Hunting for our new place in the forest It is now late summer, the evening air is just a little colder, a shade nippier. It is a time that portends coming change. Late summer is when I begin to dream of fall. I dream of drifting gold and red leaves, bare branches preparing for the long winter sleep. Oak acorns fall in rhythmic crackles on carpets of dead leaves. In this dream, my head leans against a tree while I listen to the soft patter of snow on the bark. It is as evocative as the sound of drums beating from across the river. Deer drift past the edge of my vision - soundless ghosts in the twilight. A grey doe wanders past the edge of steep draw, momentarily crossing my lane of fire. I draw my bow, the muscles of my arm quivering in the cold. The wind which until now blew against my face suddenly whipped and swirled around. Grey turns into a leaping flash of white, as the doe smells something-not-quite-right and takes off into the safety of dense brush. I let down, breathe harder yet.. a rush of blood clouds my vision, pumping through my brain till my temples throb. I lean back against the tree, the world vanishes. Mostly, I dream of fall. I dream of the soft scent of pine, filtered sunlight through the treetops. I watch my breath in the air. Today, it is wet and ice rims the tree trunks. The treestand is too dangerous to use today as foul winds mutter and scream through the treetops. I sink back into my hastily built blind. My bow shivers in the rain.. "Wet feather", I mutter to myself. "Watch those wet feathers, or you won't be hunting today any more...". The wind picks up, the soft scent of pine is now a harsh mix of pine and cold wet earth. I take deeper breaths. A few acres of lonely woods becomes my universe. In our technocentric world (and one that I revel in otherwise), there is both an increasing disconnect between man and "nature", as well as an increasing number of those who will do anything to regain that connection, be it for brief, fleeting moments at a time. I have often wondered at how the human animal has managed to quite successfully take his species relationship with the natural world from helpless dependance to de-facto control. We are unfortunately, at a particular position in our socio-technological ladder of evolution, where this control is used as an excuse to isolate humans from the natural world. Isolation, driven by guilt over consumptive practices decried by watermelon enviro-activists around the world. Driven also by the fear engendered by the very power of control.. This fear that drives many to attempt to extinguish human activities which require incredibly up-close and personal contact with Nature.. blood, guts and all. Consider hunting. Less a sport, and more of an art form mixed in with science, this ancient and revolutionary human activity is evolving in step with technological advances and its associated social changes. We rarely hunt for food in any serious fashion, except for a fraction of the rural population. Hunting has become not merely a game-management tool, but a very effective ecosystem management tool for forestry departments across much of North America. Absent other predators, humans are the "keystone species" who are responsible for designing, crafting and maintaining large and complex ecosystems. Controlled hunting has managed to keep most forest eco-systems in North America thriving and in balance. Hunting today is awash in high-tech, and much of it has been accepted uncomplainingly by the weekend hunter. Bows today are high-tech machines, cradling carbon-composite arrows mounted with broadheads tested in wind-tunnels. Fiber-optic sights for low-light acquisition. GPS takes you to your hunting spot. IR game finders help you find downed game. Camo-painted 4X4's help you cart the animal to a well-kept butchering station to be eviscerated on its way to your well-stocked suburban freezer. An email later that night to your forest ranger with the animal stats, lat-long of where you made the kill, all goes into a database of tracking information for next years quota. All very precise, all very scientific, and all still somehow exciting and primitive and heart-pounding at the same time. But something is missing. This purely utilitarian view of hunting hides the real reason most sportsmen go afield. Aside from the simple pleasure of being outdoors, I know why I really go out to hunt. I go to hold the balance of life and death in my hands. It is quite simply that. When I draw on a deer, visions of population-management methodologies do not dance in front of my eyes. It is kill, or let live. It is a conscious decision to take or to spare, the life of a prey animal. It is a controlled surrender to one's blood-lust. It is an raw animal emotion that no amount of technology I carry on me can diminish. The best hunters I know freely admit to it. Some even embrace it eagerly even if most are understandably a little coy about the whole thing. This blood lust is also something that disturbs most urban non-hunters the most. It is also what drives the vegan animal rights activist completely batty.. it is an indictment of their philosophy of isolationism and their Lamarckian belief that cultural conditioning against activities like hunting actually stand a chance in hell against our genes. The remarkable ease with which the average modern man (and woman) can relate to hunting once they are given the opportunity to do so demonstrates how thin the veneer of technology and urban civilization is. The almost universal satisfaction gained after a difficult but successful stalk, or a well-planned treestand ambush, demonstrates fully the power of the natural-born predator lurking within each one of us. This predatory instinct is so strong, short of serious genetic re-engineering of the human species to remove these predispositions, we need to recognize, accept and learn to work with this blood lust and hunting instinct latent within us. Anything less would be an opportunity lost, and a deep-set human desire, denied expression. Godless comments: Trust me to pick a few nits with Suman's excellent post:

Hunting today is awash in high-tech...

It's true that modern implements have made hunting even easier. But we shouldn't forget that man's weapons have never been his hands and teeth. The use of technology in hunting - spears, fire, clubs - is as old as homo sapiens itself.

The remarkable ease with which the average modern man (and woman) can relate to hunting

Not to be nitpicky, but I think men are more likely to get "into" hunting than women, for aforementioned primeval reasons. The above might be more accurate if it were "man (and some women)".

This predatory instinct is so strong, short of serious genetic re-engineering of the human species to remove these predispositions, we need to recognize, accept and learn to work with this blood lust and hunting instinct latent within us. Anything less would be an opportunity lost, and a deep-set human desire, denied expression.

Well, most people do manage to go about their day-to-day basis without killing things. And a substantial portion of India goes without even eating meat. So I don't think that we need to hunt to be happy, though I have nothing against people doing it if they want to. While there are instincts programmed into us by the millennia of evolution spent in the hunter-gatherer phase, I don't know that a compulsion to hunt is among them. On the other hand, perhaps televised sports and (nowadays) televised wars provide a vicarious substitute for the violent ancestral lives that we miss. I'm not aware of any society that didn't have some outlet for male aggression, whether it be the Coliseum or the Coliseum. Razib's Muslim perspective (sort of): Hindus might shy away from killing and eating animals-but some of them are OK with butchering Muslims. Actually though, I think brawling is a violent outlet similar to hunting-you tend to find a target you perceive as weaker than you and bait and bite. Is brawling less prevalent or more so in vegetarian areas? I know straight edge youth have a reputation for being violent and rowdy....