|
[ Return to Contents
| Post a Reply
| Post a new message
]
Why some of us are upset
Posted by bushrat on Oct 18 2005
Dear Shawn,
I am not without a certain amount of compassion and understanding of what happened on your Kotz hunt. I just want to let you know why I am upset with the outcome of your hunt, and what we in Alaska can do (you said you are not sure what the cure is) to help alleviate this or "cure" it. As you know, Unit 23 already has a bone-on requirement for frontquarter and hindquarters of caribou. This requirement came about because of wanton waste by hunters. It sought to cure some of the problem. Obviously it isn't curing all of it. Having seen many hunters properly care for boned-out meat, this requirement is a drag for many, a literal burden all the way around.
I only have what you have detailed and written to go by. You said you were in the flood of 1989 in the same region; you mentioned two people dying trying to cross a river back then. This means you were aware of how heavy rains can quickly raise creeks and rivers. You had prior experience in this region. It's monday-morning quarterbacking, for sure, to say that you guys should have properly cared for all your caribou meat that first evening, and gotten it all back to camp before the river rose. I assume it was raining by then...and I further assume that you probably wondered if you'd be able to get across the river by morning, because of your prior experience in that same region. As it happened, you guys either partially butchered the left-behind caribou, or butchered them and just left the meat out in the open, thinking to retrieve it the next day. And then you got to watch the ravens descend on the meat you could not retrieve and did not cover. A real bummer indeed. At that point, Shawn, your hunt is OVER---I can't stress this enough. The weather sucks, you're basically stranded, not sure if you will get flown out on time, yet your party shoots two more caribou that are conveniently on the same side of river you are on. This part really upsets me. The wanton waste regs state that "unanticipated weather and other acts of God" are viable excuses for wasting meat. So mabye you complied with the law on this one, Shawn, but I really hope you realize that you did not comply with your ethical responsibility to properly care for and salvage the meat of an animal you killed. All of Alaska during hunting season is "unanticipated weather," so I'm not sure of this clause in the regs. After thinking on this, the regs need to be clarified, possibly changed inre: wanton waste. If it is legal to sign a transfer of possession form and turn over rotten meat, then something is wrong with the system! Your story has absolutely nothing to do with meat spoilage and mid-hunt meat pickup---on a six day hunt in 50degree weather, you really have to seriously mess up to have your meat go bad. Either you don't gut the animal all the way the evening of the kill, I'm not sure, but having a quarter century of taking care of meat without a freezer, I know that meat doesn't spoil in six days if it's covered and hanging out in the open at 50degrees. So your meat was apparently lying out in the open, and was either consumed by ravens across the river, or it spoiled; it's unclear as to what exactly happened. Your story doesn't really add up in that regard.
What can we learn from Shawn's hunt? 1)Heavy rains cause creeks and smaller rivers to rise overnight. 2) Don't leave your meat if there is any chance at all you can't get back to it. 3) Don't shoot too many animals late in the day if you can't properly care for the meat. 4) Alaskan hunts via air-taxi are notoriously known for delays on either end, and indeed delays are to be expected. 5) Unanticipated weather and other acts of God are the norm in Alaska. Expect them, plan for them, and then ask yourself on day one of the hunt: "If I kill this animal now, can I keep the meat without spoiling for ten days?" "What might prevent me from getting the meat back to camp?" ie: bear takes it, river rises etc. 6) The wanton waste regs NEED TO BE CHANGED!
As to others, including yourself Shawn, who wonder why some of us are deeply troubled by this, well it's something (waste)some of us have been trying to change. Much about meat care has been written on this and other forums. MUCH. Much about weather and delays with air-taxis has also been written. Rain, snow, hail, wind, sudden temperature extremes during fall hunts in Alaska...all of that is to be expected. Granted, this was an extreme event, but I really am not liking the "stuff happens" reasoning of many, and the fact that your party got away with this without any violations. If 60% of other hunters also lost their meat during this storm, for various reasons, then we as Alaskans need to figure out a way to stop this kind of thing from happening in the future. If "unanticipated weather" is indeed an excuse for not salvaging all the meat of a game animal, then we are in serious trouble, because this will happen again and again and again, and it affects us all (and non-res hunters especially I'll bet)later down the line with regulation changes.
Allbest to you Shawn. I'll respect you enough to feel you got caught out in a bad situation, now you respect me enough to realize why I am just plain tired of excuses on top of excuses as to why the meat was wasted. I've seen way too much of it. I'm not "nuts," it's just many of us feel strongly about this issue of waste and so we speak to it somewhat vociferously when we see or hear about it. If we didn't, we as a group would have little respect from the non-hunting community. Others aren't willing to "police" hunters within their ranks because they lack ethics of their own. They want to say, "The guy made a mistake, don't get down on him, let's all learn from this. It really wasn't his fault; there was nothing he could do; stuff happens." Are any of you parents? Is this what you do when your kid makes a mistake, you don't get down on him/her? This isn't fun for me, getting down on this guy I don't even know, who may be the nicest most sincere guy in the world. I know it's fun for some others who post here. If hunters don't condemn unethical practices among hunters, who will?
Good luck Shawn.
Sincerely, Mark
Previous: High water and Kotz Wapiti57 Oct 18 2005
Next: Offensive AkHunter45 Oct 18 2005
 Message Thread:
|
