Letter to the Editor: Bow Hunting
I wrote this letter today to the editor of my local newspaper:
I am most distraught by an article on the front page of the N&O today. A state agency is considering allowing bow hunting in the city limits to thin the deer population? Only in backwards North Carolina would something like this actually come to pass. This is an asinine idea. I do not want anyone in my city limits, or especially my neighborhood hunting with a bow and arrow, or any other weapon for that matter. Have people lost their minds? The deer population isn’t too high…the human population is too high! These deer live in the woods which we cut down for more strip malls and townhouses. Anyone who takes pleasure in hunting and killing an innocent animal is seriously lacking morality.
I agree with most of what Craig is saying. Too many narcicistic people in our society see these animals as mere nuisances instead of what they really are, beautiful wildlife. Sure most people like to go outside to see the wildlife when it’s convenient for them, but when the animals are forced (by us) into our own backyards, then they become problems that need to be dealt with? Shame on anyone who is so self-centered. If you don’t like the idea of sharing the land with the animals that have the same right (perhaps more right) to be on that particular piece of property than you do, then stay out of the suburbs! Live in the middle of a busy city, on the 28th floor of a high-rise building, then you won’t have anymore ‘scary animals’ in your backyard. We intrude on, and demolish the land that these animals call home just so we can open another business that likely will ultimately fail in our spiraling economy anyway.We keep expanding our cities and condensing the available area that these animals can inhabit, where are they suppose to go?
I have agreed with Craig for years that there are too many people. Now before you assume that I am some sort of backwoods “dag nabbit” kind of guy, pick up any Geography text, or take a look at the U.S. census comparing 1950 to 2009. Due to the increased birth rate and a decreased death rate, the U.S. population is increasing by roughly 12 million every year, and since we aren’t making anymore land these days, all of these people need someplace to go. So we continue to move further and further into the places that these animals rely on for habitat, then complain about them being there?
I disagree with Craig’s claim about hunters lacking morality. Granted there are a great many people out there who do kill animals immorally, and they couldn’t even give you a good argument for why they are killing the animals, but those people are not hunters, those are idiots. True hunters like myself, harvest animals for the greater good of the species. None of us want to see these animals starved due to over-population or hit by cars to suffer on the roadside. Furthermore, hunters are people who ETHICALLY harvest only the appropriate number of these animals, which is directed by the Department of Natural Resources/State Wildlife Committees, as it is the aim of these departments to keep herds healthy through practices such as population control.
We, as hunters, and other wildlife advocates enjoy having these animals around, and we enjoy getting out in nature with them. Personally, I have a large heart for all animals, wild or domestic, and contribute any way I can to ensure their livlihood. I truely wish there were more “pro-animal” people such as Craig and myself.