Deer Hunting

In the town I grew up in we used to get two days off of school at the opening of deer hunting season. Upon reflection, this tells me this transcends sport hunting and enters into the territory of sustenance hunting.

This is not a bad thing. I’m a fan of PETA, if only because about 20 years ago, I slept with a PETA member at a conference in Boston. But that’s about the extent of my PETA beliefs.

Deer, along with pigeons, and maybe flying squirrels are beyond my compassion. There are more whitetails today in the United States than when Columbus discovered America.

The Insurance Information Institute in Manhattan says that there are 750,000 animal-vehicle collisions a year in the United States, which cause $1.2 billion in damage. More than 100 people die each year in those accidents, according to the National Safety Council, and some 10,000 are injured. A majority of the accidents involve deer.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta, announced that animals are to blame for 26,000 auto injuries each year on the nation's roads. About 200 people are killed annually in accidents involving either hitting an animal or swerving to avoid one.

• Minnesota averages 19,000 car/deer accidents per year, causing 450 injuries and two deaths.
• Wisconsin had 45,278 deer collisions last year.
• Michigan had 66,993.
• In Ohio, they had 30,306 deer-vehicle accidents. Five fatalities and 898 injuries.
• New York State, 8,570 deer were reported hit by cars last year.

With all these facts, I am proud to report that 33.59% of all people where I grew up killed a dear last year. In 2000, Carlton County had 33,639 people and Pine country brought home a whopping 28,116 as a metropolitan area, a grand total population of 61,755. The total deer harvest was 20,747 in the DNR's Cloquet area, which includes Pine and Carlton counties.

As this is a total population figure, including women and children, and all men don’t hunt, this must mean that a few strong individuals, and maybe a few kids (see picture above), must be machine-gunning the deer to keep the population in control.

God love the Queen, the NRA and Dick Cheney (as long as I’m not deer hunting with him).