Tag Archives: hunting

STALKING the WINTER FOG

***

 

This is the eastern edge of the Stillwater Unit of the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife.  It’s about 450 acres of river valley habitat, bordered by farms, woods and a small town or two. Thirty miles from Seattle, this pretty lowland area is often flooded by the Snoqualmie River, which runs through it. The morning fog may not burn off until after noon.

Decades ago the Fish and Wildlife folks planted fields here, maintaining the land to attract wildlife. Pheasants bred on game farms are released every fall for a two month hunting season. Other wild birds and animals are hunted too, so I don’t venture too far from the road this time of year – hunting season could still be on for one bird or another. This week when I took these photos, I heard a pheasant in the field – a survivor! A flock of ducks rose from a pond out in the field and a kinglet flitted through the branches under mossy trees.

I appreciate the preservation of habitat that happens as a consequence of hunting but personally, I wouldn’t hunt unless I needed the food. The day job keeps enough money coming is so that I can buy all my food at stores. Once a vegetarian, these days I do eat meat, so you can call me a hypocrite, since I pay others to kill for me. In the “wisdom” that inheres in our times and keeps us separate from the land and our food sources, there is hunger for a stronger connection to the life force. So I go out stalking the wild photograph…

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Resolved: No Resolutions

THE FACT THAT IT’S JANUARY means

nothing – my perennial urges

at “self” improvement (those vague

promises hovering just beyond daylight’s reach)

don’t correspond to calendars.

And it’s a problem of

time – twelve months stretch farther

than I can imagine: no,

there will be no New Years Resolutions here.

—–

I can promise, though, that I will

attend

to the spirit of the moment,

more and more.

And I can promise that I will

try harder

to show you

what I find.

—–

Pretty –

or not.

Photo taken 1/3/2013, in a field off Cherry Valley Road, Duvall, Washington. This Canada goose was likely shot by hunters and then thrown away. There were hunters shooting in the field when I took the picture. Between mid-October and late January, four geese may taken a day, on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, in King County.

To me, hunting is not a “good” or an “evil” activity.  I recognize that very few people – at least where I live – need to kill to eat.  So it’s tempting to make that grounds for refraining from hunting.  But of course we condone hunting of a sort when we eat meat.  A long tradition of hunting here is integrated with country life, and hunters have supported the land and wildlife in many ways, even as they take life.  So it’s complicated.  But nothing about this frozen Canada goose, carelessly tossed at the edge of a field along with another goose and a few ducks, seems  morally comfortable.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This post is part of the Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge, and more responses to “Resolved” can be found here:

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/weekly-photo-challenge-resolved/