Deer Crossings

My buddy, Frank, recently sent me an email concerning deer crossings. I will put this one in the category of….you have to see it to believe it! So….after you read today’s column and get past my rant about our overall lack of common sense…then check out the YouTube video below…and you too will sit and scratch your head.

This may come as a surprise to some of you…and as no surprise to many, if not all of you here in southern Indiana…but we are in an era of incredible ignorance when it comes to the subject of nature. Somehow we have lost our roots and in doing so…we have lost touch with reality. It probably won’t come as a shock that I am not a PETA person, in fact I saw a T shirt a year or so ago that had PETA spelled out and below it read…People Eating Tasty Animals! Now, whether you are a hunter or not it is probably not a news flash to you that we need to manage animal populations. In fact you don’t have to go back more than about 100 years to see that game management here in the United States has brought several species back from the edge of extinction. The whitetail deer is one of those species…we have done such a good job that we need to control the population and to me it just makes sense to do so by allowing hunters to pursue and bag a certain percentage of the ‘overflow’. 

Even if you are not a hunter you should be enthused by the resounding success that many of our state game agencies have had. Hunters pay a big share of the costs involved in and with these programs through license fees and taxes on guns, ammo, etc… If you don’t believe me then just take a quick peak at the Pittman Robertson act, otherwise known as the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration act of 1937. This law is an 11% excise tax on all firearms and ammo sold in the US and the funds raised has helped not only deer but wild turkeys, wood ducks and a slough(pun intended) of other critters. At today’s rate of expense the P-R act generates somewhere between 177 and 324 million dollars per year…so, when you see a deer, etc….or take a walk on a beautiful piece of federal land….thank a hunter for their  contribution.

All these numbers lead me back to the original thought that we have just lost our own good common sense when it comes to hunting, fishing and wildlife in general. If you have not seen or even heard of the Robertson’s from Louisiana then may I suggest a TV show for you to watch? Duck Dynasty is on A & E and is my very favorite show…even replacing The Andy Griffith Show! This is a show about family, hunting, good times and all the goofy things that can and does go on with a group of Cajun rednecks. The show is a spin-off of Duck Commanders which is a duck hunting show with the same group of family members…however Duck Dynasty is less about hunting and more about the production of their many family products like their duck calls, etc…. If you want to see a group of people that really enjoy and take advantage of nature and all the bounty it has to offer then by all means check them out…you will laugh hysterically as they all go through their daily lives; by the way the family has made a fortune but still takes time to sit down and eat as a group on a weekly basis, and usually their meal consists of frog legs, fried crappie or catfish or a meal of duck gumbo!

All this leads me back to our deer crossing title…watch the video below and just listen to how ignorant people can actually be….. You may not be prepared for this one and I am not going to actually give it away…just a hint that deer don’t actually read!

It is my hope that through these past few years you have taken more of an interest in nature and our outdoor world while reading my column and that with good common sense we will all be able to better Enjoy the Great Outdoors.

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