The North American model of Conservation and the 7 Sisters are essentially the fundamental principals which need to guide not only wildlife management, but also establish certain ethical decisions hunters must consider with respect to the core hunting building blocks, from the philosophy of people like President Teddy Roosevelt and Aldo Leuopold.
Last Saturday I was reminded the individual hunter needs to look in the mirror and examine their own conscience routinely during the hunt. I’ll be completely transparent I found a half-hearted smile as I passed my own test while others may look upon the end result as a failure.
Number 5 in the Seven Sisters:
Laws restrict us from casually killing wildlife. We cannot kill wildlife merely for antlers, horns or feathers or to use only a small portion of the meat. Laws also help ensure that we show respect for and avoid mistreating wildlife and the land, and when hunting, make maximum use of every animal for food and other purposes.
My son is six years old and his mind was focused on wanting to go ducking hunting. Never mind the sun, light wind, and mid afternoon time frame were more suited for a nice pheasant hunt. I convinced him we’d try a short pheasant walk to buy time to move our day closer to evening and make duck hunting more palatable. As we pulled into the approach, tracks evidenced we’d missed the first walk of the day several times over on this piece–not wanting to admit defeat we began our walk through the grass and cattails. Need I remind you knee high grass to dad and cattails are pretty much Mount Everest to a 6 year old, he was wearing down and I was looking forward to the next hunt as we’d reached the furthest distance from our start. I glanced across the tree’s, removed my hat from my head and with a sorrowed brow, was resolved to defeat, I noticed my son, fixated on the horizon from right to left as a group of ducks was heading our direction. My mind shrugged “it figures” as my body instinctively crouched down–blaze orange and all–attempting to conceal. Joe followed suit as his eyes grew with his voice-’ducks’! Even at the age of six, he could pick out the difference between a Canada goose and a small flock of mallards on course for our range. I picked out the lead and…click…I’d not deactivated the safety. The mallard was inching out of range. Not wanting to risk a wound, I told myself with one steel 2. I was comfortable with one shot, but not a second.
I swung on the duck again, squeezed and the duck folded, and splashed….I was happy and disappointed at the same time. If I had made the first shot, the duck would’ve thumped into the grass, now the bird was beyond the cottonwoods and into the beaver pond. Immediately my son was delighted–we had mallard on the menu for supper….but I knew there were miles to go between roast duck and the beaver pond. I triangulated as best possible where the duck had splashed, beyond the cattails, flooded Russian olive and ash tree’s. I’ll be honest. It was a best guess, and we began the mile long treck to change out of my pheasant gear, dig out the waders and return to the pond. I made use of the time explaining to my son, how difficult the retrieve was, and how if I didn’t want to retrieve the duck, a better decision was to not take a shot.
Two steps into the beaver induced flooded creek and I knew I had my work cut out for me. I hadn’t reached the cattails from the edge of the submerged grass and already I was waist deep on my waders. One short step into the cattails and as my foot searched for the stable ground beneath I regained my balance and pulled back a step. Indeed the channel of the creek was well over my chest waders.
Back on shore I again explained the need to make every safe attempt to retrieve our game. Duck, deer, goose…it makes no difference…hunters have a fundamental responsibility to retrieve their game.
My internal frustration boiling I barked like a drill sergeant and I ordered my son to stay on the bank, “look for my blaze orange hat and holler at me. You might not see me in the cattails, but I can hear you and you’ll be able to talk to me” And I disappeared walking the edge to the front of the beaver dam and inched the sloppy tight rope in waders across the face of the leaky beaver dam. I figured if I made it across the dam, I’d have better chance of making it through the channel and securing the duck–and as any hunter knows, the mental plan and reality can be oceans apart. This time was no different. After slipping into the deep wet side with one leg and straddling the mud and sticks I figured the beavers were about as happy with me destroying their dam as I was risking filling my waders. One more slip and I was beat. I’d no chance at getting across the dam and finding the nearly 90 minutes past the duck was first shot.
I gave up on the duck and explained to my son and myself I’d tried as best I could not only for myself and my son but the heritage of hunting is firm in using what we kill. To some I shouldn’t have taken the shot. Others may have removed their gear and swam the ice cold waters. Personally I answer to myself, I tried. What do you think?
