By James A. Haught
Every fall, the mountains ring with gunfire during deer and squirrel season. Hunting booms in my rural state.
Across America, killing wildlife for “sport” has diminished greatly, but it remains fairly strong in woodsy places like West Virginia.
In the little farm town where I grew up in the 1930s (we had no electricity, but used gaslights) every male hunted.
Some bought licenses, some didn’t. Rules passed in the capital seemed inconsequential in our hills. My father taught me to hunt, taking me onto silent ridges at dawn, when hilltops were like islands rising above fog in valleys.
My teen-age years were spent with a bolt-action .22 rifle and a Stevens 20-gauge shotgun. You may not believe this, but my buddies and I had contests to see who could pick pears off a tree by clipping the stems with a .22.
Stalking squirrels in the still woods gave me shivers of excitement. Squirrels are delicious, and were a regular part of our diet. We tried to never waste a shot, and laughed at visiting city hunters who loosed salvos from automatic shotguns. We almost lived in the forest. In high school, a buddy and I were paddled for playing hooky to hunt squirrels. We grinned foolishly at each other and planned the next hunt.
When men and boys weren’t hunting, they hung around the post office where my father was postmaster, telling hunting tales. My favorite was by my cousin: A shrewd deerstalker, he would find a dip in a ridge where deer crossed, and “bait” a few bushes with Buck Lure, a doe gland extract squirted from a squeeze bottle.
One chilly morning, watching over his baited spot, he had sniffles. He reached for his nasal spray and squirted it up a nostril. You guessed it – the Buck Lure made him so sick he staggered from the woods and went home to bed.
That’s how my adolescence went. But something happened as I aged. Gradually, I began feeling sorry for the animals – and ashamed of myself for killing them. After a while, it sickened me. If a wounded squirrel was convulsing, bleeding and dying, I almost panicked. The horror was worse if I had to club it to death. I was revolted by myself. I began to lower the gun and not shoot.
Then I quit hunting entirely. For 60 years, I’ve never gone back.
I realize that nature kills as cruelly as hunters do. I’ve heard rabbits scream when pierced by predators. It’s hideous.
Further, I realize that all the meat we buy in supermarkets comes from killed animals. But that’s different. It doesn’t involve the question of whether I’ll kill for sport – for fun.
Although I stopped hunting, the love of woods, hills, streams and fields remained as strong as ever. There’s something spiritual about the stillness of a deep ravine, the smell of autumn leaves, the dappled sunlight flickering on a forest floor. I switched to hiking, camping, weenie roasts, first with kids, then with grandkids.
Today it’s a thrill simply to see squirrels, raccoons, deer, possums, groundhogs – even squeaky chipmunks.
West Virginia has more hardwood forest than any other state, hence more opportunity for people to enjoy mountain loveliness. A serene trail or gurgling brook is never more than a few minutes away.
I wouldn’t tell any hunter to quit killing. I have no right to impose my morality on someone else. It’s a decision each person must make in the privacy of conscience. I’ve made mine.
Obviously, many others make a different choice. If they feel no shame when a squirrel shudders, gasps and dies, they won’t learn it from words in a newspaper.
As for me, I can never go back to my adolescence.
(Haught is editor emeritus of West Virginia’s largest newspaper, The Charleston Gazette-Mail. This is adapted from his paper on Oct. 26, 1993.)
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