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Hunting Facts

October 20th, 2008 ecological

It may not seem like something you’d picture me doing, but I completed the Virginia Game and Inland Fisheries hunter safety course this weekend in order to get my hunting license. I always go to great lengths to avoid killing any member of the animal kingdom (my rule is that it has to be in the imminent act of biting me), but as long as I remain an omnivore, someone’s got to do it. It’s time for me to man up and participate in the food chain. As far as carnivorism goes, venison is lean, free-range, organic, delicious, and essentially free. As far as ethics are concerned, which is worse: a shot through the heart or a disease-ridden starvation on a cold winter night?

Some interesting facts:

• The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries is completely self-supported through license fees and taxes on firearms and ammunition, no general tax money. (A lot more government services should be run this way.)
• The list of federally protected birds of prey includes eagles, falcons, hawks, vultures, and crows.
• By the 1930’s in Virginia, deer were hunted to near extinction by market hunting (as opposed to sport hunting) where hunters would kill dozens of deer and sell the meat as a job.
• To reintroduce the animal, they were trapped in the upper-peninsula of Michigan brought to this area. If not for the revenues of sport hunting, this would not have been possible and the deer would have become extinct.
• Hunting permits have been on the decline in the last 5 years due to public pressures.
• 5% of the population hunts. 5% of the population is anti-hunting.
• Virginia had 47 hunting incidents last year: 5 fatal, 19 with shotguns, 16 involving falling out of treestands, and 16 self-inflicted.
• In 1992, the year Virginia started it’s mandatory blaze orange law, hunter-on-hunter fatalities went from 5 to 0.
• Pennsylvannia is the only state with a primative weapons season which requires mandatory flint-lock muzzle-loaders like the settlers used.
• Squirrels were the primary source of protein for settlers of Southwest VA.
• Coyotes are becoming more common in southwest Virginia because the deer population is soaring. One of the instructors has trapped two on Virginia Tech property in this year alone.
• Groundhog pelts sell for $1.50, used as glove-liners. The instructor has trapped 352 thus far this season.
• Never stalk a turkey, you’re likely to be following the sound of another hunter making turkey calls.
• If you get lost in the woods, admit you’re lost, stop and make a plan. The average person wandering lost in the woods walks in a 1.5 mile circle.
• It is illegal to hunt deer from a boat in VA.