http://www.wcsh6.com/news/article/262020/2/Gunshots-announce-the-start-of-hunting-season
Nov 4, 2013
Mike Kmack
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) – Maine’s firearms deer hunting season
has begun for non-residents and residents alike.
The season kicked off Saturday for Maine residents, with out-of-staters getting the go-ahead on Monday.
The Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife is expecting hunters to kill 25,000 to 26,000 deer this year. If that happens, it’ll be the most bountiful harvest since 2007, when hunters bagged nearly 29,000 animals.
Hunters last year killed 21,365 deer, an increase from 18,839 the previous year.
Firearms season ends Nov. 30, with muzzleloader season beginning Dec. 2.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press
Exposing the Big Game 
That sounds awful. I am here in Maine and I can tell you that there are hardly any gunshots this year so far! I think maybe hunting is slowing down here as the population ages? I hope so because I cringe every time I hear a shot. Honestly, I have only heard three shots, two on the first day, one yesterday. People are more likely to hit a tree in the thick woods than a deer.
I hope that is so. I have not heard many shots during dove hunting season here. I used to hear a lot more. This year I think I counted four. But those shots could just be from some of the looney neighbors shooting at their family.
Yeah, redneck answer to divorce court? I heard one more shot this morning. I don’t know how bad somebody’s marraige has to be to crawl out of bed with a nice, warm woman, just to go sit in a frozen swamp and hope a deer gets thirsty? It was 22 degrees when I heard the shot so I would say pretty damn lousy if he has ANY woman at all in his bed! At least a two-legged one (not 4 legged) that he didn’t pick up at the bearded lady carnival sideshow next to the beer hall at closing time!
This year has been the least amount of shots that I can ever remember! I’ll be glad when it is none at all! This has a lot to do with more and more land being posted. Could be folks growing a little medicinal herbs in their yard, or maybe just sick of disrespectful slob hunters or just increased population density or by some miracle, they are starting to appreciate wildlife alive? Whatever the reasons, the animals are better off for the posting of lands. And hunters are finding access to woods much more difficult to find in Southern Maine, especially within commuting distance to Portland. Also, where I live is pretty steep and thick woods. Not bad hiking if one leg is shorter than the other and they like being out of breath and tripping over roots and stones! Needless to say, the heart attack high risk cases won’t be dragging their fat asses up my side of the mountain twice and just east and south is nearly vertical. The east side has a nearly 600ft cliff on an 1126ft mountain. I never go up there anymore since my hiking buddy died of a heart attack. It’s cool though, on a freezing winter night during the full moon with fresh snow and a million stars in the sky, walking the spine of the ridge with camera ready, the lights of Portland to the east, on the horizon and to the west, the last bit of purple light, fading behind the White Mountains in NH. No snow on MT. Washington this morning as I went by a neighbor’s field with a good view of it.
Trophy hunting and trapping are diseases, imposed by hunters, trappers and wildlife agencies, extreme minorities of the general population, upon game species and the public. Hunting is not good for the wildlife ecology, upsetting the health of game species and the balanced ecology of prey and predator. It is absurdly asinine as management tools (excuse for hunting). Man no longer needs hunting or trapping for subsistence. Predators, such as the wolf, bear, lion, coyote cull the weak, vulnerable, and make the herds move, thereby increasing their health. Man hunting, blood sports, especially trophy hunting, kills the strong and healthy and the teachers and caretakers of the young, and disrupts families. Man hunting (predation) is additive to game herds, a negative viability effect. Hunting is not healthy for man or targeted animals. It is a rationalization of hunters and wildlife agencies for killing wildlife, called management or recreational opportunity. Wildlife viewing, especially adding in wildlife photography, can be just as challenging. Wildlife viewing is also more of a revenue benefit for the economy and 5 times more popular than hunting. If the state wildlife agencies, and USFWS, and USDA Wildlife Services could be switched from wildlife killers to wildlife enhancers and facilitators of wildlife viewing, it would be better for wildlife, the public, and even the mental health of the hunters and trappers; and would move mankind closer to what we entertain ourselves as: humane, humanity, a part of nature instead of apart from it, but no longer subsisting on it.
