From the Tree Stand
By Samantha Nicoloro
At 14, I went on my first real hunting trip. My sister, father, and I were out in rural Pennsylvania on a farmer’s property. The farmer was having issues with deer eating away at his harvests, so he invited hunters to come and hunt them. He used to farm beef cattle before it got too expensive and wasn’t worth the hard labor they required. Quickly, deer moved in to fill the large hooved animal-shaped hole the cows had left behind on the landscape. On that trip, I came home empty-handed, while my sister took a young buck. I was angry, but more than that, I was scared I would not grow up to be a hunter like my sister and my father.
Looking back, I’m grateful that no deer came close to my cold and lonely treestand. Just watching my sister, I began to understand the weight killing an animal puts on a person. Not everyone feels that weight, but I knew I would and that I was not prepared. Some hunt with confidence and assurance of their place on the food chain, but as I helped my sister process her deer, I almost vomited from the smell and sight of hot blood steaming up from the opened carcass. I felt disgust, and shame for that disgust. I chose to come here, with the intent of killing an animal, and I had the gall to flinch away from the sight of gore? From an animal I hadn’t even killed? From an animal that had its life taken to fill our freezer and feed my family? I cried on the long truck ride home.
The next year, a family friend named Rich took my dad and me up to hunt turkeys in New Hampshire on youth weekend. Youth weekend is a time before the start of the regular hunting season when only young hunters are allowed out. Older friends and relatives can come and guide you, but for the kill to be legal, the shot must be made by the underage party. I could feel the pressure to succeed for the rest of the group; if I couldn't make a kill, then all the work we did was for nothing. Rich has a long and storied history with hunting, but now he finds little thrill in it on its own. These days, he gets his joy from guiding new hunters, be it me, his daughters, or adults from our archery league who never had someone to teach them. Hunting is difficult to get into without someone to guide you. You need to be familiar with the laws of each state and season, geography, and animals' behavior just to get started
On this fateful youth weekend, we had horrible luck the whole morning. We encountered many groups of hens, which cannot be hunted, and all the turkeys spooked before I was able to get close. Each time I spooked a bird I was deeply embarrassed. I felt too large, too loud, and too clumsy; one moment feeling like a natural predator on the landscape, the next, like an interloper. I carried a gun far bigger than I was used to, and I could feel its weight in more than just a physical way. On our fifth or sixth attempt of the day, we spotted a group of turkeys headed from the forest's edge to the forest interior. We cut ahead of them through a swampy area, knowing that turkeys generally do not like to cross water. I trudged through the wetland as quickly as I could, trying to beat the birds to the clearing we hoped they were headed toward. I came out wet and cold and stinking of swamp muck. I sat against a tree and waited, hoping they were still coming our way after the furious swamp scramble. I felt an adrenaline I never had before, which comes to me now every time I hunt. Eventually, two males stepped into my line of sight—frighteningly close. They had not seen me, and I knew I had my pick of the two toms. I expected to be choked by indecision, but with a focus I never knew I possessed, I chose the larger of the two and fired.
At first, I thought the gun had not gone off, only assured by the sudden, furious flapping of wings. I heard no sound and felt no kick. Immediately, Rich took the gun from my hands. For a moment I remained seated, feeling somehow outside my body. I was never indignant about Rich taking the gun—he had done this plenty of times before with his own daughters and knew the shock I might experience. I collected myself and surged forward to meet Rich at the bird. The tom was beautiful, and dying. I had never seen a wild turkey so close before, and his head was shockingly blue, excluding the blood that ran down the side. In turkey hunting, you typically aim for the head to preserve the breast meat that obstructs your shot to the lungs or heart. When shot in the head, animals tend to twitch and flail for some time after death. This tom was no different. Clinically, I knew this, but seeing it play out sent me into panic. I had pictured a smooth transition between animal and meat, but here I was faced with the often unseen progression between the two. Rich held the bird with his boot to stop the post-mortem thrashing, and I was grateful. That week, I took quite a few pounds of meat home, after giving a share to Rich.
After that, I would say that the first thing I ever killed was a turkey. But that isn’t really true, is it? I had set mouse traps, cooked lobster, and squashed bugs. I had purchased meat, using the power of the dollar to put the burden of killing onto someone else. But in our day-to-day lives, we tend not to think of these as killing. Not in the intimate and close-up way that I had killed that bird. When we go to the store and see rows upon rows of styrofoam and Saran-Wrapped packages of meat, it is hard to conceptualize them all as individual thinking and feeling animals. The enormity of our food systems is too much to think about every time we run out to make a purchase. Even if you do not consume meat, there is a great likelihood that something you purchase puts money toward corporations that do. Nestle, PepsiCo, and other megacorporations include meat products in their conglomerates and are nearly impossible to avoid in stores. On top of this, each one of those animals had to be slaughtered and processed by a person, often underpaid, underage, undersupported, and in unsafe working conditions. Keeping up with demand requires high-speed processing, and it is not uncommon for someone to be hurt during the process. When contemplating this, I rejoice in my ability to go hunting, something that many people never have the opportunity to do. I get the opportunity to harvest an animal that has lived a full natural life, without ever having to experience the monotony of a farm or the terror of a slaughterhouse. I am able to consume something that I know the origins of and, on top of that, feed my community. As you might expect, a whole deer is quite a lot of meat. After filling my own freezer I am able to feed my neighbors, friends and family, and even the dogs. Dehydrated liver is a favorite among my friends' dogs, though my own dog has no interest. Still, I am taking on my own emotional burden of slaughtering.
