As all hunters know, the rut triggers some big bucks to become love sick and make bad decisions that may cost them in the end. The rut also brings about a different kind of sickness, one that causes a low blow to the pit of my stomach. Road hunters, road kill headhunters, and the road side dead deer carcass cause my stomach to churn every fall. This year though I have put real thought into why this burns me to the core.
For the past few years, our economy as been disintegrating to almost nothing and it is not getting any better. Families are choosing between food and bills to survive and many have to go hungry. As a hunter every year, I feel the need to help my fellow man by donating my harvested deer to Hunters for the Hungry. This organization feeds many needy people and those people depend on hunters for most of their meat. This leads me to think how many people a dead deer on the side of the road that was shot for just the backs straps and horns could feed. It sickens me when I hear of someone’s deer piles or their late night spotlighting adventures. These types of so-called hunters are not hunters in my mind at all they are just killers.
Organizations around the U.S. and world take this gracious gift of meat and feed thousands of people where as people are waking up around the U.S. to dead deer in their front yard that go to waste because of a late night rampage. If every hunter would think of donating one deer every year, we could feed a family for a month or 200 people a day. Now do not get me wrong as a hunter I also hunt to help feed my family, but as a farmer, I see how many people are in need of healthy food and I have the resources to help.
I strongly encourage all of my fellow hunters and huntresses to help in the fight against hunger here on your home front. Also, if given the chance take someone hunting because if you teach a man to fish he will eat for a day but if you teach him or her to hunt they will eat for a life time. I am also asking anyone that does spotlight or road hunt to please stop and in turn help your neighbor so that hunters no longer get a bad reputation. As we sit down to our Christmas or holiday dinners this season let us remember those who are in desperate need of our help. To everyone have a safe and Merry Christmas/Holiday season and lets us not forget the Reason for the Season.
