No One Needs to Hunt!
You ever hear them anti hunting folks say that hunting is not needed because we can all just by meat at the store? I was just thinking about this because of the post about butchering to save money. I wonder how many people hunt and butcher their own meat precisly because they can't afford meat any other way? I know a lot of folks around my country do so and many of them can't even afford to buy deer tags. I have certainly been in that situation many times myself, and feel quite lucky that I know how to survive when times are that bad.
I think about it every time a client or myself has killed a deer that we truely do not need, and I'm dropping it off at some hungry persons house. Someone who said to me "Hey Tom! if you get any extra deer this year call me, I'll pay for your tag." I write down their name so I don't forget, and I bring them meat, all tagged and legally taken. If they insist I'll take back th $7. the antlerless tag cost me, otherwise not.
Now since I've been married the past 21 years I've had to eat a lot of deer, pheasants, quail and the like, (had to, as if this were not desireable!) if I wanted to eat at all, but I've walked the straight and narrow concerning the law, and have always managed to buy multiple deer tags and all necessary tags to hunt and fish. But when I was a kid my first experiences killing game were out of necessity for my family to eat. Shooting rabbits and other game in the headlights wasn't something we had a choice about. It was the most effective method to eat.
Now like I said, these days I can afford to buy the propper tags to hunt and I do. But it's still because it's the least expensive method to fill the freezer. If I had to go to town for all the food I eat I would soon be broke. And I still can't afford to pay to have my game processed at a locker. In fact I marvel at the amount of cash people must have to do so. I work full time and so does my wife and we just keep barely ahead of the bills. I have many hunting clients who kill deer, and turkeys and just drop them at the locker, and make a trip to get them when they are done, which to me is insane, driving back to Missouri from Florida, or some other far flung place cannot be cheap.
But anyway, this is about those who need to hunt to live, not those who can afford not to hunt, but feel a need to hunt anyway. Or maybe it's both. It seems to me there are plenty of people in both situations which is why folks like me who have the places to hunt help out folks with money and no place to hunt. Which makes folks like me better off so they don't have to poach. Plus the state needs us to hunt to keep all the game managed at the desired levels.
And I am very proud to say that hunters donate millions of pounds of venison nation wide to charities who have a need.
Seems like we all have a NEED to hunt or all this wouldn't be going on.