The Mindful Carnivore (34 page)

Abraham Kaplan’s law of the instrument “Give a small boy a hammer” comes from his book
The Conduct of Inquiry: Methodology for Behavioral Science
(San Francisco: Chandler Publishing, 1964), 28.

The quote concerning hunters’ lack of commitment to “hunting as a management tool” comes from Daniel J. Decker and Nancy A. Connelly’s “The Need for Hunter Education in Deer Management: Insights from New York,”
Wildlife Society Bulletin
18, no. 4 (1990): 447-452.

Figures on public opinions of hunting for meat, sport, and trophies come from an unpublished survey about various hunting and fishing issues:
Sportsmen’s Attitudes
(Harrisonburg, VA: Responsive Management, 2006). The Stephen Kellert study referred to is “Attitudes and Characteristics of Hunters and Anti-hunters,” in
Transactions of the Forty-third North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference
(Washington, DC: Wildlife Management Institute, 1978), 412-423.

This chapter’s epigraph comes from Michael Pollan,
The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
(New York: Penguin Press, 2006), 336.

Chapter 8: A Hunter’s Prayer

In writing this chapter, I drew on José Ortega y Gasset’s prologue-turned-book,
Meditations on Hunting
(1942; repr., Belgrade, MT: Wilderness Adventures Press, 1995). Most of the direct quotes come from page 105. The remainder are listed here: “exemplary moral spirit,” 97; “Paleolithic man,” 57;
“
represent the most primitive human species” and “the slightest hint of government,” 76; “Today’s best-trained hunter” and “eternal troglodyte,” 115.

Edward Abbey’s criticism of Ortega y Gasset comes from the essay “Blood Sport” in
One Life at a Time, Please
(New York: Henry Holt, 1978), 39. The quote from Robert Kimber concerning “utilitarian” hunters comes from his book
Living Wild and Domestic: The Education of a Hunter-Gardener
(Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2002), 45-46.

A Hunter’s Heart: Honest Essays on Blood Sport
, ed. David Petersen (New York: Henry Holt, 1996) helped me begin to explore my mixed feelings about hunting. I quote several lines from Richard Nelson’s introduction “Finding Common Ground”: “Inupiaq men lived to hunt,” 8; “hunting was entirely evil,” 1; “twisted together with them,” 2. I also refer to Ann S. Causey’s essay “Is Hunting Ethical?,” 80-89, and Mary Zeiss Stange’s “In the Snow Queen’s Palace” (adapted from “Little Deaths,”
Sports Afield
, November 1994), 108-112. The other quotes drawn from
A Hunter’s Heart
are from Mike Gaddis, “Taking a Life” (originally published in
Audubon
, November 1990), 121, and George N. Wallace, “If Elk Would Scream” (originally published in
High Country News
, October 14, 1983), 96.

In this chapter, I paraphrase several arguments made by Mary Zeiss Stange in
Woman the Hunter
(cited above); the line “for the same inner reasons” appears on page 8. I also quote Marti Kheel, “License to Kill: An Ecofeminist Critique of Hunters’ Discourse,” in
Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations
, ed. Carol J. Adams and Josephine Donovan (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995); the quotes drawn from Kheel’s essay are “to camouflage and to legitimate,” 87, and “quest to establish masculine identity,” 110.

The quotes and paraphrases from Susan Morse come from personal conversations and from an interview conducted by James Ehlers, “Return of the Cougar: It’s Time for the East to be Wild,”
Outdoors Magazine
(March 2002): 30-32.

I discuss Ted Kerasote’s essay “Restoring the Older Knowledge,” which appears in
A Hunter’s Heart
, and quote directly from it: “the disciplined, mindful, sacred activity,” 293; “the world that feeds us,” 294. I also refer to Kerasote’s
Bloodties: Nature, Culture, and the Hunt
(New York: Random House, 1993); he discusses the central European model of hunter education on page 218, and mentions his attempt to “outwit” the pain caused by his eating on page 232. In personal correspondence, Kerasote generously shared his thoughts on the origins of “sport” in agrarian societies, and on the ancient concept and word as antecedents of their modern counterparts.

Linda Hogan’s essay “The Feathers” appears in her book
Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995) and ends with the phrase “simple powers, strange and real,” 20.

