meat and what better way to find it than to go shoot your own game. The other reason is to learn how to hunt as a survival technique. Some readers fear that the day will come when they will have to resort to being self-sufficient when it come to finding food.

Another aspect that is drawing a decent amount of attention is around disease and an over population of deer. In Connecticut, most of us know that there are pockets where there are tons too many deer and deer carry ticks that carry Lyme disease. 13,000 people contract Lyme disease a year.

People are now beginning to demand that something be done to stop the spread of Lyme disease. Many thought that there was nothing that could be done but once they discovered that a drastic reduction in deer numbers will effectively remedy the Lyme disease problem, they went to work.

There is now an organization in Connecticut called the Connecticut Coalition to Eradicate Lyme Disease. They work with another group in that state called, Fairfield County Municipal Deer Management Alliance. These two organizations believe that using hunting to reduce deer populations down to manageable levels will effectively eradicate the disease.

I spoke with a member of the CCELD, who was not a hunter and actually was against it, until he bought land in Connecticut where he planned to build his dream retirement home. He then discovered that, being an outdoors person, he was going to be limited on how he could use his land out of fear of contracting Lyme. That’s how he got involved.

He was also telling me that groups, traditionally considered anti-hunting, are joining forces to promote hunting in these areas in order to reduce deer numbers. Can you believe this?

As they say, what goes around comes around and perhaps we are beginning to see that, as Steven Rinella says in his article, hunters were the first Locavores. We hunters have always said that we are the true conservationists and now others are beginning to understand that. When we say that good scientific wildlife management provides for a healthy ecosystem, this also is important for us humans who are part of that ecosystem.

While I agree with Rinella’s assessment that this is an opportunity to better educate and work with groups who have misunderstood the sport of hunting, I don’t think we need to dump all over those hunters whom we might not quite see eye to eye with in order to achieve this goal.

Tom Remington

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