Hunter and Prey

Skin of a fox

I met a woman today whose husband is an avid hunter. Now, I am not about to start a rant against hunting, though I don't think I could ever kill an animal myself, and am not a huge advocate of hunting, either. It bothers me to think about it, but at the same time, I can understand the thrill of the hunt. I'm just glad I'm not married to a hunter. I can't imagine what that would be like.

The woman I talked to is a very mild-mannered office worker. I couldn't really imagine her married to a hunter, either, and asked her how she felt about it. She shrugged and said she doesn't have much to do with it other than cooking the meat and staring at the trophy heads mounter around her family room. I asked if she'd ever gone hunting with her husband. She has, though she's never stuck around when he's ready to shoot. What she has done is go out into the woods with her husband to check on his stand and to help him with the video camera he has mounted there.

That phrase stopped me. Video camera? My mind immediately went to serial killers recording their kills. She must have seen some sort of shocked expression on my face because she rolled her eyes and said that they went out to get the SD card from the camera so he could watch the footage at home. Her husband tracks the deer this way, noting what type of deer come near his stand and from where. I tried to keep a blank expression, but I was appalled; absolutely appalled. I immediately pictured Sarah Palin shooting wolves from a helicopter. It's one thing to hunt, but at least give the animals a fighting chance!

I thought I was going to lose it. My mind was frantically racing to think of ways to save the deer. Could I scour the woods for video cameras and smash them? Could I put deer repellent near every hunting stand I saw? (Not that I'm ever actually in the woods where hunters hunt, but still...)

Then it got worse. She told me she was on a wild boar hunt with her husband down in Okeechobee, Florida where the outfit they were with promised a "guaranteed kill." It was all I could do not to clap my hands over my ears and start singing "la-la-la-la-la I can't hear you." She sensed my discomfort and changed the subject. We chatted for a while longer but I just kept studying her, wondering what it would be like to be her and sit on the couch beneath a boar's head, watching TV and eating venison stew? I have no idea what else she said that afternoon. I was too busy studying her as intently as a deer hunter with a video camera in the woods.