Cross a moose of the bucket list

My wife's family has a farm in Indiana with lots of deer, but in the 46 years we've been married, I've never hunted or killed one. Maybe I would, but I'm too lazy to sit in a tree stand in freezing weather waiting for just the right deer to walk by. However, I do eat other people's deer sausage and have no problem with other people hunting. In fact, we allow two guys to hunt on the property, and if they didn't, the deer would become so over-populated that many of them would starve.

We were in Alaska this past June for a wedding, and later, after the wedding, while we were sitting around a campfire, a relative of the bride put some meat over the fire. She told me it was moose steaks and offered me one. It was delicious. As for me, though, I would not want to tackle the job of field dressing a half-ton animal and carting the meat to my vehicle, which might be half a mile away.

A few years ago, on our first visit to Alaska, just north of Anchorage along the Glenn Highway, I was surprised to see a group of people in the median field dressing a moose that had been hit by a car. I later learned that the meat from animals killed in this way is processed and distributed to area food banks. What a great idea.

Wanton killing of animals is obviously bad. Hunting under carefully controlled conditions to provide food for your family is fine with me.

I'm an excellent shot with pistol or rifle, but I seldom hunt. However, if I needed to obtain my food by hunting, I certainly would. And if I liked the taste of deer better than I do the taste of beef, I would hunt them as well. But, I prefer beef.

It's sad that today's city kids have absolutely no idea about where their food comes from, the challenges of raising it (whether grain or meat), and thus no appreciation for the life of the animal or the labor involved in producing it. Hunters have this appreciation and are careful to not waste the food that nature has provided them through hunting.

Jock,
You are so right about culture. In a rural area if you have an elk in the back of your truck people give you a thumbs up and come and talk to you. As you get closer to the city people are flipping you off. I've never met a hunter in 50 years that wastes anything. Of course there are poachers, but they are dealt with harshly by both the law and their community. It's morally and legally wrong to waste any game and the best conservationists are the sportsmen that use the resources. When I lived in LA it angered me when I went up to the mountains outside the city and saw nothing but beer cans and dirty diapers all around. You just don't see that in Idaho, we just have too much respect for nature and people that don't respect those values are called out.