Leslie Patten Books: Wild Places, Sacred Spaces

Yellowstone Autumn

Posted on September 24, 2009 by Leslie

I decided to spend a few days in Yellowstone. I like to bask in Boiling River but I especially wanted to hear the elk bugling. The bulls are in rut and if you’ve never heard an elk bugle, you’re missing out. Its the eeriest sound, the most beautiful sound, a sound that seems other worldly.

The Park, usually nice and quiet this time of year with all the crowds gone, was jammed pack. They’re having the busiest fall in 10 years. I couldn’t get a campground anywhere, so I had to drive outside of Mammoth 20 miles down the road to a National Forest campground. That was a real surprise. And even that campground was just about full. I think I found the very last site!

Waking up early, I soaked in the river, then headed up the trail to the Beaver ponds. Its a fairly short loop of 5 miles. Since I was early on the trail, I didn’t see anyone for the first hour. The trail winds along the open hillside overlooking Gardiner, but soon dips into a conifer glade with seeps. The day was already hot (as we’re having our summer now in fall), and as I moved into the cool shade I noticed about 20 elk, mostly cows and calves, lying around. One bull was there. This was his harem. The cows were relaxed. The calves were curious. And the bull was keyed up.

I lay down on the trail and watched for ten minutes. As I continued on, I later heard that some hikers had come around the corner and gotten chased a bit by that bull.

Although there were no beavers to be seen when I arrived at the ponds, their evidence was.

On the last leg of the trail, I noticed an old structure that looked like it had been a cabin. I couldn’t find references to it in the guidebooks. Wondering if anyone knows what it used to be?

Old Structure along Beaver Pond trail

After a late lunch, I headed back towards the Lamar. A coyote was catching grasshoppers. He was terribly cute pouncing around.

Coyote catching grasshoppers

And the light was perfect for this herd of Bison.

The light was perfect

I stopped for a while and watched a second coyote, before heading up to Trout Lake. I wondered if the otters were active. Trout Lake is a very short hike/walk. Otters are often seen playing there. I didn’t see any otters today, but the lake was beautiful. I spent time snapping some photos of the Lake, of a gigantic ladybug, and a dragonfly.

Trout Lake

In order to get into the Park, you must rise in elevation. That’s because of the bulge from the hot spot that Yellowstone sits upon. I used to wonder why that special feeling seemed to almost begin and end at those entrances and exits, until it was explained to me.

I met a woman from California on the trail. She comes to Yellowstone every fall for 3 weeks. At the campground I met some people from Seattle who come every year at this time. I met a man several years ago who comes every spring from Iowa. Yellowstone is just like that. It is a very powerful place. A healing place. Once it gets under your skin, you can’t help but dream the dream of returning again and again.

Filed under: Yellowstone National Park | Tagged: Coyotes, Elk, Yellowstone National Park | 1 Comment »

What is this insect?

Posted on September 19, 2009 by Leslie

Does anyone know what this insect is? They have just appeared in the last month, everywhere. They don’t move too fast. I’d appreciate knowing. Thanks.

Filed under: Cody Environs | 3 Comments »

My Toolbox

Posted on September 19, 2009 by Leslie

What do you need to live in the world of nature? I ask myself this question in many forms all the time. Today these are my answers to myself:

