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Girls and Boys, Meet Nature. Bring Your Gun.
NY Times ^ | September 18, 2005 | PAM BELLUCK

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 ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Extended News; Front Page News; Government; Politics/Elections; US: Colorado
KEYWORDS: banglist; hunting; juvenilehunting
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To: cyborg
My cousins teenage children thought the chicken they eat came from Stop&Shop. They all ran in horror when my brother showed them how to dress one.

My grandmother told me once that until she was a teenager she never ate any meat that she did not see slaughtered and dressed.

They ate my mothers "pet" lamb when she was 9, she has been an animal rights activist since.

Get over it, you eat or are eaten. Knowing how to feed yourself is never a bad thing, even for childrens.
41 posted on 09/17/2005 9:33:06 PM PDT by mmercier (dancing on the light, from star to star)
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To: afnamvet

Wow that's amazing. Thank you for your service!


42 posted on 09/17/2005 9:33:09 PM PDT by cyborg (Thank you dear Lord for my new job and the breath in my lungs.)
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To: neverdem

Wait until a major social disruption happens. Then we'll see whether it's good or not to have a gun, NYT.


43 posted on 09/17/2005 9:33:17 PM PDT by struggle ((The struggle continues))
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To: cyborg

Do ya fish ?


44 posted on 09/17/2005 9:33:44 PM PDT by Squantos (Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet. ©)
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To: mmercier

Well you are welcome to disagree with my opinion.


45 posted on 09/17/2005 9:33:55 PM PDT by cyborg (Thank you dear Lord for my new job and the breath in my lungs.)
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To: datura
>>Hunting people, OTOH, is FUN.


46 posted on 09/17/2005 9:34:39 PM PDT by struggle ((The struggle continues))
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To: Squantos

No. I don't eat fish but even if I did, I wouldn't eat anything fish from around Long Island that's for sure. Too much poison in the fish.


47 posted on 09/17/2005 9:34:51 PM PDT by cyborg (Thank you dear Lord for my new job and the breath in my lungs.)
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To: struggle

Kids with guns OMG. What people do not realize is that those kids in WWII saved this country because they could shoot.


48 posted on 09/17/2005 9:34:57 PM PDT by lndrvr1972
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To: cyborg

Do you eat meat?


49 posted on 09/17/2005 9:35:17 PM PDT by ChefKeith ( If Diplomacy worked, then we would be sitting here talking...)
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To: SweetCornGiblets

Some people never understand that there are only two types of humans: Predator and prey.

Once you have the mindset of the former, you seldom if ever become the latter. Once one assumes the latter, they never become the former.

Our forefathers didn't claw their way to the top of the food chain in order for us to eat our vegetables. We're carnivores by design.

The meek shall inherit the $hit.


50 posted on 09/17/2005 9:35:25 PM PDT by datura (Molon Labe)
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To: Cannoneer No. 4

Hunting your own food teaches you a reverance for life that a non-hunter will never fully know.

Until you have killed, dressed and eaten your own animal, you can't truly appreciate the sanctity of all life.

After that, you'll never look casually at the store-bought beef steak laying on your plate.

You fully -understand- the significance of what you're eating and are never less than completely grateful for it.

The Indians had a good point when they "thanked the spirit" of the animals they had just slain.


To each his own but I thank my father for teaching me all that.



51 posted on 09/17/2005 9:36:30 PM PDT by Salamander (There's nothing that "MORE COWBELL!" can't fix.......)
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To: LauraleeBraswell

I started at 9 and I still do it at 52.


52 posted on 09/17/2005 9:36:58 PM PDT by JOHANNES801
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Comment #53 Removed by Moderator

To: Jasper

Beautiful, magnificent dogs.

Thanks for the info..:)

[off to Google Plott hounds, now]...;))


54 posted on 09/17/2005 9:37:39 PM PDT by Salamander (There's nothing that "MORE COWBELL!" can't fix.......)
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To: neverdem

I am a vegetarian, but not a vegan though I will be for health reasons. If someone needs to hunt for food well that's fine. I would rather someone who is hungry hunt their own meat than buy that processed crap in the stores.


55 posted on 09/17/2005 9:38:23 PM PDT by cyborg (Thank you dear Lord for my new job and the breath in my lungs.)
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To: neverdem

"The NY Times, who'd a thunk it?"

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


56 posted on 09/17/2005 9:38:24 PM PDT by strategofr (What did happen to those 293 boxes of secret FBI files (esp on Senators) Hillary stole?)
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To: neverdem

Great. And the "boy with his mother learning how to make curtains and fluff drapes article with photo" is right next to it. Time to get back to teaching our boys to protect and our girls to nurture.


57 posted on 09/17/2005 9:39:50 PM PDT by rjp2005
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To: cyborg
>> There'll always be hunters. My children just won't be any.

That is what happened to me. I have shot paper since I was 18, my mother told me when I bought my first rifle that if she ever found out I hunted she would disown me.

My little brother hunts with her three brothers and she did not disown him...

Still, I never hunt anything more than catfish out of respect for her mania.
58 posted on 09/17/2005 9:40:15 PM PDT by mmercier (a force to be reckoned with)
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To: mmercier

My 12 yr old daughter can take you down at 500 yards... ;)


59 posted on 09/17/2005 9:40:55 PM PDT by WKUHilltopper
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To: M1Gunnut


Hell yeah. I love steak. I know the cow gets slaughtered. But that doesn't mean I want to do it myself.


60 posted on 09/17/2005 9:41:37 PM PDT by LauraleeBraswell
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