Girls and Boys, Meet Nature. Bring Your Gun.

NY Times ^ | September 18, 2005 | PAM BELLUCK

[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...

[Bear_Slayer]

Several years ago a 15-year-old boy shot and killed a grizlie in the Creston area of the Flathead valley.

The young man had taken gone outside in the early evening and found a grizzlie in the chicken coop. It alerted on him and charged. He killed it with 20 ga slug.

My son shot and killed a 375 black bear with with the same gun this young lady is using. He happen to have the .243 barrel attached and not the 20ga barrel.

[Bear_Slayer]

Several years ago a 15-year-old boy shot and killed a grizlie in the Creston area of the Flathead valley.

The young man had taken gone outside in the early evening and found a grizzlie in the chicken coop. It alerted on him and charged. He killed it with 20 ga slug.

My son shot and killed a 375 lb black bear with with the same gun this young lady is using. He happen to have the .243 barrel attached and not the 20ga barrel.

[Maigrey]

That is your choice as a parent, but I went hunting with my father as a child, and enjoyed it immensely.

Now, he doesn't have the health to do so, but I still enjoy making things go bang. Heck, I've even encouraged my hasband to "allow" me to expand the MManor arsenal, and he's now finally agreed.

If you teach your kids to respect the tool, and how to handle it, then later they can make a decision to go hunting.

[neverdem]

My problem is, most people don't eat bear. I've never liked trophy hunting; I've always believed if you killed it you should eat it. Otherwise, it seems like a waste.

Donate the meat to a charity feeding the poor. If it's not too tasty, well that's why our Creator gave us spices. New Jersey is so over populated with black bears that the head of the NY Department of Conservation sent a letter to its NJ counterpart an official letter to resume bear hunts. N.Y. wildlife official wants N.J. bear hunt. They are killing pets. One killed an infant in Sullivan County, NY. Woodridge Focus Of Tragedy

[Wonder Warthog]

WW"The earlier training starts, the better trained they will be."

RH"And here is where we will never agree."

Uh, have you heard of "Eddie Eagle"?? Firearms training should start as early as the parent thinks the child can absorb the teaching. Firearms safety training can start as soon as the kid can understand "don't touch the stove".

[neverdem]

Treeing a bear with dogs is unsportsmanlike. It is closer to an execution than hunting.

See comment# 284. Whether it is sportsmanlike or not, these critters need to be controlled. If someone uses dogs, that's their business, IMHO.

[Racehorse]

Uh, have you heard of "Eddie Eagle"?? Firearms training should start as early as the parent thinks the child can absorb the teaching. Firearms safety training can start as soon as the kid can understand "don't touch the stove".

We don't feed oats to no dead horses, so please stop trying to feed this one.

In each reply I've repeatedly said in a variety of ways that though I adamantly disagree, parents are the people who should make the decision whether or not to arm their little kids. I just don't have to like it or respect it.

[billnaz]

"I should tell you I'm from Long Island. And where I live, it's illegal to have chickens or horses and whatnot."

Even though it diminishes every year, there is still a lot of agricultural land on the island, especially out east. And on the subject of guns, my wife grew up on Long Island with guns in the house. Her brother went hunting with his uncle all the time.

[neverdem]

I should tell you I'm from Long Island. And where I live, it's illegal to have chickens or horses and whatnot.

IIRC, you're going to college in Brooklyn. Let me take a wild guess. You don't drive, do you? Otherwise, I don't know how you missed watching all the trailers with race horses being hauled, coming and going on Long Island's highways.

[rock58seg]

Thanks but it's easier just to use woolite.

Of course 55 years ago, when a certain family of boys, (not me) veiwed the finding of a skunk on the way to school as a day off, it might have been very handy for the teacher to have had around.

[rock58seg]

Don't judge Texas by the veiw's of Racehorse. Hunting and fishing or alive and thriving. There are however, no public lands for hunting. So you either need to know somebody or get an expensive lease. Of course leases do prevent overhunting, and you know the skill/common sense level of the other hunters on a lease with you.

[Racehorse]

Don't judge Texas by the veiw's of Racehorse. Hunting and fishing or alive and thriving

Never said it wasn't.  So, I don't know what you're talking about.

The dead but still contorting horse has to do with loading up babies with firearms.  That's all.

[luckystarmom]

I agree, and I grew up with a family of hunters.

I have no problem with people hunting for food. It's their choice.

I do have a problem with people enjoying killing living things.

[neverdem]

The NYT sees this as the opposite from the way you do.

I don't know what the Times is trying to do except try to make money, increase circulation, live down a well earned reputation for being biased and still have an obvious bias just from looking at their titles. Take a gander at their digital front page on which this story is a minor link, and compare it to the images of the city and national editions, respectively. Go figure.

(URL=http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/09/18/nytfrontpage/scan.jpg)

(URL=http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/09/18/nytfrontpage/scannat.jpg)

[Squantos]

Aww the NY Slimes is so two faced they are sending their reporters here for other than reporting reasons....

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16646618%255E23289,00.html

[rock58seg]

Oh you poor thing.

However, I know in Jamaica, Queens there are some Carribean "places" where you can buy eggs and live animals and have them "Processed" for you. My daughter usually buys rabbits for Easter Dinner there. Her God-Father has a (strange ?) sense of humor.

When I lived in Richmond Hill I used to take my Polish Mother in law there. Sutphin blvd. I think.

If you're really nice to them, they will even catch the blood for you in a jar, with a small amount of vinegar. Then you can make the Polish black soup delicacy called "chuenyenna".

[neverdem]

LOL! Thanks for the link. I'll post it later if nobody else has.

[rock58seg]

You're right. I did attribute a thought to you that you didn't make. My apologies.

[strategofr]

"Also I believe there were nutritional benefits."

I'm pretty sure that, before the invention of vitamin pills, meat was probably the best way to ingest a good variety of vitamins. To put it simply, let the animal roam the environment, eating all sorts of different plants, each with a few vitamins and minerals. Then eat the animal and get it all at once. Since the invention of vitamin pills, I think the nutritional rationale for meat eating is weaker.

[dljordan]

"I don't agree with this but I can't believe this on the cover of the Slimes."

Don't agree with what? That the kid should be hunting?