Awareness. To be aware is to be alive. Yesterday I was hiking with a friend. I looked ahead, up the hill, for a moment, instead of looking at the trail. My friend cried out. I had stepped over a bull snake on the trail. Luckily it was a bull snake and not a rattlesnake. But other times I need to stop watching the trail so much and notice around me. Sight is only one form. Smells, sounds, bird warnings, scat, tracks–all these are things to be aware of.
Curiosity. I called a friend the other day and on her answering machine was a quote: “The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” Curiosity is a choice, an approach to the world. It is the posture of a child. I can be curious instead of afraid, or bored.
Wandering without purpose. This is actually a form of spiritual practice. Take time to wander. Being on a trail is good when you want to go from here to there. But trails reinforce the illusion of life as a straight line. Wandering with no purpose, observing small details, allows the mind and body to be simply present, without agenda. Wandering is a form of walking meditation. I like to call it ‘tooling around’ vs. ‘hiking’. My friend says Thoreau called it ‘woods loafing’.
The wonder of the occasional ‘ah ha’ moment. Not exactly IN the toolbox, but in slowing down and wandering, this does occur. This has happened to me several times. I could have read the same instructions in a book or on a map a thousand times, but the revelatory nature of the ‘ah ha’ comes from inside, not outside. It has the power and force of Mother Nature herself as our teacher. I was looking for a sheep trap made out of large boulders. I had a crude map and was walking the cliffline. In fact, I walked right into the ancient site, but since it was natural and not man-made, I did not connect it with my map. As I walked further down the cliff edge, I noticed the game trail passed directly by the boulder entrapment. ‘Ah ha’, and the connection was made, even though I had the map the entire time. The few times this happens to me, its so special.
Nature gives gifts. Be open to receiving them and realize they are gifts, not a right or a claim. I was reading a Field and Stream article about finding sheds, or most people call it ‘horn hunting’, that is, looking for antlers of deer and elk. They gave good tips as to where and when to look to receive optimal results. Yet they ended with a wise and profound statement: Remember, finding a shed is a gift, not an entitlement. I have found interesting things at just the right moment. Why is she called ‘Mother Nature’? Because the earth not only feeds and clothes us, but also can be a nurturing and soothing force.
Listen to the dreamworld. Dreams take many forms, and we all know the ones that seem to come from deep recesses full of wisdom. They are telling us something—whether they be prescient or helping us access inner power—we need to listen to them. When you feel the power of a dream, or an intuition, or your imagination, sometimes its better to let it simmer inside, let it reveal itself fully to you, instead of releasing its power by telling everyone about it. Oh, how I need to remember to do that–be a bit more quiet!
Finally, I remind myself on occasion (when I remember to), the nature of true living is Felt experience without resistance.

Filed under: Practice of The Wild | Leave a comment »

Hunting wolves. Warning: My opinion.

Posted on September 16, 2009 by Leslie

Wolves on a carcass in the Lamar

Four wolves on a carcass

Wolf eating fish it caught in the Lamar

I live in Wyoming and as of 2009, wolves are still on the endangered species list here and are not being hunted. At least by people who paid for the ‘privilege’. Yes, they are still being hunted by the Feds here under Wildlife Services.

Today I took a hike in an area where the Beartooth Pack is sometimes spotted. There is hunting allowed right around Cooke City, Montana. I suppose wolves from that pack might be wandering in those parts as well right now and get shot, legally. But for now I was glad that wolf hunting is not allowed where I live.

I’ve already written about some of my feelings regarding hunting. I have no problem with hunting game for meat, as long as the fight is fair. But hunting a predator just for the sport of it, or rather the ‘spite’ of it, makes me cringe. It has the same ring as the extermination of the Bison resounding in its hollows.

Killing a wolf that’s killing one’s lifestock has a purpose. Killing randomly to ‘manage’ wolves smells of bowing to the sector that vehemently hates wolves. Wolves are social animals. We don’t eat them. Do we eat dogs?

Wolves, you might say, are wild, not domesticated, and therefore we must limit them. But random killing of wolves does not necessarily have any relation to which wolf or wolves will go after livestock. Its just random killing without our knowledge of pack hierarchy or age.

Basically, dogs are really only a few generations away from being wild and running in packs. They are the wolves we allow ourselves to love. They are our companions because, like the wolves they came from, they respond to a family unit, are loyal, and have feelings for each other and for us. They actually have human-like qualities.

My dog is so human-like! He's the coolest.

My own dog will happily and readily chew on elk and deer bones he finds. But he shies away from dead coyotes. He knows the difference.

Killing wolves violates my basic objection to hunting today: we do not hunt in a sacred manner. We do not acknowledge the life we are taking to feed our lives. The prey is only object and its’ very aliveness that we are taking away, is never felt nor honored.