Later, my dad lamented that he wasn’t there for my first turkey, but I don’t think it would have mattered who was with me. I certainly would have liked for him to be there, but regardless of who was with me—a dog, my dad, or a stranger—I would have had the same emotional experience, as the entire experience was a culmination of my choices. I was never pushed to learn to shoot; I was never pushed to take hunter education; I was never pushed to go out for youth weekend. Every step of the way I made the decision to go on a hunt.
The year after I harvested the turkey, I went to New Hampshire to find a bear that had been raiding blueberry fields and attempting to enter homes. She and some others had made a lot of people nervous to let their kids play in their yards, and one homeowner called up some hunters to come and either kill her or scare her off. Typically, scaring a bear doesn't work once they have become used to humans. The allure of garbage is too strong. We set camera traps to follow her before hunting season began to make certain she had no cubs. Of course, at this time we didn’t know if she was male or female, but I wanted to be certain before I set foot in my treestand. My treestand was thankfully warm this time as I sat and waited, hoping the bear would appear.
Hunting at night is illegal, so I felt the passing of the day as time ran out. By late afternoon I was already begging my dad to let me skip school next week to come back and try again; I was so sure this trip was a bust. Then, about an hour before sunset, she appeared. I was shocked at how black she was and how vividly she stood out on the landscape. I had a perfect opportunity to take a clean shot and I took my chance. Making certain she was dead and hauling her back to the truck was a serious endeavor that made the experience all the more rewarding.
After taking my bear and processing it into quarters to take to the butcher, the people I was hunting with remarked on the quality of the pelt. They asked what I would do with it. At first, I was unsure, but older and more experienced hunters told me I should not waste such a high-quality pelt and that I should have a rug made. After finding a taxidermist from friends’ recommendations, the piece was made. Along the way, I conferred with the taxidermist on how I wanted it to look and how to color the trim. When I received it, I was over the moon. It was beautiful, and I knew I would have it for life. A piece like that becomes a family heirloom. When I expressed this to my peers, many were disconcerted. I was told that hunting was one thing, but taking a trophy was wrong. I had come to understand that a lot of people had the opinion hunting was alright as long as you used the entire animal. In my mind, making a rug was using the pelt and respecting the animal. I had always been raised to understand taxidermy as an art form, like fashion design or sculpture. To me, there was nothing more respectful I could do than create a permanent art piece to honor and remind me of this animal’s sacrifice to feed my community. I was also surprised to see how fur was seen as something frivolous, but leather was not perceived in this way. The pelt was a byproduct of the meat I harvested, as leather is a byproduct of beef. Some are surprised by the fact that we eat bear, assuming that the pelt is the only thing a hunter takes. I personally don’t know of anyone who takes an animal as large as a bear and doesn’t eat it, especially since game animal waste is illegal.
After the bear, I harvested more animals, even a doe from the same freezing Pennsylvania farm. Each time I felt the same emotional highs and lows of my first kill as if it was my very first time. I would feel the same questions bubble up: do I deserve to do this? Where did I get the right to take a life? How can I complain when others never get the opportunity to hunt? Can I really say this is any different than buying meat at the store? An animal dies regardless. At least these animals lived rich and full lives in their natural habitat, but does that distinction really matter? Can I really keep doing this? I can’t know for sure, but someday, I think the answer to my final question could be no.
These days, I relish the game meat I get from home despite the mixed and unresolved feelings I still harbor about hunting. My sister and dad hunt, though I rarely do with college in the way, and they provide me with more food than I could ask for. I am extremely grateful that I can take a cooler of meat from home and feed myself and my friends throughout the semester. Meat from grocery stores, on top of being part of a complex and problematic system, is also expensive, especially on a college budget. I save a lot of money by taking a half deer or a quarter bear up to my apartment and stretching it into a semester's worth of meals, from chili and burgers to venison steak dinners. Even so, I still do buy meat products from time to time, including fish (a whole other environmental disaster!). None of us can realistically separate ourselves completely from the problematic ways that our foods are produced, but I am glad that I have a source of food I can confidently say I know the origin of. Some of my more plant-based friends will eat meat if they feel it is ethically produced, and I enjoy being able to share such rich and hearty meals with them at such little financial cost.
Getting into hunting is difficult if you don’t have experienced people to guide you, and I am very grateful to have had the mentors I did. Moreover, I am deeply thankful that hunting is a choice for me and not a necessity. The fact that I am able to debate within myself if I want to hunt and how is a privilege not all are given. We shouldn’t forget that there are still places where hunting is necessary for survival or an inherent cultural pillar. This is all without touching on the diversity within hunting itself. There are huge swaths of the hunting community and hunting methods I know nothing about, just within the United States. Hunting isn't the same for everyone; it isn't even the same for me from trip to trip or day to day. I find solace in knowing that for myself and those like me, it is about embracing autonomy within a system that often diminishes our choices. H
Art by Es Sweeney
