THE ETHICS OF BOW HUNTING FOR DEER

What does my presence in the woods mean? It is clear that killing a deer is on my mind. But it is more than death in the woods. I am there to participate in life.

Not so long ago at my mother and father’s house in south central Ohio I decided to do some still-hunting through the woods. My sister had driven down from Columbus and she watched with amusement as I went through my ritual. I took my earth-scented shirt from a plastic bag. The socks and boots were treated with fox urine. The face paint, my hunting hat, the glove for my bow hand, all brought a smile to her face. I thought that it was the odor that had amused her. But as I headed toward the back hill, I soon found that those raised eyebrows were speaking something else. Just before I was out of earshot, she called, “How can you stand to murder those innocent deer?”

To set the record straight, I don’t think of deer as being any more innocent than any other animal that we eat. In point of fact, those deer did quite a bit to damage to my parents garden and the local farms. Every year deer kill people. The year before this particular hunt a man picking cans was attacked by an eight point buck and killed. They found the buck standing on top of the corpse when help finally arrived.

Deer certainly kill other deer. Bambi and the Buck is a lie. I have watched a ten point buck in a honeysuckle thicket try to avoid being shot by forcing a young doe at antler point out of the thicket toward a friend who was waiting on the other side. If food is scarce the does occasionally stomp their fawns to death during the winter. All this does not take into account the automotive damage deer cause. Living in Columbus, my sister had not yet had the privilege of running into one on a road. Deer cause more human deaths than any other animal through car accidents. And all this does not take into account the diseases they transmit to cattle and people.

The point that we must take exception with most fervently is that deer hunting is not murder. The part of me that is a Baptist preacher wants to reach back in the Bible and bring out the verses that say all animals were given to us for food. We are to have dominion over the animals. I love mighty Nimrod, the great hunter before the Lord. If hunting is alright for him, why isn’t it alright for me?

However, another verse continues to come to mind. “This day I set before you life and death.” In the Bible, in life and in the forest, there is a continual struggle between the two; life and death. The fact is, there is something glorious and wonderful to being the person that overcomes death.

There is a struggle also between man and deer in the forest. There is nothing disgraceful about it. In fact, it borders upon the sacred. It is a Holy struggle.