Many people put their animals down humanely. Most people can acknowledge the suffering and feelings of their cat, dog, or horse. Somehow this doesn’t translate to the hunt. To actually acknowledge the sentience of living creatures would change a hunter at the core of his or her being. He would be saying a prayer for that animal while they died. Hunting would be a sacred ritual, right up there with going to church.

Hunting wolves is purely sport at best, and at its worst it reeks of revenge and hatred. I cannot emotionally support that kind of a hunt. It brings out the worst in our humanity. We can do better.

Filed under: Wolf | Tagged: Wolf | 3 Comments »

The woman who married a bear teaches me about pine nuts

Posted on September 14, 2009 by Leslie

After we visited the bear cave in Yellowstone, Jim Halfpenny sat us down on a nearby log and told a story.

“When we first migrated north from Africa, ancient peoples had no idea how to live with cold, what foods to eat, how to make shelters. The Bear was their teacher. Native Americans had several layers in one story. The first and simplest they might tell to the children so they would stay close and be afraid of bears. As the child grew older, the same story would be told in greater depth revealing more teaching and wisdom.”

“This story of the woman who married a bear was told in some form all over the world where there are bears.”

Jim went on to tell this ancient story in great detail about a Chief’s daughter who married a bear, lived with the bear clan, bore him two sons and then went back to her people. When she returned with her sons, half-bear half-human, she was now a changed woman–a wise woman with much to teach her people.

This is the story of why humans throughout time have respected and honored bears, and how it was Bear who taught Humans how to live.

I was wandering in the upper meadows this morning, watching the Clark’s nutcrackers poke their beaks in the pine cones and extract the seeds, stashing them in the pouch in their throats. Sometimes they’d try and clean the sap off by rubbing their long beaks against the bark. Since all the cones were way high, I looked for dropped pine nuts on the ground, possibly ones the squirrels and birds had missed. There were lots. But every one I opened was no good, the nut had never matured. I tried tree after tree with the same result and I marveled at how the animals knew to let these bad ones go. I figured that if my life depended on these seeds, I’d definitely go hungry.

When I had a big garden, I used to fight the birds for the cherries on my tree. I tried netting, decoys, shiny objects. But crows and jays are smart and they’d wait till the cherries were just perfectly ripe, then beat me out there. I’d have only the leftovers. Pine nuts seemed the same. I began to think about the Native Americans in the Basin & Range and California traveling far and wide for the Pinyon Pine nut. Or the Native Californians and their acorn harvests. There were ancient tricks to this that alluded me.

I knew that when I lived in California, I used to collect Redwood cones unopened, then let them ripen by a window and all the 100’s of tiny seeds would fall out. Perhaps…

I wandered a bit farther up the denser parts of the hillside and noticed an old middens I was familiar with. In one of the cavities beneath the trees there was stashed 3 douglas fir pine cones, fresh this year. And that gave me an idea. I went back and started hunting for a middens of Limber Pine cones. Sure enough, I found a really large one with tons and tons of fresh cones, unopened and untouched.

Limber pine middens. There's lots more than shown and much is buried

Some even had the pitch gone. There were cones on top and cones underneath. I tried a few nuts. These were the good ones! These were the ones for squirrel for the long winter ahead.

The cone collector's home looking down on us raiding his middens

Then I remembered the bear story. Bears are smart. They do sometimes climb the trees for their beloved nuts. But its a whole lot easier to let squirrel do the work and just raid his larder, and that’s what they do. Bear must have taught that to the People. That was my lesson for today.

Look close, I took this bear scat apart & there's pine nut shells inside

Filed under: Bears | Tagged: Bears, Limber pine, Native American Culture, Scat, Whitebark pines, Yellowstone National Park | 2 Comments »

More Snow Fence talk

Posted on September 12, 2009 by Leslie

When you have a pacemaker, you’re not supposed to use a fence post pounder. At least that’s what JB, my 85 year old neighbor tells me.

“The poundin’ could break one of the wires. But I can drive it with my sledge hammer.”