Thomas Berry’s line “For too long we have been away somewhere” was originally published in his book
The Dream of the Earth
(San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1988) and appears in
Learning to Listen to the Land
, ed. Bill Willers (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1991), 255.

This chapter’s epigraph comes from Barry Lopez,
Arctic Dreams
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1986), 413.

Chapter 9: Healing Ground

The line “Ah, how good it feels! The hand of an old friend” is from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s play
John Endicott
and appears in
Longfellow’s Poetical Works
(London: George Routledge and Sons, 1883), 502. The quote concerning “the apostolic injunction to ‘rejoice’” is from Clive Staples Lewis,
The Problem of Pain
(New York: Macmillan, 1944), 61.

Valerius Geist’s line comes from his article “Threats to Wildlife Conservation,”
Deer and Deer Hunting
(February 1987): 31, and is quoted in Nelson’s
Heart and Blood
, 279. Thanks to C. Brickman Way for finding that magazine issue at a flea market and thinking of me.

The line “those ranks of trophy heads” appears in C. L. Rawlins’s “I Like to Talk about Animals” in
A Hunter’s Heart
, 90.

This chapter’s epigraph comes from John Burroughs, “The Gospel of Nature,” in
Time and Change: The Writings of John Burroughs, Part Sixteen
(1912; repr., Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2004), 245.

Chapter 10: Into the Woods

In sketching the history of white-tailed deer, I relied on
White-tailed Deer: Ecology and Management
, ed. Lowell K. Halls (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1984), especially Richard E. McCabe and Thomas R. McCabe’s chapter “Of Slings and Arrows: An Historical Retrospection” and George Mattfeld’s “Northeastern Hardwood and Spruce/Fir Forests.” The McCabes’ quote “The whitetail rarely was hunted” appears on page 72. I drew additional historical data—as well as information on human-deer conflicts, deer population growth, and the ecological impacts of overabundant deer—from Richard Nelson’s
Heart and Blood
.

For a detailed introduction to the shifting fortunes of various Massachusetts wildlife species over the past few centuries—including large mammals and grassland birds—see Debra Bernardos et al., “Wildlife Dynamics in the Changing New England Landscape,” in
Forests in Time: The Environmental Consequences of 1,000 Years of Change in New England
, ed. David R. Foster and John D. Aber (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 142-168.

Leopold’s line “just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves” is from
A Sand County Almanac
, 140.

The Public Trust Doctrine and North American wildlife conservation model are discussed by Valerius Geist, Shane P. Mahoney, and John F. Organ in “Why Hunting Has Defined the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation,” in
Transactions of the Sixty-sixth North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference
(Washington, DC: Wildlife Management Institute, 2001), 175-185.

Concerning historical views of hunters, I drew primarily on Herman’s
Hunting and the American Imagination
; Elisha Jarrett Lewis’s words on the “pot hunter” are quoted on page 154. I also drew on Louis S. Warren,
The Hunter’s Game: Poachers and Conservationists in Twentieth-Century America
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997).

This chapter’s epigraph comes from
A Sand County Almanac
, xviii-xix.

Chapter 11: Kinds of Killing

Joseph Campbell’s words on “the essence of life” are drawn from his book
The Hero’s Journey
(New York: Harper & Row, 1990; Novato, CA: New World Library, 2003), 13; citation refers to the New World edition.

Leopold’s thoughts on “sportsmanship” and “gadgetry” are from
A Sand County Almanac
, 212-216. David Stalling’s essay, “Space Ace Technology, Stone Age Pursuit” (originally published in
Bugle
, Winter 1995) appears in
A Hunter’s Heart
, 182-190.

Thomas Berry reportedly expressed his thoughts on “the great conversation” while talking with high school students. His words are transcribed in Rich Heffern’s “Prophet for the Earth: An Exploration of the Thought of Fr. Thomas Berry,”
Eco Catholic
(blog),
National Catholic Reporter
, January 4, 2011,
http://ncronline.org/blogs/eco-catholic/prophet-earth-exploration-thought-fr-thomas-berry:
“We are talking to ourselves. We are no longer talking to the rivers and forests, we are no longer listening to the winds and the stars. We have broken the great conversation. By breaking that conversation, we have shattered the universe. All the disasters that are happening now are a consequence of this spiritual autism.” A very similar passage appears in Berry’s
Befriending the Earth: A Theology of Reconciliation Between Humans and the Earth
(Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1991), 20.

