There is a beautiful scene in the third act of the movie “The Deer Hunter” when Mike (Robert De Niro) returns home from Vietnam and goes on a hunting trip. In the early morning, he sets off by himself with his Remington hunting rifle slung over his shoulder in search of a buck. This is probably one of the most powerful and poignant scenes of the movie because when he finally has tracked down his prized deer and has the animal in his sights, he deliberately misses, sparing the deer’s life.
There are numerous comments about this scene on the Web as to why De Niro’s character lets the deer live. Some see it as Mike’s way of starting anew and cherishing life after witnessing all the horrors of the Vietnam War. Other’s say that he can’t shoot the deer because his best friend and hunting partner Nick (Christopher Walken) is still missing in Vietnam. Whatever his reasoning, this scene, in essence, sums up our role as the dominant species on the planet. We alone can make the decision whether to kill or not by using our ability to rationalize, something no other animal can do.
Last week, I accompanied a group of teens on a canoe trip into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) of northern Minnesota. For anyone who has never experienced gliding through a lakes and listening to sounds of water lapping up against the canoe, or hearing the call of the loon, the screech of the eagle, the howl of the wolf, the wind rustling through the trees or the sound of an approaching thunderstorm, you have missed out on what it means to be a part of nature. Nowhere but in the wilderness can you hear such noises.
For a week, we paddled and portaged and every night slept under the stars. We carried all our supplies on the canoes and every day caught enough fish to supplement our evening meal. Early in the day when we paddled from one campsite to the next, we fished, but we always let what we caught go (catch and release). Only in the evening just before dinner did we keep the fish we caught. And then we only kept what was necessary.
Hunting season in Minnesota is just around the corner and it is fair to say that very few animal species are immune. Over the next four months, hundreds of thousands of hunters will decend into the wilderness to hunt animals for their meat, pelts or for the satisfaction of getting a prized trophy to hang above their mantle. For the most part, the hunters will abide by the rules and respect each other as well as the wilderness and the animals they are trying to hunt. However, there are those who continue to give the sport a bad name. They are the ones who have little or no respect for the wilderness. They go out, shoot and kill anything that moves, regardless of whether it is in season or they have a hunting tag for it or not. There are those who kill and honor their catch and then there are those who kill for the sake of killing and don’t have any regard for life. I have never been a fan of hunting and would have a hard time taking the life of any wild creature, but I’m not naïve and know that hunting is an essential part of human nature. What hurts me, though, is when I hear stories of people who have no regard for wild animals, who bait bears and then shoot them point blank for no particular reason other than to say they have shot a bear, or set traps for wolfs, coyotes and foxes for the sole purpose of killing the animal because their hunting tag says they can.
Once upon a time, people only hunted when they needed food or parts of the animal to survive. Back then it was not considered a sport but rather a way of life. The Native Americans had a spiritual relationship with wild animals and considered hunting a sacred act. They took only what they needed and always gave thanks in the form of rituals and dances, which glorified the animal kingdom, particularly those animals they depended on to survive.
Unfortunately, the relationship the Native Americans had with their environment has all but disappeared. Today, in the Western world, in particular, very few hunt for the sake of survival, rather hunting and fishing have become another leisurely pastime or sport.
In the first act of the film, De Niro’s character Mike is obsessed with the needing only “one shot” to kill a deer. Unlike Stanley (John Cazale), one of Mike’s hunting buddies, Mike doesn’t just shoot widely trying to hit his prey, instead he waits until he has the “one shot” needed to make the kill. For Mike, it’s not about the persona of being a hunter, it’s about the challenge of making the kill taking only “one shot!”
I doubt there are many like Mike who stack odds against them and set off with only one bullet in their gun. Hunting and fishing are huge multi-billion dollar businesses that continually introduce more gadgets onto the marketplace to make the job of hunter and fisherman that much easier. In the past, the abundance of wildlife gave the hunter an edge; today the numbers have dropped, but new technologies used to lure, track and bait wildlife have made it almost impossible for anyone to come home empty handed.
I can only hope that with time, hunters will distance themselves from modern technologies which make the hunt that much easier and go back to basics, even if it means they don’t always come out of the woods dragging a carcass.