Oh deer, yet again

There's no reason to waste a life

As many people well know, hunting is now and has been for many centuries been a popular pastime in America and throughout the world.

Even if you don't engage in it yourself, you probably know someone or several people who do hunt, and I'm sure you have your own opinion regarding the subject, which is fine.

And let me just get it out there now I am NOT in any way against hunting, in fact I am for it.

There are and always have been and always will be legitimate reasons for hunting, although it is beyond the scope of this post to get into them all - but perhaps at a later date.

I will also quickly say that as you may have guessed by now, I am no vegetarian, in fact my diet is highly meat based because the human race is carnivorous, plain and simple.

 However, while I believe killing animals for a purpose is not morally wrong, what is morally wrong is when said conduct is not carried out in an ethical fashion.

And here’s an example of that.

 Recently on one of my usual walks through the woods I happened upon the carcass of a deer. Nothing very unusual in that as deer, like anything else that alive, also die all the time. What got my attention however, was the excellent condition of the dead animal.

It was a large nine-point buck that - being me - I had to examine more closely and found it to be in excellent shape.

But what I also saw at this time was the very obvious cause of death of this otherwise healthy animal: That being an entry wound of what may have been a bullet but was more likely an arrow fired from either a bow and arrow combo or a crossbow.

The wound was right behind the shoulder on the upper hand side. This also included an exit wound through the guts. The deer after being shot had clearly run a great distance before dropping in that spot and even then spent considerable time thrashing around on the ground as was evident by the skid marks.

Obviously we will never know who shot this deer or where, but two questions do come up nonetheless and those are: Did someone shoot this deer just “because” (any number of reasons could be going on in their own head) or did they actually want it for meat or even something else.

  In my opinion wasting resources is never a good thing. Although this deer carcass had clearly been there a few days the meat which had been exposed around the back end by the picking of scavengers even though it was thoroughly maggot-infested was still red and full and to my way of thinking for lack of a better term, appetizing.

The point is, the deer was large and said meat could well have fed a lot of people, which would not have been a bad thing as many people throughout the world really do go hungry on a daily basis.

Hunting seasons/laws aside - not to mention basic safety issues - killing a living thing just to kill it, is just plain wrong. If the intention, however, is to get fresh meat to feed yourself and or other people or animals then that is fine so long as it is done properly and legally.

 Whoever killed this deer failed to follow this basic rule, if in fact they wanted the deer, as the shot placement was somewhat off center it took the deer considerably longer to expire at which point the person either quit looking for where the deer had dropped or simply couldn't find it.

In my opinion this is not an excuse for letting a life and valuable meat go to waste. When you shoot a deer you have a responsibility to find the carcass and take the proper steps to ensure the preservation of the meat. If and when the deer does run, sometimes far from the spot it was originally shot, there are numerous ways of tracking/finding it. If and when all those methods fail and you find yourself at a loss what you do is you look and look and look some more no matter how long it takes believe me you will find what you are looking for and prevent waste, which ethical hunters all want to avoid.

As the photos show, waste is still a relative term as this carcass transformation was only over a period of about five days.