Fence post pounder with sledge nearby.

I spent the day finishing my snow fence with JB. He’s done just about everything in this country. Fencing large tracts of ranchland is just one of his specialties. Its not a long run–we just had 30′ left of fencing to do, but it took several hours. JB would start the posts with his sledge, and if I didn’t stop him he’d drive them all the way in. Otherwise, I’d finish up with the pounder.

The hill where it drifts onto my driveway

“I can use one hand.” he’d tell me as he pounded along with me with his right hand. I could feel he’s way stronger than I am, even at 85.

After a few posts he’d say “Let’s stop and catch our breaths”. So we’d sit down and he’d tell me stories or jokes.

“You ever seen a sidehill animal?”

“What’s that?”

“Its’ an animal that has legs shorter on one side than the other and goes up the mountains always in the same direction.”

I thought for a moment. I’m pretty gullible but not that gullible!

“I was working on a dude ranch and told that to one of the guest kids. He went and told his dad he’d seen one of those animals. His dad didn’t say nothin’.”

JB showed me a way to stretch wire without a stretcher. Of course, they’ve been making barbed wire fences before wire stretchers were invented. He showed me with a crowbar, and with a hammer–two ways.

Double row. Trial and error. We'll see how it works this winter

We took another rest. “What I know could go in a little book. What I don’t know could go in a big one!” We talked about wild horses. I told him that I thought the wild horses on the Pryors were ‘more wild’ than the ones at McCullough Peaks as they had Spanish blood in them.

“Nah. When I was a kid, everyone here had horses–horsepower. That was all we had. You’d use them in the summer and turn them out in the winter. They’d just run wild and come spring you’d round them up. There was a lady who had lots of horses out there in the Pryors. She paid me $10 for every one of her horses that I rounded up. We’d bring them all in, then she’d look at them and figure which ones were hers. The ones she didn’t keep we’d sell.”

“There was a fellow who was a horse rustler. He’d come over the North Fork down Gravelbar. That’s hard country and he’d drive those horses he stole over those mountains and bring them up north. I think he finally got caught. Horses just got left loose and turned wild.”

“Let’s go stretch another wire on that fence below as long as we’re here. I want this to hold for you. There’s a lot of weight in that snow. And 100 mile an hour winds here are nothin’.”

We put a third wire on the fence we did the other day. JB wrapped another wire around the stabilizer posts as well. When we finished, we sat in the grass, the sun warming us with fall playing in the air. JB’s new Walmart gloves, two for the price of one, made in China, were just no good. After one day they were torn. He told me he’d been to Peking after the war.

“After Iwo Jima and after they dropped the bomb, they sent me there. Only for a short time.” He told me how he’d come back to Cody and there was another kid he’d known. He saw him at a local bar. His leg had been blown off at the Battle of the Bulge. They had a drink together.

“He died just a few years ago. He was a good guy. I helped him do a lot of fencing.” Somehow he spoke about it like it was just yesterday.

Building a snow fence is fun, but its everything in between that really counts.

Another view. The first fence is at least 50' from the driveway.

Filed under: Cody Environs | Tagged: snow fence | Leave a comment »

Don’t recycle, Reuse!

Posted on September 9, 2009 by Leslie

I’ve been busy working on some winter preparations. First I built a wood shed addition and I’m proud of it. I had a little guidance but did all the work myself. I spent a little time thinking about how not to dig post holes and came up with using a railroad timber.I started digging out the area to level it. That was probably the most work of all. When I got to the part where I had to put the railroad tie down, I decided why not just dig only as far as needed.

All the materials came from stuff left at my cabin when I bought it except for the two pressure treated 4×4 posts.

I figure I can get an extra cord and a half packed in there.

Next I worked on a snow fence. There was some old fencing here when I bought the property. At first I thought it was a visual barrier, hiding some junk behind it. But then I was told it was snow fencing. Last winter I had terrible drift near the road, so I brought it to the beginning of my driveway and placed it way high up.

Not knowing about snow fence placement, I had some help from my neighbor.

