Controlling animal population just makes sense
Sunday, March 11, 2007
It was a brutally cold morning in the frozen Michigan swamp, but I was feeling warm inside.
The magnificent snowfall had reached more than three feet. Walking in its pure white splendor was another example of how I get high.
It was whiter than Johnny and Edgar Winter with Pat Boone singing Lawrence Welk songs with Mr. Rogers, as Chet Edwards tries to rap. Now, that's white.
The world around me was breathtakingly spiritual. I truly was one with the wind. God bless the Spirit of the Wild, baby.
Only a small, bubbling trickle remained unfrozen in the brook winding its way through the Christmas card-like marshland, so I stepped carefully into the frigid waters to check my trap.
I had already put some beautiful muskrats, grey and red fox, a coyote and a mink in my trapper's basket.
But as always, the intrigue and anticipation were palpable as I lifted the dripping conibear trap from the icy pool.
Hoisting my first beaver from this winter water wonderland was one of the most exciting moments in the wild I have ever experienced. Its luxurious fur coat was a thing of natural beauty and wonderment.
Renewable, natural fur is one of God's most perfect creations. Even as a young teenager, I instinctively knew that the best way to respect such a gift was through intelligent utility.
Of course, opponents of trapping would challenge that, sometimes to the point of success in banning trapping.
In our world of city-fied disconnect and intellectually bankrupt denial, we have seen what happens with trapping bans — bureaucrats scrambling insanely for damage control after rabies, distemper, mange and entire wetlands are destroyed from overpopulation of beaver and muskrat. Then the bureaucrats waste more tax dollars to hire someone to trap the animals.
So much for banning trapping. I trap. I'm smarter.
To this day many, many years later, I continue the time-honored tradition of hands-on conservation in its purest form.
After all is said and done, trapping is all about wise use, balance and biodiversity.
I wish Americans knew and better understood the pivotal role that trapping played in the foundation of this great nation. That our so-called education system barely skims over this important chapter in our history is unforgivable.
Thank God a handful of hearty naturalists continue to perform these essential duties for the environment to keep disease and overpopulation under control. Plan B is for idiots.
In the always-thrilling wilds of Texas, a trapper truly is in heaven: coyotes, coons, possums, skunks, red foxes, grey foxes and bobcats galore. To have the occasional crafty cougar on one's trap line is a thrill that everyone should experience.
I crave my long-range rifle hunting marksmanship, for a controlled sight picture and trigger squeeze can pay off in some mighty fine backstraps or fur when a rifleman puts his heart and soul into it.
And of course the black powder and handgun hunter must call upon an even more demanding discipline and degree of stealth to close the gap for these limited-range firearms.
Ultimately, we bowhunters know the unbelievable frustration of penetrating the 20-yard range of the primitive mystical flight of the arrow no matter how state of the art our archery gear may be.
All hunting is mesmerizing whether it is a 300-yard rifle shot or a 10-yard bow shot.
But now to this most intimate of critter relationships: Instead of trying to outwit God's most capable of elusive prey species at those distances, try outsmarting the most cunning predators there are, and try to determine exactly where they will place a foot.
On God's entire good green earth, a trapper must so completely know the ways of the wild as to predict where the target animal will actually step. Exactly! Now, that's wild.
Each year, trappers harvest the essential surplus, just like we do with deer, turkey, doves, waterfowl, squirrels, rabbits and all the renewable game species that feed and clothe our families. Organic, baby, it's the way to go.
No more environmentally beneficial activity exists than hunting, fishing and trapping, and I am doing my fair share. Fur rocks.
Ted Nugent is a Waco musician and television show host.
Comments
By op
Mar 28, 2007 10:09 AM | Link to this
cool
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