FOREST TO FORK STRATEGY

  Most of the old hunters of my father’s generation are gone now. That makes guys like me the new “old timer.” But where is the youth? The woods have grown quieter and quieter over the years. As recently as 10 years ago opening day in the Catskills sounded more like half-price day at the local shooting range, than the chattering squirrels and squawking bluejays I experienced last Saturday. This radical auditory shift is due to two things, the death of older hunters (both local and city) and the dwindling crop of youthful participants willing to pick up a gun and kill a deer. Don’t get me wrong, I like the emptiness and appreciate the quiet. Fewer bodies in the woods makes for a better experience for the solitary hunter. But I’m selfish. Looking at the larger picture, the V generation’s ignorance of hunting culture—manifesting in apathy and clueless vitriol—will have far reaching effects on habitat and species conservation. You can’t keep a healthy deer herd without sustained habitat preservation and promoting generational hunting.

    Hunting and fishing license fees go directly towards wildlife conservation and state environmental programs. The numbers don’t lie. There are fewer hunters in the woods, ergo less money in state coffers. Anecdotally, this is confirmed by all of us old timers in the woods. Within the next generation of my rather large family only my nephew Wade is a hunter. The rest of the nieces and nephews don’t hunt. The family tradition is dying off. It is not only the city kids, with their noses in their iPhones, who decided not to hunt. Many country and suburban kids, with hunting uncles, fathers, and grandfathers, also choose not to get up before dawn, climb a tree and freeze to death (week after week) hoping to shoot a deer. WTF? You don’t know what you are missing.

     I hunted from the time I was old enough to tag along with my father (around 12 years old) until I was about twenty. I couldn’t wait to go deer hunting. Then, because I became a urban dweller, I stopped hunting for twenty years. I was still living in the East Village when I picked it up again at forty in 1992. I shot my first deer at 42. Since then I haven’t stopped. It has become a big part of who I am as an artist and person. Sadly, I am always defending it. Since I picked up the gun again, I’ve consistently had to explain my choice to hunt and justify the practice, especially amongst artists. I feel an obligation to articulate the hunt for the uninitiated. So when I read ill informed insta-attacks on hunters, like I did recently, I try to calmly come to the defense of hunters. Here’s an example of a comment exchange below a picture of two does in Phonecia posted by my friend David Hershkovitz @davidreporting:

@thelazyhustler- Roaches that shoot animals for fun should be lined up and shot….For crimes against nature. Period.

@oldshul1- She’s legal and tasty. You should have more sense Rickster…Even extreme vegans like our mutual friend the late, great Jerry Williams saw the value of ethical hunting. Pick another burger off the burger tree.

    @thelazyhustler is Ricky Powell’s account. He is a photographer known for his Beastie Boys connects and “fight for your right to partay” street cred. Jerry Williams was Purple Geezus' guitar player, CLGM organist and church founding member. J Dublee not only didn’t eat meat or wear leather, he barely ate solid food. He survived on some mysterious concoction that he drank from a mason jar. We in the band called it “bull jizz.” I think it’s what killed him. Nonetheless, he never busted my chops or moralized over my deer hunting. Because Powell also knew Jerry (buying pot from him regularly) I invoked Willie’s vegan cred. and even handed approach with hunting. I have no idea if I got through to Ricky P. Probably not.

    Anti-hunters are rigidly unyielding in their vehement religiosity when it comes to painting hunters with a very wide, and rather demonic brush. In their nasty hyperbole, we are all bloodthirsty “roaches” who should be shot. A bit extreme. But, I’m not the only one trying to defend the hunter. Along with the outdoor apparel and gun industries, more and more state agencies are attempting to rebrand who exactly the hunter is. Conserving deer populations by killing deer seems counterintuitive to many. It has to be re-contextualized for the masses in order to continue. Trophy hunting, that was used in the past to sell product is a distasteful hard sell to today’s sophisticated youth. Instead, PR firms hired by government agencies to repackage hunter identity, take a hard turn left. The neo-hunter is in tune with his or her environment and diet and a benefit to the community. Biting off the “farm to table” paradigm the “forest to fork” movement seeks to make the hunter less “Bambi Killer” and more progressive warrior “harvesting” high protein, healthy table fare—the hunter as hipster, conservationist chef. Leftist crybaby euphemisms aside, we still kill deer.  

    It’s an exhausting, uphill battle, engaging in this conversation as comments like Mr. Powell’s illustrates. Blame it on Bambi. I’ve never seen Bambi the movie but I’m familiar with the plot line and WWII geo-political implications. Demonization of deer hunters (and Nazis) picked up after the movie’s release August 21,1942, ten years to the day before I was born. Sixties counter culture reinvigorated the Disney propagandists’ agenda carrying it well into the 21st century. Good and evil always sells tickets. In the process, we (hunters) have become more and more marginalized and misunderstood. Come on Ricky, roaches? 

      Like I said, I’m selfish. I don’t really care if kids hunt or not. I love the empty woods. But as this trend continues, inflammatory rhetoric like Ricky P’s finds firm ground in the youth propelled insta-sphere; further muddying the water. They (the non-hunters) become more detached from the realities of the process and misinformed by anti-hunting zealots like Powell. It’s not deer hunting that’s wearing me out, but always being on the defensive for my perceived “crimes against nature.” It’s not that hard to understand the benefits of hunting and accord hunters proper respect. I’m incredibly thankful I can still get in the woods and put that venison on the end of my (and your) fork and….”for fun,” carry on the tradition.