Cheap shots

I still remember my first time. It happened more than 10 years ago as I and a friend (OK, a now-ex-boyfriend) had been riding on a remote Forest Service road, with no particular destination in mind. Hours of pouring over maps and a little naive optimism told us there had to be singletrack around there somewhere. Autumn was breathing a last, glorious breath, and winter was closing in quick – meaning it could be our last high-country, two-wheeled adventure for a while.

However, nearly two hours had failed to yield the Fat Tire Shangri-La we were seeking, and we decided to turn back once we rounded the next bend. We stopped amidst a stand of conifer, and that’s when we saw him, not more than 30 feet away. So silent and still, he escaped detection at first, his long legs and massive rack blending seamlessly with his surroundings. Without saying a word, the Ex pointed toward the massive animal, who either did not notice or did not care that we were spying on him.

I gasped as my eyes finally focused on the outline of a bull elk, perfectly poised as if in a painting. It was my first up-close and personal “wildlife moment,” seeing as how I had only recently traded in my city slicker status for that of official ski bum. As is the case with most wilderness neophytes, I stood in awe, trying to determine exactly what it was I was looking at.

The Ex saw the perplexed look on my face. “It’s an elk,” he whispered.

“Uh huh,” I nodded, agape, eyes fixed on what almost seemed an apparition.

I stood there like a dummy, partly out of amazement and partly out of fear. Coming from the flatland suburbs of the Midwest, elk were completely foreign to me. Did they stampede, bite, attack, maim or kill?

I decided I didn’t want to find out. Besides, I couldn’t help but feel as if I was an intruder in someone else’s home, an unabashed voyeur. The elk didn’t seem to mind, but I did, and once I collected myself, I apologetically turned to leave.

Back in civilization, I could hardly wait to regale my hunter friends with my experience.

“How many points did he have?” they would invariably ask. “You know, spikes on his rack?”

The fact was, I hadn’t looked or even thought about it and wondered why such a silly thing would matter. But it did, I soon learned. The more points there were, the older – and more elusive – the animal, and thus, the more prestigious the “trophy.”

What I had stumbled upon by accident, most hunters wait years if not a lifetime to find in the wild. And while I cannot profess an urge to hunt (I get squeamish killing spiders), I respect others’ desire to do so.

In addition to fulfilling some sort of basic, human instinct, as I’ve been told, it affords peace, solitude, sport and a freezer full of meat. Plus, it helps keep the ecosystem in balance. Most of the hunters I know are ethically minded, using fair hunting practices, taking only what they need and using what they take. I even know a man who tans and wears the hides and have friends who get downright giddy over fresh road kill. Of course, they admit they’d be lying if they said rack size didn’t matter. It’s sort of like bonus points, if you’ll pardon the pun.

It is this sort of approach that helped me, in my early years living in the West, to reconcile hunting with childhood notions of Bambi and Thumper. Humankind has been hunting since the dawn of history, and I came to understand that the taking of animals is a natural extension of the food chain. And in more adventurous times, I have sampled such takings, from the mainstay venison stew to bear (too gamey) and mountain lion (tastes like chicken). I have even tried alligator (tastes like an old shoe), although I suspect it was farm raised rather than wild harvested.

The point of this gastronomical trip down memory lane is not to gross out the reader, but to illustrate how this once-experimental vegetarian has come to terms with meat and where it comes from. It is not something that magically appears wrapped in plastic on store shelves – it is a long trip from pasture to processing plant. And to those do-it-yourselfers who like to cut out the middle man, more power to you.

But just when I think I’ve got it all figured out, along comes the poacher – someone who defies all logic and argument by killing for nothing but an animal’s head. All I can figure is these people suffer from an acute deficit of gray matter – how else do you explain bullet-riddled elk statues? I’ve even heard of pot shots at front lawn reindeer this time of year.

And as funny as this may seem, it is not nearly so comical when they actually manage to hit a live target, as was the case with the decapitated buck in Greenmount Cemetery last month. Some of you may know this buck from quiet rides through the cemetery or as the cover photo on our Nov. 17 issue. On Thanksgiving Day, he was shot at close range, likely with a handgun, hastily beheaded execution style, with his body left to rot. The irony of it taking place on the last Thursday in November, the day we supposedly reserve for giving thanks for the blessing of food, was not lost on me. Nor was the fact that it took place in a supposed sacred place of refuge. And I couldn’t get over the feeling that our cover photo, what was meant as a quiet “wildlife moment,” probably played a role.

But perhaps the most ironic part of all was that this buck, killed for its trophy rack, was probably stuffed and hanging on a wall somewhere – a constant reminder of what a hollow victory it was.

– Missy Votel