At Weeks End
I had an epiphany this week.
Coursing through TV channels on one of those rare evenings when I wasnt absorbed by a book, I ran onto one with 24 hours of outdoors programming. I arrived at the start of a hunt for mountain goats in New Mexico, those sure-footed animals with mildly serrated and curled horns.
Three were jogging over jagged outcrops, cute as adult wild things could be. In pursuit were three hunters, dressed in obligatory camouflage clothing, as if it hid them as they traipsed through green yucca and cacti dotting a desert landscape. They were armed with high-profile hunting rifles topped with high-resolution scopes.
Eventually, one of the goats slipped off by himself and topped a ridge. The three hunters huffed and puffed their way over it was little obstacle for the goat and spotted their quarry casually trotting along a rock formation few humans would challenge.
Eventually the goat came to a halt, stretched himself as such creatures are wont to do and turned his head back to nose a spot on his flank.
The intended hunter who had paid a princely sum for the opportunity laid his rifle on a monopod, took aim and shot. The goat flinched, a common characteristic of animals when struck by a less than immediately fatal shot. The goat darted off, but quickly slowed, his adrenaline exhausted, sank to his knees and keeled over.
At that moment, whatever voyeuristic instincts I had of watching the inoffensive goat being shot and killed evaporated.
A BIT LATER I retired and spent a good hour lying on my back staring at the barely visible ceiling of our darkened bedroom. I had convoluted thoughts about the better than 65 years Ive hunted, fished and trapped, a time during which Ive ended the lives of thousands of animals and fish.
Often, I decided, it was more reaction than a purposeful task. See a squirrel the first in a mulberry tree of which I still know the exact location and shoot it; kick a mallard off a pond, send an ounce or so of lead when still legal its way; get my heartbeat and breathing under control, and zero in on a nice whitetail buck.
Thoughts of hunting not being all its cracked up to be have been building for some time.
Ive found all sorts of excuses to pass on some very nicely antlered bucks for several years, and other than a few squirrels, guilty of the high crime of filching our pecans, I havent made an effort to take any creatures life in quite some time. (Ants that invade our kitchen dont count.)
Will I hunt again? Probably. I had planned to put my first wild turkey on a platter this spring and I have one open spot in a display of nice antlers in the garage.
But, its going to take some soul-searching to pull the trigger next time.
