Have you ever heard of a “button buck”? I had to look it up.
A button buck is a fawn, less than six months old, whose antlers haven’t grown out. Instead, he has little bumps, or buttons, on his head where they will emerge—if he lives long enough. A young deer who was gunned down recently in Northern Virginia didn’t.
Writing about his slaughter in The Washington Post, the woman who killed him could hardly contain her glee. She’d butchered other animals but never a deer—apparently, there aren’t enough to go around in Cape Cod, where she lives—and she was dead set on spilling blood.
The shot was “perfect,” a “red bloom” erupting behind the animal’s shoulder. When she took the deer to be cut into pieces, she “felt a brainstem level of satisfaction, walking in with blood on my boots, my deer in the truck.” She wasn’t as giddy about leaving with “a mere 14 pounds” of flesh.
She doesn’t say if she knows that fawns stay with their mothers until they’re up to two years old.
You can probably guess how I feel about hunting. My contempt comes from experience.
The only time I hunted was when I was in college and staying on a friend’s farm in Georgia. Armed with .22s, we went gunning for squirrels. It’s been 40 years, but I’ll never forget seeing that one squirrel drop lifelessly to the ground—torn from her family—after I fired blindly into her nest. Her nest.
That’s why I say things that can’t be printed here when I read that a day has been set aside for children in Maine to slaughter bears, that an Indiana writer thinks parents are being derelict if they don’t teach their kids to kill, and that more than 15,000 pheasants are being released into Ohio’s killing fields because hunters don’t have enough “opportunities” to satiate their bloodlust.
Not that you’ll ever hear hunters use a word like “bloodlust.”
Instead, they’ll insist that hunting is a tradition. Hundreds of years ago, our ancestors may have had to kill for food, but today, hunting is nothing more than a blood sport. Less than five percent of Americans hunt, and they aren’t doing it to survive. They’re killing because they want another head or another pair of antlers to hang on the wall.
That’s not a tradition I’d ever share with my grandkids. There’s already too much suffering and death in the world.
Forget all their porous excuses. Hunters want to bag the biggest buck—or in some cases, even a fawn—so that they can gloat about their kill. They try to hide behind words like “harvest” and “cull”—anything to avoid acknowledging they’re terrorizing animals and destroying families.
And they’re abetted by fish and game agencies, which design “wildlife management” programs to ensure that there will always be more animals to kill, not fewer. Many of those animals suffer prolonged, painful deaths after they’re blasted with a bullet or shot with an arrow. One study found that some wounded deer suffered for more than 15 minutes and that 11 percent had to be shot two or more times before they died.
Then there’s the claim that hunting is a “sport.” Really? I always thought that a sport pitted evenly matched, willing opponents on a level playing field. Hiding in a tree stand until a deer wanders into your crosshairs doesn’t even come close to fair play.
Maybe hunters have a hard time looking in the mirror. That would explain why they dodge and deny what couldn’t be clearer to anyone who cares about animals: they get a sick kick out of killing.
—
This post is republished on Medium.
—
Photo credit: iStock
This so desperately needed to be said. All we ever hear in the press is the hunters’ point of view because newspapers still have outdated “outdoors” columns that uncritically promote hunting and fishing to the exclusion of so many other (more popular) outdoor sports. Why? I suppose because they always have. And we wonder why newspapers are foundering. They need to enter the 21st century.
Does the good Mr Shapiro allow the use antibiotics for him and his family? Injecting those innocent bacteria with poison and then blowing them up from the inside is not “health” it’s MURDER!!! Sure the cute animals (deer, squirrels, lions) have their lobby (Pixar, Disney) well in place, but who speaks for the “little ones” our microscopic brethren who we share the planet with and who just need to use our sinuses as a home? Who speaks for the bacteria and the viruses who are wantonly slaughtered in the name of “human health”??? Bacteria have families too you know–join me… Read more »
Billions die so that he might scarf his veggie burgers and tofu dogs. Countless yeast destroyed by his ravening clamor for a donut.
The immorality of it all!
Great piece. I agree. I think it’s becoming clear to everyone now that hunters see animals as mere targets and will blast them without a thought. No conscience, no morality, no common sense or logic, and no sympathy at all.
This is one of the best articles that I’ve read about hunting. Kudos to the writer. I couldn’t agree more. Its no surprise that so many people are threatened by what he has to say. The truth hurts when your masculinity is tied up to stalking and killing animals for kicks.
Amen! I completely agree with this article, and hope that more men take the time to really think about their “traditions”, what they really mean, and who pays the price for them. We need more peace in the world right now, not violence against animals or humans.
Well to start out you are confusing hunters with killers. There are those who have a lust for killing. Those to me are not hunters. Hunters spend time and effort to legally pursue game taking great care to to honor the life that has been taken. I have had to hunt to feed my family. Hunting is not something I do for fun. I believe your article is very misleading whether by design or ignorance. Shooting an animal out of a nest is not ethical and for you to degrade a way of life because you did something wrong makes… Read more »
I noticed that too- who on earth shoots blindly at a nest?
