I fear Mitch Goldsmith’s article, “Column ignored price of hunting” (SN 10/19), was sensationalist, at best. While he noted that staff writer Laura Fosmire “relies on the myth and romanticized conceptions of hunting” for the lack of her family background, I come from a long line of individuals who hunt as well as others who do not.
What I have to say is not myth, hearsay or romanticized. I wish to show people who do not participate in, and have little or no exposure to hunting, the other side of the story; the one nearly everyone participated in 100 years ago.
Goldsmith uses a statistic from a heavily biased group — In Defense of Animals — to claim hunting causes the destruction of animals and their ecosystems.
Humans have done more damage by simply living; we have displaced deer, wolves and other predators through housing expansion. We have provided deer with buffets — called farms — where they cause up to $30 million in crop damages in states similar to Michigan, according to MSU Extension.
Combine readily available food with a lack of natural predators and it’s no surprise Michigan now has a deer population estimated at 1.5 million that live farther north than pre-settlement era.
That’s overpopulation. A moderate solution, part of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment’s Deer Management Plan, is hunting.
My family helps fulfill this plan by hunting — and not necessarily for a big trophy buck as many people assume. Each year, I take two doe permits with one buck permit because at $15 per permit venison is a cheaper alternative to beef. That $15 doe permit provides our family more than simply meat.
Some of my fondest memories growing up are standing next to my grandmother as we ground meat and my uncle teasing me about my latest crush as he trimmed up a venison roast.
After enjoying fresh “buck burgers,” I would fall asleep at my grandparents’, curled up next to my dad. That meat was not just nutritionally nourishing, but it also produced lasting memories of happiness and togetherness.
I hunt to eat, but I do recognize that some people hunt for trophy bucks. Rather than wasting meat, organizations such as Michigan Sportsmen Against Hunger donate venison — 33,000 pounds on average — to soup kitchens and food pantries so families who eat meat only as a luxury can have a lean source of protein.
My long line of hunters is proud. My 68-year-old grandmother is proud of the eight-point buck she shot and my mother is proud of the fact she is a better shot than my father. I am proud of the cheap meat I eat while living on a college budget. I’m sure my three aunts who hunt also are proud.
To say hunters are “armed most intimately with (their) own penis” ignores the fact that women account for 15 percent of all hunters — and they all have vaginas.
Jolene Talaski, agribusiness management senior
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