Lost Connections

The Thanksgiving holiday is nigh upon us so it is therefore safe to assume you readers have food on your minds.  I sure do - and because I have had deer on my mind a lot lately I'm preparing venison tacos for our feast.  Which brings me to this - a recent observer of this blog questions why it is necessary to hunt deer.  That’s a fair question.  The response to which has a couple of facets.  

Primary among them is the biological aspect.   It is fact that whitetail deer are not distributed uniformly across Wisconsin’s landscape.  On the Door Peninsula the combination of farm land, cover, moderate climate and a lack of large predator species (bear and wolves) has resulted in a burgeoning deer herd.  Hunting is an efficient tool for herd control. 

Allowing the herd to attain its current size has resulted in little natural regeneration of trees and shrubs as well as other native plants that live in the understory of the forest. It isn't just the landscaping around your house - the native herbivory is taking a pounding too.  Furthermore, to allow the deer population to grow larger stresses the carrying capacity of the landscape and is a dangerous dalliance with starvation and disease.  

Secondary is what I term the social component.  The social factor has two parts.  The first is the communal tradition that comes with the hunt and gathering at deer camp.  For many Wisconsin families and groups of friends this shared ritual of hunting or fishing deepens the ties to family and the bonds of friendship.  In the Roman Catholic tradition of the Christian faith there is Saint Hubert - patron saint of hunters. Cultural customs and traditions like these might even be some sort of minute residual artifact of our archaic tribal genes.  You never know.   

The second social trait might possibly be the modern urbanites' sensitivity to the uncomfortable notion of killing an animal for meat.  If someone is a vegan I can respect that sensitivity.   However, to be blissfully unaware of basic facts about the food we eat never ceases to amaze me.  Every meat source in a grocery store came from an animal that died and was butchered.  I think that most individuals know that in an abstract sense but not at the deep, visceral level because they deliberately choose not to know.  A hunter or a fisherman understands this as the dressing and cleaning of game or fish forces one to come to grips with and accept what meat eating implies and to avoid hypocritical virtue signaling. 

So I see in this recent observer perhaps a disconnection from the food they eat.  And speaking as a gardener I would include fruits and vegetables as well.  This speaks volumes about where we are in Western Society.  We have sanitized our culture so much that people don't even know where their food comes from.