Deer Hunting in Wisconsin
By William Covert
THE deer-hunting season in Wisconsin embraces the time between November 10 and 30. This season is now in the past, and the result is as follows:— Twenty men have been killed in the woods, and a good many others seriously wounded. This is less than the average annual loss of human life due to these Wisconsin hunts. About four thousand poor, innocent deer have been captured this year. On an average, about one man in three who took out license succeeded in capturing a deer. The average cost in time and money to each individual who took part in this enterprise was not less than twenty-five dollars. This, of course, would not include the cost of gun and ammunition. The total cost would, therefore, be not less than three hundred thousand dollars, or seventy-five dollars for each deer taken. But this does not include all the cost, nor all the destruction wrought; for a large number of horses, cattle, and sheep were slain by the careless and reckless men who went into the woods. I wish to ask if this kind of business pays. What effect does it have upon the spirituality of those who engage in it? Should professed Christians spend time and means in this way? I have been listening to the recital of these things, and hoping all the time that Seventh-day Adventists would not be numbered among the sportsmen in the hunting season. But how is this? Will I give a truthful report if I say that our brethren have all withheld themselves from this business? Just a few days ago, a deer hunter accidentally killed himself in the woods only about half a mile from my home. Our neighbors were greatly distressed because of the sad termination of this hunt. He left a wife and five children to mourn their loss, besides many other relatives and friends. I was told that before he left home, his wife had pleaded with him not to go into the woods. But still the desire for the exciting chase overcame all the remonstrance of wife and children. Now he is dead, and his family left alone to battle with the cares of this life as best they can. He is only one out of the twenty who were killed in this way during the annual hunt in Wisconsin this year. But that which has taken place this season is only a sample of what is being done every year in this savage business which men are pleased to call sport. But for my part I can not see how any Christian can call it sport, or feel that he can regard himself as following the Master's footsteps while engaged in this kind of pastime. I wish that we could imbibe the tender spirit which actuated Goldsmith when he wrote the lines:— “No flocks that roam the valley free to
slaughter I condemn;
Touched by the love that pities me, I
learn to pity them.”
But if we can not enter into the spirit of the poet, we certainly ought to enter into the spirit of the Saviour who died to save men, and therefore refrain from engaging in a business which annually destroys a score or two of human beings, and is, to say the least, questionable in many other ways.