I think we can all agree that there is a a difference between killing animals out of sheer necessity in order to feed yourself or your family(or in self defence or just to “thin the herd” although wolves and other natural predators can do this just as well) and killing out of sheer delight for the very act of killing- there is a word for the latter act- socioipathy or to put it crudely psychopathology). Witness the picture in the papers of Aryanna Gourden exultating over the dead body of the giraffe she killed. True I know that the sausages… Read more »
I’d rather die from a bullet than get hung upside down and have my throat slit so I bleed out. I’ve slaughtered livestock and I’ve cleaned game. The wild game comes out waaaay ahead.
Furthermore- dead is dead regardless if I shot it or you bought your factory farm raised boneless skinless chicken breasts. Wringing hands over “motivation” is akin to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic
So, your immature and unnecessary slaughter of has miscolored your image of something that is not only necessary but fro the vast majority is done humanely (much more so than corporate meat-harvesting methods) and with purpose.
You’re an ignorant buffoon.
And you’re hiding behind euphemisms. Hunting isn’t necessary to “harvest” animals in order to thin the herd. Hunting actually increases deer populations. After a hunt, the resultant spike in food supply and habitat availability encourages more animals to move into an area as well as increased reproduction. And “game managers” kill off animals such as wolves who would be natural predators for the deer in order to ensure more targets for hunters’ guns. And it is certainly not “humane.” In the case of bow hunting, the wound rate exceeds 50 percent, according to a study by the Texas Parks and… Read more »
Did you just try to equate predation with population growth? Do you understand the WHY behind it? The wildlife biologists at TPWD are going to be mystified. Also, hunting season correlates with the rut- those increased traffic accidents don’t occurs because of hunters they occur because of SEX. Those accident rates are higher at night as well. Hunting can only take place sun up to sun down. Deer, especially those patriarchal oppressive males naturally, are far more likely to roam and be less cautious during the rut. How’re those leather shoes on your feet, wool sweaters? Good question earlier about… Read more »
Craig sounds like every other brain dead libtard who has no experience or knowledge of what hunting is all about and why a majority of us do it. Like most other able minded Americans I am well aware that there are other meat options at local grocery stores. Unless this truly moronic “author” has never eaten a chicken egg or a hamburger who in the hell is he to judge hunters on how they harvest game???!!! Hate to break it to you Craig but any meat you’ve ever consumed at a restaurant or from the grocery store lived a much… Read more »
Piss off. I’m a liberal, and I hunt.
A little quick to judge there, aren’t we? I’ve read some of Mr. Shapiro’s other pieces and he’s written about why he decided to go vegan. He has a valid point: there is no need to kill animals for food these days–we’re not frontier people who are struggling to survive. We can walk into any grocery store and fill our cart with hundreds of different foods that don’t involve any animal suffering and are far better for our own health. Sorry, but your puerile name-calling fails to convince.
LucyP- yet human population growth, expansion, and habitat destruction for farming and industry are exponentially more of a threat. Development and industry destroy Entire Ecosystems. Much more harm done in this fashion Every Day. Irreversable harm. However Mr. Shapiro in this instance chooses to vilify all who take part in hunting in an incredibly shallow, biased bit of writing. Stereotyping persons who are involved in hunting as bloodlusting trophy seekers who get a sick kick out of killing? Wow. Shapiro states he holds hunters in contempt. That sounds a lot like the underlying ignorance behind a feeble attempt to justify… Read more »
That you are privileged to be “able to walk into any grocery store…” does not mean that this is the case for everyone.
The fact that you are reluctant to come out and say what’s really going on (“gunning down animals”) instead of churching it up (“harvest game”) should tell you everything you need to know. Also, I never learned to call anyone “libtard,” “asshole,” or “pathetic excuse of a man” in church. Wow, way to make fun of people whose political views differ from yours as well as people born with developmental delays, you saintly human, you! You talk to God with that mouth? But since you’re bringing God into it, ever hear that “Blessed are the merciful”? “Whatever you have done… Read more »
Unless you are a vegetarian you have no GD right to talk about blood sport Far worse cruelty can be found if you search for youtube video about animal abuse and slaughtering techniques in factory farm settings. As far as sickening, industrial farms and abbatoirs are far more inhumane than someone harvesting wild game. Get educated will you.
So factory farms commit “animal abuse” and “slaughtering,” and are “sickening” and “inhumane,” while hunters merely “harvest wild game.” Wake up dude. The author clearly has.
It’s Your privilege that you don’t have to survive on hunting. And yes there are plenty of communities even here in America where people do.
It has its place, but it IS more tradition than survival. And if it is helping you survive, you are not going to question anything cruel about it. Not these days, when every issue if black and white.
Manliness is deeply tied to hunting, just as it is with any exercise of force. So that becomes one more thing we do not want unpacked.
I make it a general rule- it’s served me quite well over time. Unless someone is discussing boxes or suitcases the word “unpacked” signals the start of useless navel gazing by those who criticize often, produce little, and understand less. I bet you, Michelle and the author engage in countless activities that destroy more life than a hunter does. 1-2 deer a year versus the multiple acres paved over for your Whole Foods store, or the tons of aggregate mined for your urban loft. -A hunter is willing to get up close an personal with the “transactions” necessary to sustain… Read more »