“Trial and error.” he says.

My son and his friends had put in the posts (also used) and I ran the fence. But when my neighbor came by, he said “You need some stringers in there and bracing at the ends.” Before I knew it, he was over with his buddy and I had two 85-year-old men fixing fence for me. I was learning from the experts, but you should have seen them work. First they decided that the posts weren’t in a straight enough line. So they got their handyman jack from the truck and within minutes had 3 posts pulled, realigned and then repounded in.

The awesome tool- Handyman jack

Next they drove a post at a 45 degree angle, one at both ends, while I hustled up some old barbed wire that another neighbor was about to dump. JB got out his hammer and twisted it around and around till it pulled real tight. Then they set two stringers of barbed wire behind the snow fence, used my fence stretcher (I sure hope the guy who invented that tool is rich!), and tied the snow fence to the stringers with some of the rusty old wire. I was amazed, and I got a real kick out of being helped out by these two old guys.

In fact, just a few weeks ago, I was trying to change a tire and couldn’t for the life of me get a few of the lug nuts off. These wonderful old men came to my rescue and showed up the 20 year olds hanging around. They’re stronger than most guys you’ll meet, good natured, and probably faster.

JB told me that same morning he’d taken an old 50 gallon drum he’d sawed in half, laid down an old hose around the sharp edge securing it with liquid nails, and placed it in his upper pasture for his horses. Then he and his friend helped me with my snow fence, and afterwards they went fishing!

I keep thinking that JB ought to teach a class called ‘Don’t Recycle, Reuse.” If he sees me throwing something away, he wants it. My neighbor had some old twisted metal fence posts I was bringing to the dump. “Don’t toss them” JB said. “I’ll straighten them out and use them.”

Luckily I had saved those rolls of my neighbors barbed wire cause we used some of it on the snow fence. “Use the rest and put two wires as a top wire on your fence. That way the elk can see it better. They were throwing away some cable when the Power Company did work around here. I took it and used it along with the top wire on my fence. I had to stretch it with my ‘come along’. The elk see it and know where to jump. That way my fence never needs fixing.”

I do have to say he’s got the best fence in the valley.

When I was working on fixing my driveway JB told me that several years ago (like 18 now) they were paving the main road and had base rock left over. He took that and paved his driveway. “Just wait until they’re working on the Beartooths and get some of their leftovers.”

When I go over to his house, by the kitchen sink they have a bowl of all those little leftover pieces of soap. You know, the parts when the soap gets too yucky and small and you throw it away. Instead, they put them all in a bowl and use them.

My favorite of all his ‘reuseables’ is one of his hats. “I’ve had this since 1940.” Its not a fancy thing. Its synthetic, but where its all worn through, JB has put duct tape. Now that’s creative reuse.

Filed under: Cody Environs | Tagged: Recycle | 1 Comment »

Tracking class

Posted on September 6, 2009 by Leslie

I just finished the most awesome week in a tracking class with world renown tracking expert, Jim Halfpenny. Lucky for me the class took place at a dude ranch 5 minutes down the road and although many of the ranch’s clients participated, the final day, Friday, on gaits. was attended by only myself. So, I had a private lesson. And as it turns out, gaits have always been difficult for me to understand. I’m that person when you say “Raise your left hand”, you have to tell me “No, the other left!”. And that’s why four-legged animals, with double the rights and lefts, confuse me no end. Jim is a fantastic teacher and was able to simplify the whole gait thing for me.

Monday was a general introduction day. Tuesday we all headed for the Park, leaving here at 5:00 am sharp. We spent about 3 hours in the Lamar looking for wolves. We did finally find one lazing around in the grass. While everyone was waiting for that wolf to wake up, I spent some time checking the ridgelines and found 30 Bighorn sheep. Then it was off to Canyon for a look at their new visitors’ center which opened this year. I hadn’t seen it and I must say it was very impressive. The displays were all centered around the volcanic activity in the Park.

