Posted on 09/17/2005 9:08:12 PM PDT by neverdem
GREEN MOUNTAIN NATIONAL FOREST, Vt. - Chomping wad after wad of Bubblicious Strawberry Splash gum and giggling as she tickled people's necks with a piece of grass she pretended was a spider, Samantha Marley could have been any 9-year-old girl.
A couple of things set her apart, though. She was cloaked in camouflage from boots to baseball cap. And propped next to her on the seat of a truck was her very own 20-gauge shotgun.
Samantha, a freckle-faced, pony-tailed fourth grader, was on a bear hunt. Not the pretend kind memorialized in picture books and summer-camp chants, but a real one for black bears that live in the woods of southwestern Vermont and can weigh 150 pounds or more.
She had won a "dream hunt" given away by a Vermont man whose goal is to get more children to hunt, and she had traveled about 200 miles from her home in Bellingham, Mass., and was missing three days of school to take him up on his offer.
"Almost everything you hunt is pretty fun," said Samantha, grinning and perfectly at home with a group of five men, the youngest of whom was nearly three times her age.
At one point, as the group crossed a wooden bridge, Samantha's father, Scott, who had accompanied her - and had filled out her application for the hunting contest - teased her that trolls lived under the bridge.
"Dad," Samantha said with bravado, "I got a gun."
The dream hunt - all expenses paid, including taxidermy - was the brainchild of Kevin Hoyt, a 35-year-old hunting instructor who quit a job as a structural steel draftsman a few years ago and decided to dedicate himself to getting children across the country interested in hunting.
His efforts reflect...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Jodi Hilton for The New York Times
Samantha Marley, 9, on a “dream hunt”for bear in Vermont this month, organized by Kevin Hoyt, left.
Jodi Hilton for The New York Times
Chris LaFlamme, left, and Bobby Phillips released their hounds after the dogs sniffed out a bear trail.
I don't agree with this but I can't believe this on the cover of the Slimes.
why?
I just don't. It's nothing something I'd want my children doing.
They're under adult supervision. What's the problem?
What don't you agree with?
I would not want my children hunting. That's all. It's creepy.
Yo! Ethel! Git over here!!!
glock...go GET her!!! :)
I don't care for it. Not something I want my children doing, hunting down animals.
Hunting is creepy????
Is hunting bear with a 20 gauge advisable?
It is to me. It's not something I'd want my children to do. Other people want to that's fine. I'm not telling other people what to do with their children. It's against my personal principles.
If they don't learn young, they'll almost never get to like it. The animals will overgrow sustainable, healthy populations because there are not enough hunters or predators.
I would say that is one lucky kid. I didn't get my BB gun until I was ten. I got my first shotgun at age twelve.
If kids were educated about firearms at an early age there would be fewer accidents, and less opportunities for the gun-grabbers to preach about "gun violence."
Yes but some people have no interest in having their children hunt animals. It's simply not something my children will do until they become adults and then they can do whatever they want. Someone can shoot it. There'll always be hunters. My children just won't be any.
I shoot, and while I personally have never hunted, it would seem to me like a good skill to have. You never know when you might need it.
Anybody know what kind of dogs they're using?
They look like some kind of Great Dane or Mastiff cross.
[I'm guessing based on the brindle coats and head shape]
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