pigs, deer, flack jackets, & sheer loons

My beloved Copper will be manning an unusual post today.

Long before God awakens (read: 4:00 a.m. ~ 4 hours from now), he will don his bulletproof Flack apparel and report to the middle of nowhere~near~a~rock~by~that~tree~over~yonder with about a dozen other officers. Together, they will mount ATV's with requisite protective gear, and will embark on the annual "save the deer and a pig" patrol.

You see, our community borders a huge National Forest. Within this dense forest, there lies a vast (something like 6,000 acres) ecologically sensitive Nature preserve and animal sanctuary owned and maintained by the State, which is wholly off~limits to hunting or poaching. Every year at about the second week in August, hunting season begins in California. Guys with guns pour into our local forest, camping out with six packs and jerky by night, and seeking defenseless deer and pigs to mow down by day so they can strap them onto the hoods of their trucks and drive around honking at each other to celebrate their achieved greatness.

Woohoo. You teamed up, ambushed, and killed a defenseless woodland animal with your AK-47 double automatic krypton Uzi with laser sighting. Nicely done. That was certainly a fair contest. Try arming the deer next time and see how well you come out (If you're sensing my general disdain for all things hunting~related, please be advised that I tend to get more flippantly tongue~in~cheek about it as time wears on).

Now, please understhand that I am avidly pro-gun. Guns have an honorable place in society ~ protecting life and preserving law, chief among them. I also do not categorically dislike hunters. Several of my friends have husbands who hunt and they seem to be well-adjusted, great, intelligent, honorable men apart from their love of shooting things and hauling various dead body parts (or their whole bodies by the droves in the case of the literally hundreds of ducks and birds one of my girlfriends has mounted all over her house ~ her display rivals that of the Natural History Museum exhibit) back to display prominently in their living rooms. While I do deeply reject the supposed "need" to hunt and hunting culture as a whole, because people I dearly love, hunt, I choose to reside in the "I just don't get it" category. Surely, there must be something missing in my psyche. For the life of me, I fail to understand why there still exists a powerful need to shoot and kill deer, pigs, and the like, ostensibly for food purposes, when there are readily available Albertsons supermarkets with well-stocked meat sections. Surely it is more about the thrill than the food, right? I remain convinced that the THRILL is the draw, not the fact that the object being shot at does also provide edible meat. I just propose that it would sure be excellent if that thrill was not based on taking out Bambi, but I digress...

Copper and his fellow "save the deer and pig" officers spend up to 16 hours per day on the first hunting weekends of the season, hiding in thick brush, scanning the horizon with infared binoculars, and exhaustively patrolling this nature preserve to stave off and arrest the ample miscreants who break the barriers every year, trying to pick off easy targets. Some of the characters who choose to hunt illegally do so with certifiably nutball gusto. The stories produced each year are a mixture of hilarity and equal alarm at the realization that some of the people wandering around with loaded guns in the wilderness are not the brightest bulbs, God bless them.

Two of my favorite cases in point:

Copper and the boys routinely use decoy animals to track errant shots from illegal hunters within the preserve perimeter. Last year's deer decoy was excellent. It looked real from far away and by the end of the weekend, it had been basically obliviated, with tons of bullet holes, resulting in many citings. One of the shooting incidents is classic. The decoy was placed on the side of a dirt access road well inside the preserve boundary. Shots rang out. The fake deer was hit, but remained standing. Pause. More shots. The deer was hit again, again remaining upright. The officers now were honing in the location of the shots. But they did not have to worry, the illegal hunter emerged from his roost and approached the decoy deer. He touched it and then shoved it. He walked about ten feet away from the obviously fake deer decoy, turned around, and then shot it again, just to make sure it was:

A. not alive and
B. not a REAL deer

Yeah, he was a quick study.

The other two guys, though, truly epitomize my point and comprise my favorite of these stories. It was nearing dusk on the last day of patrol. The officers were packing up, and had loaded the deer decoy into the back of the jeep and parked it near the road. They were preparing to leave when shots rang out, closeby. Everyone ducked for cover. Shots rang out again, closer. The deer was hit twice while SITTING IN THE JEEP. Two guys in flannel come bursting excitedly from the woods to check if they had downed their target. How hardup must you be when you are aiming at a deer which is seated in the in the backseat of a Jeep? What did they think he was doing there, hitching a ride home? Having a smoke? The two Nobel Laureates doing the shooting were arrested and booked for an offense I suspect loosely translates to "Illegal hunting under the influence of sheer stupidity".

Copper and the rest of the guys love serving on the "save the deer and pig patrol". They tell me it is great fun and I am comforted by the hope that their actions do save the some of the lives of the deer I so esteem. At the end of these two days every year, Copper comes home sunburnt, dirty, grimy, and exhausted, but always jubilantly armed with more great stories.

They are using a pig decoy this year. This should be fun.