After watching some coyotes catch grasshoppers and a lunch byt the river, Jim took us to a bear cave. We hiked in about 1/2 mile. This cave has been used on and off by bears for many years. It looked tiny from the opening, but once you crawled inside, all 14 of us fit quite easily and we could even stand up. It wasn’t smelly at all. Quite comfortable I must say.

In the bear cave. We all fit.

Thursday was devoted to time in the field finding tracks and casting them. I was so excited because I’ve been wanting to learn to cast but wasn’t sure about proper technique. We casted several different Grizzlies tracks, as well as raccoon, mink, and wolf.

Raccoon

Hard to see but these are mink prints!

A Grizzly track found by the river

Here I am on Friday with my ‘graduation’ exercise.

I'm happy because I passed my final test and the hardest for me: gait I.D.

Jim found a series of large dog tracks and I had to interpret what the dog was doing as well as each foot. I PASSED! We also found more grizzly, moose, tons of deer, horse, and cattle (ugh!). Now all I have to do is practice, practice, practice.

Filed under: Tracking | Tagged: Bears, Coyotes, Dr. James Halfpenny, Grizzly bears, Tracking, Wolf, Yellowstone National Park | Leave a comment »

Clark’s Nutcracker and some five needled pines

Posted on September 6, 2009 by Leslie

Every morning I take a walk on the open meadows above my house dotted with Limber Pines. Limber pines are technically in the white bark pine ‘family’, which consists of all pines with a cluster of 5 needles. So when people say ‘That’s not a white bark pine, but a limber pine”, technically they are right and wrong.

Pinus albicaulis is the latin for the White Bark Pine, which is in the white bark pine group because its a 5 needled pine. The Greater Yellowstone is at the very southern end of Pinus albicaulis territory. Its a white bark pine that grows at very high altitudes.

I live at around 7,000 feet and, although we have P. albicaulis on our ridgelines, my zone consists of Pinus flexilis, or Limber Pine, another 5 needled pine. Both produce cones with large, tasty seeds. And its difficult to tell the two pines apart. The best way is to look at the cones. P. albicaulis cones are purple and disintegrate on the tree. P. flexilis stay intact, are the usual grey/brown, and fall to the ground.

In the mornings on my walk, there’s lots of chatter these days. The Clark’s Nutcrackers are busy. Their wings make a whirlwind noise, but their raspy call is distinct. I watch them take their long beak and skillfully pluck out the large seeds. They do it upside down or right side up. Between the busy red squirrels caching all the seeds (they are also amazing to watch as they work the cones like an ear of corn) and the birds, its a wonder there’s any seeds left. The crop seems to be good this year, as most of the trees have lots of good cones with few worms. If I watch the squirrels, they know which ones have the worms and which are intact. But I can always find a few opened cones on the trees, low down that I can reach, that have some missed seeds to eat. My problem is that the cones are so full of sap, I’m a sticky mess just for a few pine nuts.

The nuts are good. They taste like pinyon pine nuts (which is a 1 needled pine) and are about as big. Some of the best and biggest pine nuts I’ve ever tasted are from the Italian Stone pine, Pinus pinea. Its a beautiful tree and commonly cultivated. But the Limber Pine nuts are good too, just harder to get out because they are tucked way down inside.

Limber pine cone with seeds and lots of sap

Limber, White Bark, and the Clark’s Nutcracker have evolved a unique marriage. The two pines are dependent upon the bird for seed dispersal. Unlike the fire adaptation of Lodgepole pines, whose seed cones open with heat, Limber and White Bark pines disperse their seeds through the bird, and prefer to sprout on the fertile soils after fires.

I asked a grizzly expert at the Shoshone ranger station if grizzlies will sometimes eat the seeds of limber pines.

“Not usually, because they are harder to get out, but they will.”

Grizzlies will reach up for the P. albicaulis seeds; they’ll climb up; and they are smart and look for the stashes of red squirrels and raid them.

By the way, after getting some pine nuts out of the sappy cones, I’m full of sap. How to get rid of sap on your hands: take some vegetable oil and rub it around; leave on for a minute; then wash with soap. Voila! Its out. On your clothes? Use a little WD40 before you wash.

