Page 57 - Flathead Beacon // 11.4.15

MOUNTAIN EXPOSURE
OUTDOORS IN BRIEF
Whitetail Deer, Elk Harvests
Remain Strong
The number of hunters with whitetail deer is up 42 percent compared to last year, according to wildlife managers.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks o cials said a total of 5,599 hunters have checked 328 white- tailed deer, including 243 bucks in the rst two weeks of the general hunting season. Hunters have also checked 38 mule deer and 35 elk for a 7.2 percent rate of hunters with game at the six Northwest Mon- tana check stations through Nov. 1. This time last year, FWP reported a success rate of 6.3 percent.
FWP Wildlife Manager Neil Anderson said the number of elk harvested is almost double, but the number of mule deer is down about 30 percent.
The counts at the six North- west Montana check stations rep- resent a sampling of the harvest.
General hunting season began Oct. 24 and ends Nov. 29.
Wolf Hunting Closed in North
Fork District Near Glacier Park
The hunting and trapping of all wolves in the North Fork Flathead River drainage west of Glacier National Park has ended, wildlife o cials announced late last week.
Two wolves were reported killed in Montana Wolf Manage- ment Unit 110, which includes portions of Lincoln and Flathead counties. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks closed the district to hunting Oct. 30. The order halting the hunt came after two wolves were reported killed, meeting the pre-established harvest quota in WMU 110.
Hunters are required to report to FWP within 24 hours after kill- ing a wolf.
As of Nov. 2, a total of 16 wolves have been taken by hunters in Northwest Montana Region One compared to 13 at this time last year. A total of 50 wolves have been harvested statewide com- pared to 48 this time last year.
If you would like to be featured in “Mountain Exposure,” email information to news@ atheadbeacon.com.
OUT OF BOUNDS ROB BREEDING HUNTER AMONG US
THE BOUNDS OF POLITE SOCIETY dictate that on most topics we keep our opinions to ourselves. Hunt- ing, however, isn’t one of those topics.
On a recent work-related road trip a friend and colleague wasn’t shy about telling me how she felt about my hunting obsession. I’m used to it, and often make a point of not bringing it up just to avoid the discussion, if I sense it’s pointless. But in this case I may have brought it on myself when I commented how the light in the late afternoon, that golden, long shadowed time, evokes the contentment I usually feel at the end of a long day in the eld.
I brought it up, so I should have known it was coming. Maybe I provoked it on purpose. It was a long drive after all, and a little debate can be the perfect antidote to boredom and drowsiness behind the wheel.
Most of the ensuing conversation is lost to faded memory. But I remember this, a question my friend asked about my relationship with the animals I hunt: “Why can’t we just get along?”
The answer, of course, is that we’re not supposed to.
Humans are sometimes confused about our relationship with wildlife, but wild critters don’t share this quandary. A deer in the woods, when it senses our approach, runs away. That’s what deer do. In humans, deer perceive a threat, a pred- ator. It doesn’t want to get along with us. It wants to get away.
Our intentions have no a ect on our predator/prey relationship with wildlife. It’s not as if a deer notes that a human is wearing Patagonia eece rather than Realtree and assumes it’s a non-threat- ening vegan. As far as wildlife is con- cerned, humans, even PETA types, are hunters.
Who would want it any other way? Years ago, during a period of per- sistent unemployment, some traveling
missionaries became aware that I was often home, in my bath robe, in the mid- dle of the day. Additionally, being young and foolish meant I was often up for a vig- orous debate with strangers about reli- gion. The missionaries usually brought me pamphlets, and the cover of one depicted a group humans gathered at a table for a feast. Near the table various wild beasts reclined in the grass. There was a lion, and nuzzled up against it was a lamb. Everyone, apparently, was getting along.
The nice young people who were trying to save my soul asked if I liked the image, if I thought I’d like to live in a world like that, a world where we all “got along?”
I must have turned a little crazy at that point as I recall it was the last of their vis- its. “No” I probably shouted. I want my deer to run when they see me, and my lions to eat lambs, or even me if given the chance, though I have no desire to die such a death. Old age is my preferred departure technique.
It’s the elusiveness of wildlife, and my sense of the other that makes it so appeal- ing in the rst place. There’s a reason a running deer disappearing over a ridge line stirs the soul in a way a petting zoo fawn never will. Or that chukar mean more to me than chickens.
There’s much to be said for “getting along.” Certainly the world would be a better place if our species developed better non-violent methods to resolve our di erences. Wildlife, and the wild, is another matter. This is the other, the place where I nd harmony when I acti- vate those predatory instincts that wild animals instinctively perceive in me. My non-hunting friend suggested our species ought to evolve beyond our role as hunter into something I imagine, more in tune with that pamphlet art. But I maintain the same, slightly crazed reaction.
Polite society will just have to get used to it.
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NOVEMBER 4, 2015 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
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