It took sometime but this was one of the things I was looking for... I am a woman that hunts, rather well I might add. I pride myself on being a stewerd to the land I love and respectful of all she gives me. I am fit and worthy....but repectful to her and her creatures above all else! Oh yeah, almost forgot...I have evolved.[8D]
You may not like it....but read it.....dang it really read it and try to find the meaning. This has nothing to do with Anti's it has to do with us and an understanding as hunters!


A little more than 50 years ago, the manuscript of a book by a relatively unknown University of Wisconsin professor named Aldo Leopold was accepted for publication. A Sand County Almanac has long since been enshrined as one of the world's environmental masterpieces. In the opening paragraph, Leopold reveals the vast, momentous creature that means so much to the deer, the coyote, the cowman, the hunter, the pine, and the mountain: The wolf.

Leopold's conviction towards the wolf was changed forever on the day in his youth when he saw a wolf die. Aldo Leopold and a friend of his opened up on the wolves, never wanting to pass up a chance to kill a wolf in those days. When their rifles were empty, the old wolf was down. They reached the old wolf in time to watch "that fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then," wrote Leopold, "and have known ever since -- that there was something new to me in those eyes -- something known only to her and the mountain." He saw the green fire in the wolf's eyes die, and since then he recognized his brutal error.

Leopold wrote that since that day, he has seen the wolves driven to the brink of extinction and the wolfless mountains defoliated by the exploding deer herds. And he suspected, just as the deer herd lived in mortal fear of its wolves, so does the mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while the buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a deer's range pulled down by too many deer, may never be replaced. In essence: The wilderness we hunt is the salvation of the world, to paraphrase Thoreau. It must not be destroyed.

Perhaps this is the hidden meaning in the howl of the wolf, long known by the mountain, but seldom understood by men. Just as Leopold came to realize, so must we: that wildlife populations are a part of a bigger picture, and that no matter what new game laws are passed, wildlife populations will not improve until the carrying capacity of the land that supports them improves.

In his last paragraph, Leopold reels the reader in. To paraphrase: In our lives, we all think about that which will better ourselves and secure ourselves, but those who look for a little temporary safety instead of wildlife understanding deserve neither. We should look to help secure the blessings of wildlife before we secure the blessings of ourselves because "in wildness is the salvation of the world."

And in that very wildness continues our right to hunt! IMHO....Nuff said for now.