Beautifully spoken and amen, Roger.
A part of nature instead of apart from it. These killing numbers are more than my mind can take in. I just see piles and piles of beings with dead eyes which were once deep beautiful brown living eyes. I think of my in-law deer hunters. They want us to have Christmas with them. No way are we sitting around with a bunch of hick hunters watching them slobber down venison.
I am not at all popular with my in-laws. I am blamed for turning my husband vegan.
Good for you; way to go!
As amatter of fact there are not a bunch of hunters. There are only two in-law hunters-my husbands sister and her husband. And they are getting on in years. My sister-in-law never hunted before she fell in love with a nimrod. Soon enough she was taught how to hunt. Now she raises cows for slaughter with her husband hunter. It is just an unholy mess.
Well done, Roger!
Reblogged this on Wolf Is My Soul and commented:
Disgusting!!
Well written Roger and good information. Melody as usual I love your writing and your unique view. Your descriptions form pictures in my mind. And your humor is out of sight!
Thanks, Denderah! I lack Roger’s ability to write a research paper full of facts everyone should be made aware of because basically, I am a songwriter, not a scientist but I love science and nature and healing arts. Your stories tell me of life in the southwest and are very interesting, very filled with emotion, too. And we both preach that folks should leave the coyotes alone! Here, we don’t have a coyote problem, we have a stupid human problem. It boggles the mind that humans think that they can ‘manage’ coyotes, or wolves for that matter! We have wolves here, but officially no one admits to it. They had a coyote round up one town over and slaughtered them. Maine has almost no rules for coyote hunting, it is horrible! They even kill them during gestation periods. Makes me sick. I know wolves will rout out coyotes. But by killing off wolves and coyotes the lack of mates sometimes causes them to mate with coyotes or dogs. Plus, humans breed wolfdogs for profit, although that is illegal now, here, it is still done. I rescue them. I don’t have coy-wolves, I have never seen one in public or the wild, just photos of dead ones. I think it makes for a potentially very large coyote with no fear of humans or smaller wolves who can’t take down their normal prey?
All I have here are freighting sled dogs left over from the days before snow machines. They have some wolf content but each one is different. I am the only person that takes oldtime freighting wolfdogs for dying mushers and gives them a safe, healthy home here. These animals ancestors were the real, original ice road truckers. There really isn’t a whole lot of difference between an oldtime woolie Mackenzie River Malamute and a Gray Wolf except for the curled tail tipped in white, white eyebrows and sometimes, feet. They do have shorter legs and wider chests. But many Malamutes were used in movies as wolves. The ones from Iron Will came from a famous breeder in NH.
My rescues are all Canadian bloodlines, some from Quebec, some from NWT. I have one of the last living Mackenzie River Wolf/Malamutes from freighting lines in Maine. She is 8 now and showing her age but is still the alpha female. I have the traditional Arctic Gray Wolf that was mixed with Native freighting Dogs, too. He is younger. All white with black around his yellow eyes. He is beautiful, as is Zoey. I am not a breeder, my females are all spayed. The state requires it. I have a rescue that is also a living history museum of ancient bloodlines, the last of their kind.
Wild dogs-I hear them far off at night and they give me such joy. They have an eerie voice. I have never had that kind of happiness around people. Lucky you with your wolf friends. The story of the coyotes rounded up and killed in the town over is dreadful. Yeah I have too much emotion when it comes to animals. I never get over the horror stories. But yet I am glad I have the emotion even if it makes me sick. We have a stupid human problem here too. You should see my neighborhood-and I am the only vegan. I have rescued feral cats for years
For some reason my comment board only allows me so much space. Anyway I have this reputation as a nuisance vegan. There was a peacock holocaust here bullets and dead bodies. A pod of birds beautiful birds everyone should have enjoyed lived here once upon a time. But there are animal haters and the guns started firing. We trapped as many peacocks as we could and transferred them to someone’s large acreage. But dead birds were all over the street. Animal control defended the shooter as having the right.
There is a wound on this land. I won’t get over the sorrow. So when I read of the wolves and all the others I feel this rage I must contain.
I know the feeling so well.
If peope don’t like animals, they shoudn’t live in wild places!