Filed under: Pines | Tagged: Clarks Nutcracker, Grizzly bears, Limber pine, Whitebark pines | Leave a comment »

Hunting season

Posted on August 30, 2009 by Leslie

Yesterday I enjoyed a great day with Women in the Outdoors. It was an all day affair where you choose in advance what events you wanted to participate in. I chose fly fishing in the morning, and archery in the afternoon.

The instructors for Fly Fishing were fantastic. They provided all the gear, took us to a stocked lake on private land, and coached us step-by-step starting with the parts of the rod and reel, how to tie the knots, and the basic form for casting. What I love about fly fishermen is that they have an in-depth knowledge of entomology. I once took a college course on ‘Pond and Stream’. We went on field trips and looked at river health and bugs. Fly fishermen can identify the different insects in their various stages of development and what the fish are feeding on at any moment. They are magnificent conservationists, because only healthy streams and ponds will have the diversity of insects necessary to support fish life.

After lunch and door prizes for all, archery was on the list. As a kid I did archery with a traditional bow. I remembered it as great fun and hard to pull. The instructors had compound and regular bows for us to try.

Compound bow used for hunting

Using a compound bow with sight guides, it was pretty easy to hit a bull’s eye. Using a traditional bow, they call it ‘instinctive aim’ and requires much more skill. The woman instructor told me she’d been an avid archer for over 17 years. She competes with a traditional bow, but hunts with a compound bow. She showed me her hunting bow. It was so heavy I couldn’t straighten my arm out.

I asked her how she killed game with a bow in a way that was humane and didn’t let them suffer. She said she was careful, took her time to aim, and most always could bring down her game with one shot. She practiced a lot and consistently to stay that good, she said.

Hunting season is beginning this month and usually starts with archery. All this made me reflect on my feelings about hunting.

Personally, I have nothing against hunting. Men (and women) have been hunting since time began. We are predators by nature. And I suppose it’s in our DNA. But I do have some problems with the whole nature of hunting in the 21st century.

Here are some of my issues with hunting: much of our wild game has been confined to tiny, fragmented islands we call ecosystems but they are not whole nor complete; we don’t have the numbers of wildlife that we used to when we hunted for survival; many of the weapons used by hunters give them an unfair advantage, such as a high powered rifle way beyond the range that a deer or elk can even smell; many hunters are too lazy to actually walk into the back country, use real skills, and they hunt from the road; too many hunters go for the trophy, rather than hunting for their winter meat, and discard the meat or give it to the outfitter. In fact, many outfitters say that they actually do all the work–find the game, set up the camp, maybe even point the gun!

Deer and turkeys

Osborne Russell, the famous trapper who went through Yellowstone in 1835 wrote “an eye could scarcely be cast in any direction around, above or below without seeing the fat [Bighorn] sheep gazing at us with anxious curiosity or lazily feeding among the rocks and scrubby pines.”

That is the norm for this ecosystem. Now, in the 21st century, you have to take your binoculars and hope to catch a glimpse of a Bighorn sheep. And if you do, maybe you’ll see 2, or 3. If you’re lucky in the dead of winter, you’ll see 25 grazing together. Now those numbers have become ‘the norm’ on which to issue hunting tags and judge a healthy population.

Lastly, and maybe the most important in my mind, hunting is no longer a sacred ritual. There is not an acknowledgment of the sacrifice involved in the taking of life. In the hunt, animals are seen as ‘things’ without consciousness. It is a ‘sport’, right up there with other types of consumerism and recreation, and thus not placed in its proper context–the sacrifice of one life to give life to another.

Most of us eat meat, fowl, or fish which is farmed then slaughtered and we have no relationship to what we are eating. Hunting gives us that connection to our food. Hunting in the 21st century, unfortunately, has become a caricature of what it once was. For our ancestors, the hunt was a sacred event, shared by the entire community, deepening our awareness of the sacrificial nature of all existence.

Filed under: New ideas | Tagged: Hunting in Wyoming | 5 Comments »

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