It drives me nuts to have to sit inside and type on the computer. I think, upon reflection, that this may be a learned trait rather than simply genetics.
When I was a kid the internet did not exist. Television was limited to a couple of channels. Saturday morning had cartoons like "Tom and Jerry," but any daytime television was geared to the stay-at-home mom.
My entertainment came from outdoors activities. We had no close neighbors, no baseball team, so I went to the woods.
The forests taught me a way of life. The kid who played in the woods became a predator — a hunter and trapper.
The woodlands also taught me respect. I saw how hard the animals struggled for survival. The quest for food ruled all. I was a marauder, but one with a conscience.
Conscience distinguishes us from other predatory animals. The wolf who kills because he can, and feeds on his prey while it still lives, has no empathy. He has no need for sympathy because wolves can rarely kill enough excess to matter in the big scheme of things.
People are a different cut of cat altogether. I have written in the past of folks who term themselves hunters, who kill porcupines along the road, shoot gulls and ravens at their camps and generally show disrespect for living things. I am not certain if these once-a-season woodsmen do this from boredom or laziness. Whatever their reasoning, it makes no sense to me.
[What is a sport hunter? Words don't always fit a person's motivation]
A recent event along the Richardson Highway saddened me. One day last week, I drove to town from our place south of Delta Junction. I passed a guy and his two kids hunting hares along the roadside. Varying hares are plentiful this spring, and the roadside ditches are just beginning to green-up, bringing the bunnies to vulnerable areas. Mating season is also in full swing so these little guys are not carrying a full load of smarts with them.
My thought upon seeing the hunters was, "Cool, dad is teaching his kids how to get dinner."
Sixty years in the woods and I'm still naive. Two hours later, I was headed home to find at least 20 dead hares shot and left in the ditch. I had not been smart enough to get a license plate, and in all honesty I did not even remember the type of vehicle.
What type of person possesses such a disrespect for life? This guy was passing on his contempt for the living to the next generation. Casual, senseless murder of a living thing.
There are those who suggest the hunting or trapping of any living creature can be looked upon the same way. Dead is dead. But the difference between killing for fun and killing for food is not a fine line. It is a chasm.
The wolf who kills more than his immediate need cannot be chastised for that transgression. His genetics have programmed him to survive. Food is his overriding quest.
Humans have long outgrown that genetic trigger, or maybe we never had it. As hunters and outdoors people, we need to have respect for living critters. It is OK to take animals or raise animals for food, but jumping for joy upon taking a life should not be part of the equation.
Forty years ago, two kids who lived in Paxson stopped at my cabin. They triumphantly displayed a muskrat they had just shot.
"Why did you shoot that?" I asked. I got a blank look and an "I don't know" in reply.
I showed the kids how to skin it and make a stretcher for the hide. We cleaned, fried and ate it, and the kids pronounced it "good!" I have since lost track of those kids, who would now be in their 50s, but I am still simple enough to think that short lesson might have carried into their later life.
My point? Take your children outside. Communicate the struggles of wildlife, even if it be those of the mice in your backyard. The television cannot teach that, nor can the internet. Hands-on is the way to teach that it is only permissible to take a life with good reason, and to define the chasm between fun and need.
John Schandelmeier is a lifelong Alaskan who lives with his family near Paxson.