Are We There Yet?

January 21-27, 2019

By Jay Edwards

jedwards@dailydata.com

 

Warning: The following contains sentences which may be disturbing to some readers.

 

I have a friend named Fred who lives in Northwest Arkansas. If you’ve read this column before you’re familiar with him and may even remember his anti-hunting stance I wrote about years ago. I first learned of it when he called and told me about a radio program he’d been listening to one morning. The topic was deer hunting and one of the callers was defending the sport by saying that hunters are really doing deer a favor by shooting them because there isn’t enough food for all of them and it’s better to die from a gunshot as opposed to starving to death. 

 

“What do you think about that?” Fred asked me over the phone. 

 

“Well,” I said, “I guess if I knew for certain I was going to starve to death I might be in favor of being shot instead. Of course, it would be nice if the guy, or girl hunter I guess, was a good shot and it happened quick. On the other hand, if I was hungry, I think I’d figure that maybe there’d be a chance I’d eventually come across some food, so there’s that.”

 

“OK, whatever,” said Fred. “I think if that guy on the radio is so worried about all these deer starving to death, then he ought to be taking them some food, not hunting them down and shooting them. He needs to load up his truck with whatever it is that deer eat and drive it out to them in the woods.”

 

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna happen.”

 

So fast forward to a week or so ago. My usual call from Fred came in about the same time it always does.

 

“You won’t believe what I just saw,” he said.

 

“Bigfoot,” I guessed.

 

“No. Seriously, it was terrible.”

 

“I can see how seeing Bigfoot might be terrible.”

 

“It wasn’t Bigfoot! Just listen! I looked out of my back door about 30 minutes ago and there was a deer laying on my deck with its back leg torn off.”

 

“Oh my God, that is terrible. Is it dead?”

 

“No, it was just laying there looking at me. Then it stood up and hobbled into the yard.”

 

“So what did you do?” I asked.

 

“I didn’t know what to do. But I’m sorry I don’t own a gun, because I could have shot him.”

 

“Was it a buck?” 

 

“I don’t know. It didn’t have horns but it was very big. I called 9-1-1, but they told me to call the Game and Fish people, which I did, but they gave me a number for something called Animal Control. The person there said they don’t do anything about injured deer. That it would have to just go off and die.”

 

“That’s rough,” I said.

 

“Yeah. I asked them what kind of animals we have around here that could do that kind of damage. I mean, are there like packs of wolves roaming through the neighborhoods?”

 

“I think it was probably a car.”

 

“That’s what they thought too,” Fred said.

 

“So where is it now?”

 

“I don’t know, I don’t see it.”

 

“Here’s what you need to do,” I told him. “Go in your kitchen and get the biggest knife you have, preferably a butcher knife. Then go outside and find it. If it’s not in your yard you’ll need to track it.”

 

“Track it?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Who do you think I am, Kit Carson?”

 

“It won’t be that hard, just follow the blood. It probably didn’t get far. Once you find it, take care of it.”

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

“With the knife. You’ll need to grab it’s head, hold it down and finish it off. It will probably fight you so be ready for that. But it’s the humane thing to do. So you think you can handle it? … hello … Fred?”

 

“Weird, I guess we got cut off.”

 

See all of Jay’s past columns on our website at www.dailyrecord.us.

 

  • Jay Edwards
    Jay Edwards