Hunting In Mild Weather, Cats that are Pets, and Feral Cats

Cookie and I have tried a couple of times to get on some grouse but the mild weather and hunting pressure has made them as nervous as a virgin when the fleet's in and they flush just about as far as I can see! As for the ducks, they aren't too interested in moving around much. But there is hope, there is weather starting to appear. I got a little taste of it today and I am hoping for more later this week. I much prefer to hunt birds when there is a strong chill and little wind, just a soft breeze for Cookie's nose.

After short hunting attempts I've returned home to renew my efforts at getting the yard ready for winter. That means pulling the root veggies and all of the flowers. I always feel guilty pulling flowers that still have some color in them so I clip the ones that are not gone and put them over on the little graves of my cats. Funny how my cats generate such feelings yet when I see feral cats I have the exact opposite. Feral cats destroy ground nesting bird populations and can even wreck the cottontail population. I am always amazed at the people who truly believe they are doing their cats a favor by dumping them in the country. They are often the same people you see signing up to protest hunting. This disconnect in their brains is the source of so much damage in nature, yet when they are confronted with this fact they pass it off as lies to protect hunting. The root of the problem? Some say it is in our classrooms and perhaps they are right, but is it the teacher or the support being given the teacher? I am not talking about pay and benefits but the parental support. If the only parents in the classrooms are of the same sort of mindset as the people who dump their cats to "save them from being killed" while the parents who know better, whether hunters or just more informed individuals, stay home because they don't want to be bothered--what is going to be taught? Perhaps another case of "we've met the enemy in the mirror?"
Think about it.

Wild Flush

Humm, took a half hour out of my morning to try and get a grouse. I need to remind myself to get up a little closer to early morning because by the time I was on the hunting ground the sun way high and the birds were not going to sit for Cookie. The net result was zero shots although I saw several birds. I may try again in the morning.

While Chas and I were hunting we had a very brief conversation about hunting upland birds in the evening. It is a good time to hunt but there is a problem and that is that often times the birds are settled in to their roost for the night and when we hunt them in that last thirty or forty minutes of shooting light we are pushing them off their roost. Of course, I am only talking about the ground nesting birds so it does not apply to the pass shooting at dove and pigeon but should we hunt the ground nesting and ground roosting birds so late in the day? On the one hand I am very tempted to say that we shouldn't but I also must admit that I enjoy that last hour of the day as a time to hunt birds. It is a quiet time and nature is taking a deep breath after a long day.

Thinking about ground nesting birds brings up something else to consider--domestic cats gone feral. The problem of feral cats is a real one and around here it is becoming increasingly difficult to drive the back roads and not see at least one feral cat. Now, don't misunderstand me, I've got a black and white cat sitting in my lap as I write this, but there is a problem and that is too many cats! These feral cats are decimating some of the game bird populations. We've been trying to get a huntable partridge population on my wife's family farm but the cats keep knocking the covey down to only a few surviving birds and the birds then struggle to survive and rebuild the covey. We've finally told Michael (my step-son) to go ahead kill any cat he sees on the farm. It's not fair to the cats but there isn't any other way to deal with the problem. Even if we manage to live trap one of the feral cats they are beyond adoption and the only course open is to destroy the cat.

Many years ago, when I first began exploring and writing about the myths of organizations such as PETA, Fund For Animals, HSUS (there are many more), I decided that pet ownership is too easy in this country. I didn't reach the decision to support their flawed arguments but because these organizations have manipulated and hijacked the easy access to pet ownership to fit their agendas. Perhaps if people had to put a little more effort into becoming pet owners and keeping those pets they would be a little more reluctant to drop their unwanted pet off on a country road. That is probably fairy tale thinking on my part but it is still something to think about. glg