Hunting For Meaning

Snow now blankets the higher peaks of the Front and will likely remain there until early summer. Our local wildlife has several ways of dealing with the onset of colder Rocky Mountain weather. An organism can up and leave (think sandhill crane migration), store food (the lowly but adorable Pika), adapt and work hard (elk, deer, moose) or make a major physiological change: hibernation (bears, ground squirrles). The bears of the Front are still out and about trying to pack on as many calories as possible before the long sleep of winter. Their bodies are currently in a state called "hyperphagia" and the bruins may actively search for food up to 20 hours per day before packing it in to the den.

The human strategy for dealing with winter mostly falls into the food-storage catagory. Thus, as the seasonal change progresses, many Montanans are engaging in the yearly ritual of hunting big game, particularly deer and elk. Our state has the highest per-capita number of hunters of any, including Alaska. To a rural community like Choteau, this translates into some very real economic impacts; outfitters, sporting goods stores, game processors, motels and others, directly benefit from the influx of hunters.

Men and women choose to hunt for many reasons. Some are as basic as putting healthy, organic meat in the freezer to feed the family for another year. The simple joy of being out in the autumn landscape with friends and loved ones is often cited as one of the greatest pleasures in life for Montana hunters. Others may find active participation in the Food Web to be important, since we are mostly uninvolved with the production or harvest of our sustenance in modern society. For many, the act of killing an animal to sustain their own body is a deeply humbling, spiritual task that vividly reminds us of life's preciousness...and of our own mortality.

For this hunter, all of the above reasons are what motivate me to partake in the chase. Whatever our ancestry, if we go back far enough, we find that humans are a species that has hunted to live, and lived to hunt. Most of our evolutionary time on planet earth (about 98% of it) has been in pursuit of game. While some are uncomfortable with the idea of killing animals for any reason in today's world, hunting does represent an unbroken chain of connectivity with our ancestors and fellow hunters such as bears, lions and wolves to name a few. For me, the pursuit forces me to examine my ethics in the most real way. How and why I do this is critical and I constantly reexamine the reasons. In traditional hunting cultures for example, it is recognized that no pleasure is ever taken in ending an animal's life and sincere thanks must be given for the profound gift that the hunter recieves. It is a moral code worth following.

While most people don't hunt in the modern world as we did in the past, the impulse to seek, that is, to hunt, is irrepressible. The endless pursuit of knowledge, success, love, wisdom and meaning is universal among our kind. And speaking for myself, actually being out there hunting, (which in Montana means the possibility of also being hunted by fellow carnivores) is the most tactile, visceral way to engage in the Great Round of Life.

When early November comes, I'll be out on the Pine Butte Preserve stalking whitetails and thinking many thoughts. And I'll do my best to be there with pure intentions, in a good way.

This post can also be viewed on the Pine Butte Blog