Walter In Denver

Erbe Meets Goose

Bonnie Erbe's latest column is so awful it makes me wonder if the folks down at the Rocky ran it to make her look foolish. Here are some bits and my reactions...

She (or he) sat bleeding profusely into the waters of South Creek, off the West River in Churchton, Md. She was clearly dying. A bullet had entered one side of her torso and exited the other. She held up her wing, broken in two. Her neck was elegantly arched and her black eyes looked against her black feathers as if she were trying not to cry.

She was a Canada Goose. She was sitting silently under a Weeping Willow (weeping for her, I believed) just off the beach of a marshy cove, when I walked by with my dog and two acquaintances. We didn't own the property, but we had the owners' permission to be there. The hunter did not.

A bullet? I haven't been a hunter since I was a kid, a couple of decades ago, but even I know a hunter would have used a shotgun. Erbe isn't talking about a hunter, but a poacher. A poacher is to a hunter as a graffiti sprayer is to a housepainter. But Erbe wants readers to think hunting is cruel, so here she goes...

One of my companions said, "I grew up on a farm and killed chickens. I'll break her neck to put her out of her misery." We fussed and cried and tried to write happier endings. We finally concurred it was the best we could do.

She picked up part of a tree limb. I and the other woman turned away. Bash, bash, we heard. "Is she breathing?" I asked. "I don't think so," the angel of mercy replied. We started walking away. We heard something. The goose, head down, was flapping its wings. The angel ran back. Again, bash, bash. This time it took.

As I recall, that's exactly how we did it on the farm. Hit them with a stick. Yup.

Some insensitive human viewed that bird as no more than target practice. We saw her as a courageous individual. On the way out, we spotted an illegal blind placed by trespassers. Fueled by our angst, we ripped it to shreds.

Hunting is a dying sport in America. No, a dying hobby, or occupation. There's little sport in the destruction of wildlife with high-tech weaponry. This bird was shot by a trespasser in a suburban cove in view of 15 houses. Hardly a rural marshland. No cover in which the bird could hide. Like skeet shooting with a bloodlust. About as manly as wearing diapers.

Let me try that last analogy again: Poachers are to hunters as Erbe is to writers.

The Christian Science Monitor reports, "A new US Fish and Wildlife survey shows ... the number of hunters has declined by 7 percent, to 13 million, in the past 5 years. While a few states like Alaska and Minnesota have seen slight increases ... officials in Georgia predict a 50 percent decline .... by 2026."

Hunting groups are so desperate for new blood they're lobbying some states to reduce the legal hunting age to 8. But urbanization and technology are doing what conscience never could: convincing more Americans not to hunt. Today's man is too busy, open land isn't easily accessible, and rural passions of a less educated America are giving way to urban and suburban sophistication.

You uneducated hicks. Good thing us urban sophisticates are here to give you guidance.

I suppose it might be useful to note that Denver and other urban areas are overrun with Canadian geese. The grass in many parks here is often unusable, as it's covered in goose dung. I guess shooting the geese would be out of the question.

Update: I notice Wadcutter commented on the same column, including -

Yeah, right. Some jackass who shoots geese with a rifle is going to bother building a blind in the middle of a suburban neighborhood. The bird was probably shot from someone’s deck. You just destroyed some neighborhood kid’s play fort.

Posted by Walter at January 26, 2006 07:43 PM