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OPINION: Hey Conservation Department, Can You Move? I'm Trying To Shoot A Deer

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White-Tailed Deer

“Nobody desires what is bad, for what else is unhappiness but desiring bad things and getting them?” — Socrates

With that statement, the enigmatic gadfly, the father of modern philosophy does not mean everyone is good. He means everyone acts with what they believe are good intentions; it’s just that some people’s concept of “good” is so badly broken, they end up wrecking everything in pursuit of what they’ve decided is best.

So in the tradition of Socrates, I think the Missouri Department of Conservation desires to do what is good, in the way it has structured Missouri’s deer season. But I think in becoming the de facto definer of “good” when it comes to hunting, the MDC has too much power. And like any entity with too much power, it’s using that power poorly.

I’ll explain what I mean, and what I'm proposing. But first, two questions…

1. What’s the point of deer hunting?

Well, its benefits are legion. It cultivates a love for the outdoors, giving people an excuse to sit and enjoy some otherwise-rare solitude and silence in the woods. Hunting teaches good character qualities too: patience, preparation, perseverance, and a proper appreciation for living things. It’s also a great opportunity to learn firearms safety and practice shooting accurately. But what’s the point of deer hunting? Well, to kill a deer. And while some folks are just shooting for the thrill of it—perhaps donating the meat while keeping the antlers—I’d guess most are eager about the prospect of putting many pounds of healthy, tasty wild game in the freezer.

2. What’s the point of conservation?

Well, the Department of Conservation has a mission statement, but that’s not what I mean. I don’t think noble ideals must be achieved via government coercion, so I don’t think a state-level Department is needed in order to have conservation.

What, then, is the point of conservation? We conserve in order to be good stewards of our resources. We conserve in order to ensure the elimination of the undesirable and the endurance of the desirable. We conserve because we live not only for today, but for tomorrow; not only for ourselves, but for our grandchildren. But conservation is distinct from preservation: what is preserved is meant to be indefinitely kept in an undiminished state, but what is conserved is meant to be enjoyed with one eye on the future.

Now, a confession: I didn’t get a deer this season. That’s not wholly for lack of trying: I spent a morning and evening on the edge of the field where I know (by the copious tracks in the mud and the voracious nibbling on my newly-planted apple trees) they spend plenty of time. Ten feet off the ground, my back against an oak, clutching my Ruger 7mm magnum while shivering beneath layers of camo, I watched nothing happen for hours. Literally five minutes before the season ended (30 minutes after sunset), I stood in the stand and strained my eyes for any action across the dimming field... and scared off a deer that had apparently just walked around a brush pile about 75 yards away. The white tail bounced into the woods, and the season was over. I'm okay with it: my busy, tech-saturated life could use a little more “nothingness in the woods,” and I’ll try to get back out during antlerless “season” (a weekend) and hope to bag a doe.

My busy life is what precludes me from spending many mornings in the woods. I can get away occasionally, but not frequently. I know that fits the definition of a “personal problem,” but surely I’m not the only one. For those of us in busy seasons of life, Missouri’s brief deer season is unforgiving. Our opportunities are already limited, so we don’t need a state agency limiting them further. I want to hunt, and I want to maximize my chances for a successful season: what hunter doesn’t? What hunter prefers adding unnecessary obstacles? Well, I guess bowhunters do, and I admire them for it. But these days, finding time to get in the woods is enough of a challenge.

I’ll stop beating around the bush and just shoot straight here: the MDC should dramatically lengthen the deer season, and remove the absurd rule banning deer feeders within 10 days of the hunt. If the Department still feels compelled to constrain hunters and grow the deer population, they should limit hunters to taking fewer deer per hunter. That would allow hunters more freedom to work hunting into their schedule, rather than the “drop everything, it’s hunting season” approach that’s required by the current, far-too-short, 11-day firearms season.

And to those who’d retort, "Well, get a muzzleloader, or learn to bowhunt, if you want to lengthen your season." Please stop. I think all of those things sound like fun and fantastic hobbies, but they’re severely limiting to those of us who want to enjoy productive hunting and have already expended plenty of resources to do so without buying more weapons that are harder to kill deer with.

And to those who'd say, "Well, maybe the deer population is still too small, and you just don't have very many deer on your place." I can show you photos of copious fresh deer tracks on my hunting field, or of the shredded bark on my peach and cherry trees. There are plenty of deer on my place—too many, in my opinion. The MDC just won't give me a fair shot at thinning my own herd.

The problem with the MDC is, despite their efforts to nuance certain rules to fit certain cities/counties, a state agency is totally incapable of addressing the needs (or desires) of communities when it comes to their deer population. Deer “home range” size can vary, but a fair guess is somewhere between 300-500 acres in the Ozarks.

That means in our rural areas, many deer range across only a handful of property lines, if any, while in more developed areas, hundreds of homes are affected by a single cervid’s range. Missouri covers 44,617,600 acres, from cornfields to marshes to the Ozark mountains. Ninety-three percent of that is privately owned. Why can’t hunting and herd management happen on a more local level? Obviously if I kill every deer that crosses onto my property, that affects my neighbors—who may be happy if they’re gardeners and not hunters, but upset if they too hope for a chance at a successful hunt. But my hunting actions here at Lake of the Ozarks would have no direct impact on my fellow Missourians in Ozark County, way down on the Arkansas border. They wouldn’t really even have an impact on all the landowners in my own county. So then, why do we need a state agency telling us what color of clothing to wear on our private property, whether or not we can put out a grain feeder, and what days we’re allowed to put a buck in the crosshairs?

I already know who will balk at this proposal:

1. Folks who call themselves environmental conservationists (but who I’d argue are really “preservationists”) and will always resist any relaxing of hunting regulations

2. Folks who (inexplicably) want to see the deer population grow even larger in the state

3. Folks who think government’s rules are the only thing that causes individuals to restrain their own behavior — that without a handbook full of bureaucratic regulations, we’d all be vicious, wild animals

To the first two groups, I'd point to the increasing prevalence of Chronic Wasting Disease. With no more natural predators, hunters are the only thing that stands between Missourians and a catastrophic deer overpopulation problem. Is Missouri's deer population too large already? With no predators relying on them, that becomes a pretty subjective question. But it's undeniable that if the population were smaller (and it would be, if hunting regulations had been loosened years ago), CWD and other diseases would be less likely to spread. Those that did spread would diminish or wipe out localized populations but would be less likely to ripple across the state's herd. Mightn't it be in the best interest of conservation to significantly reduce the size of the state's herd, in light of the looming CWD crisis?

I grew up hunting on 1,000 acres of low brushland in deep south Texas. Chasing deer meant dodging massive mounds of cactus and thorny mesquite limbs, and keeping a sharp eye for rattlesnakes. I shot my first deer with my dad’s lever-action .30-30: a terrible shot, right in the gut, and we had to chase it through the aforementioned brush. My second deer was a 250+ yard shot, with Dad’s Winchester .270. It, too, was an unfortunate shot (though at 250 yards, I was happy to hit it): I hit the deer in the snout, and things got worse before they got better. Learning to hunt is challenging, but at least I had plenty of time to learn. Regular firearms hunting season in Texas was more than a month long in those days; now it's more than two months long. When my family moved to Missouri, I was shocked to learn the season here lasts less than two weeks.

In eight years on our 46 acres of woods in Missouri, I’ve dropped two deer, both with my 7Mag.

I don’t expect every hunting excursion to be a guaranteed success. But I wish the Conservation Department would let me hunt my woods on my own terms—or at least, on my and my neighbors’ terms. I don’t need a state agent holding my hand, or my trigger finger.


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