Philip J. Deloria’s line about “the dispossession and conquest of actual Indian people” comes from his book
Playing Indian
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 182.

Robert Kimber’s thoughts on animals, gifts, and “property rights” are from
Living Wild and Domestic
, 79.

This chapter’s epigraph comes from Nelson’s
Heart and Blood
, 286.

Chapter 12: Fickle Predators

Ted Kerasote’s description of the mother elk’s response to the death of her calf is from “A Killing at Dawn,”
Audubon
102, no. 2 (2000): 38-41. Kerasote offers other intriguing thoughts on anthropomorphism and interspecies communication in his book
Merle’s Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog
(New York: Harcourt, 2007), 10.

Regarding the history of deer populations and modern hunting seasons in Vermont, I relied on Marc Boglioli’s
A Matter of Life and Death: Hunting in Contemporary Vermont
(Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2009).

I also relied on archival materials and historical data helpfully provided by John Hall, Lilla Stutz-Lumbra, Chris Saunders, and John Buck of the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, including Leonard E. Foote’s
A History of Wild Game in Vermont
, 3
^rd
ed., rev. (Montpelier, VT: Vermont Fish and Game Service, 1946).

Louis Warren’s line “How one hunted and what one killed” comes from
The Hunter’s Game
, 14.

This chapter’s epigraph comes from a column by Pulitzer Prize winner William A. Caldwell—“Hawk and Hare Are One,”
Bird Watcher’s Digest
(September 1978): 61-62—in which he contemplates life, death, and predation. The column’s title is an abbreviation of a line by Gary Snyder, “The hawk, the swoop, and the hare are one,” from
Earth House Hold
(New York: New Directions Publishing, 1957), 92.

Chapter 13: Blood Trails

The quotes referred to by Marti Kheel in “License to Kill” are from Paul Shepard,
The Tender Carnivore and the Sacred Game
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973), 173, and Ortega y Gasset,
Meditations on Hunting
, 101.

The Connecticut and Maryland wounding-rate studies referred to are discussed by Howard J. Kilpatrick and W. David Walter, “A Controlled Archery Deer Hunt in a Residential Community: Cost, Effectiveness, and Deer Recovery Rates,”
Wildlife Society Bulletin
27, no. 1 (1999): 115-123, and M. Andy Pedersen, Seth M. Berry, and Jeffrey C. Bossart, “Wounding Rates of White-tailed Deer with Modern Archery Equipment,”
Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies
62 (2008): 31-34.

David Petersen discusses the humaneness of bowhunting, and relates several anecdotes of people being hit by broadheads, in his book
Heartsblood: Hunting, Spirituality, and Wildness in America
(Washington, DC: Island Press, 2000), 172-174.

Leopold’s passage on the “peculiar virtue in wildlife ethics” is from
A Sand County Almanac
, 212.

This chapter’s epigraph is from Susan Ewing, “To Each Her Own,” in
Heart Shots: Women Write about Hunting
, ed. Mary Zeiss Stange (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003), 73.

Chapter 14: Hunting with the Buddha

Richard Nelson’s line “the exploration has turned inward” is from his book
The Island Within
(San Francisco: North Point Press, 1989; New York: Vintage Books, 1991), 172; citation refers to the Vintage edition.

This chapter’s epigraph is from Kimber’s
Living Wild and Domestic
, 148.

Chapter 15: The Red Deer

Christopher Camuto’s line “I’ve long had an odd thought” comes from his book
Hunting from Home: A Year Afield in the Blue Ridge Mountains
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), 288.

Ortega y Gasset’s “case in which the killing of one creature” is from
Meditations on Hunting
, 101. Rachel Carson’s “We cannot have peace among men” is from an undated letter, Rachel Carson to Fon Boardman, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT.

This chapter’s epigraph comes from Henry Beston,
The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod
(New York: Doubleday, 1928; New York: Penguin, 1976), 25; citation refers to the Penguin edition.

Chapter 16: Reckoning

In this chapter, I refer to a letter written by Thich Nhat Hanh, “Letter from Thây,” October 17, 2007,
http://www.plumvillage.org/letters-from-thay/27-letter-from-thy.html
. Nhat Hanh’s words on paper, clouds, rain, and loggers are from
Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
(New York: Bantam Books, 1991), 95. His words on tangerine blossoms are from page 21 of the same book.