Why Would You Take a Child Hunting?

It’s not for all kids, but for some, hunting is a great way to connect with nature and parents.

Ian is ready for this fall's hunting season.

Why on earth would you do it, a few folks have asked me.

“Why on earth would you let a child carry a loaded firearm? Why would you encourage a child to shoot and kill wildlife? Why would you take a child hunting?”

There are so many ways to answer that I hardly know where to start. The answer is both complex and simple.

First, a little setting: here in rural southwestern New Hampshire, we live in an ideal place to hunt. There’s plenty of forest, great habitat for white-tailed deer, wild turkey and other game, not to mention the warblers, thrushes and other species that thrive here.

A fair amount of these lands are open and available to hunting. And many of those lands, by the way, are protected by organizations and landowners through ownership or conservation easement. Hunters, hikers and nature-lovers of all sorts enjoy the benefits of this foresight.
 

Second: Unlike most people who learn hunting from their fathers, I did not. My father’s father, Ralph, was an avid hunter. You can see his pride of hunting in the weathered old photos and antlers on the walls of our camp in Maine. My dad hunted a little in his youth, but pretty much gave it up when I came of age. I took up hunting as an adult, mentored by a friend.

And while Son Number One has little interest in hunting, he’s a lover of the outdoors and a conservationist at heart, now studying forestry in college. Son Number Two, now 14, is also a lover of the outdoors and a conservationist. That’s Ian, who was a toddler when he started begging to join me hunting. 

Ian would carry a pop gun on those early “expeditions.” In later years, I’d let him carry an old .22 rifle with the action missing and we’d go out for an hour or two. For me, it was not really hunting; just fun time with the kid. For him, it was an all-out adventure, filled with the awesome, wondrous responsibility of listening, learning and safety. And always, the exciting possibility of a deer.

Youth Season for Deer

For the past two years, Ian and I have participated in New Hampshire’s youth deer hunt. It’s a specially designated weekend when a youth age 15 and under can hunt with a licensed adult. 

During the youth hunt, Ian is the one carrying the real, loaded gun. And I’m watching him carefully, making sure the muzzle is pointed in a safe direction and that he’s following all the other commandments of safe firearms handling. And like some of his youth-hunt peers, Ian has already taken and aced the N.H. Fish and Game hunter education class.  

The night before is a time of preparations. Ian lays out all the items he needs before meticulously packing his camo pack. The little survivalist packs knives, a poncho, rope, compass, gloves, extra socks, granola bars and who knows what else. He has anything needed to survive and thrive in the woods. He reads up on hunting, sets out his clothes and double-checks his alarm. This kid can’t wait.

We Hunt Because We’re Human

In today’s world, we don’t need to hunt to survive. As comfortable First World folks, we can get all the food we need at the supermarket or the farm, whether we’re vegans or omnivores. But we don’t need to do things because they’re easy or convenient. Sometimes we do things for the challenge.

We hunt because we’re human. It’s the ancient urge to gather, whether it’s nuts and berries or game. It’s an ancient urge to survive, to sustain. To learn from the world and to teach what we learn. These are impulses that arise from millions of years of human evolution. 

And as our garden veggies are delicious, so too is venison. It’s all natural, organic, free-ranging, sustainable and local. As hunters, we see how deer get by. And though we’re not guaranteed a deer, we may see how another deer gives its life and how it becomes our food. 

Getting Outside and Learning Respect

Whether a young hunter considers all these weighty matters about hunting and age-old instincts, I can’t say. I suspect a young hunter processes much of the hunt in many different and complex ways.

But I do know that kids spend too much time indoors, sitting in front of screens. Encouraging children to play and explore the outdoors is even a challenge for this parent, as it is for millions of other parents.

As for the guns, I’m not the first to admit there are too many guns (especially handguns), and American culture is way too violent. And I’m among many who’ll suggest that hunting instills in children a respect for firearms, an understanding of wildlife and a keener awareness that life and death are intertwined in many ways. Folks who grow up with farm animals know what I’m saying.

That’s not to say that hunting is all about shooting and death. Far from it. I hunted for years without shooting anything!

Preserving Our Environment and Traditions

But hunting is also about patience. It’s about reading details in the woods, like tracks, buck rubs and scrapes. It’s about stepping quietly on crunchy leaves. It’s about watching the clouds and hearing the wind and tolerating the cold rain and snow. It’s about planning and anticipation. It’s about the warm tea from a Thermos on a cold day. It’s about sitting quietly with your kin, no words exchanged, just a nod now and then and an understanding. It’s about returning to a warm home, scented with fresh-baked cookies. It’s about stories – many great stories – that we’ll share for decades.

Ian and I already have many hunting stories, from the three black bears that walked by us last year, to this year’s tree stand adventures. We look forward to many more.

But when it comes to hunting with a child, don’t just take my word for it. Here’s what Ian says about it:

“From hunting I have learned about respecting and preserving our environment and our traditions, so future generations will still be able to enjoy what we do today. I have learned about the animals themselves too, and the more you know about our nature the more you want to preserve it. Hunter education has taught me about ethics and the proper safe ways to hunt and overall has made me a better naturalist, hunter and individual.”

Well said, Ian.

Now, gather up your stuff. Let’s go hunting!

Eric Aldrich writes from his home in Hancock.

Staring into the Eyes of the Eastern Coyote

A complicated story and a complicated canine.

It was a bright Saturday afternoon in March when my son and I were driving home from a fairly remote spot in Hancock. We were on our way back from pulling a disk of images from my game camera. 

We turned a corner and saw standing in the road a light blonde canine staring back at us. For the few seconds that it stood in the road, we could see it was big, maybe over 50 pounds, with front legs tight together and ears thick with fur.

And then it turned and confidently strode into the woods, brisk but unhurried.

“Was that a dog?” Ben asked.

“Nope,” I said. “That was a coyote. A nice, healthy one. And a great view of it.”

When we got home and checked the game camera images, I saw more coyotes staring at me. It didn’t take long for me to see that the camera had photographed three coyotes over the past few weeks. There were shots of all three together, and many more images of each individual.

Tawny, Scruffy and Healthy

After a few more weeks of setting up the camera at this spot, I got to know each coyote little. I could see their individual characteristics, a little personality and patterns of behavior.

There’s the tawny one, generally shy, who stopped appearing in late-February. I’m not sure, but I theorize that Tawny could be a female who’s now with pups in the den.

There’s the scruffy one, who’s smaller than the other two, with a bad coat and loss of fur at the base of its tail. Scruffy’s problematic coat could be mange, malnutrition or both. Scruffy seems to take risks, doesn’t have rigid timing patterns and appears less confident than the others. Maybe I’m wrong, but Scruffy could be an 11-month old who has remained with the parents as a pack.

And finally there’s the healthy one. This coyote is bigger than the others, appears at predictable times and seems cautious and confident. Healthy has a nice, shiny coat, a bushy tail, and a black streak between its bright yellowish eyes. I think Healthy is the elder male, and he is very handsome.

The Advantage of Crust

My camera can’t follow this pack everywhere, but if it could, it might show their den, typically just a small hole in the ground that goes back into a larger chamber. On a cold mid-winter night, you might find all three in there. By April or May, it could also be holding Tawny’s litter of four to eight pups.

The past few weeks before snow-melt have been tough on coyotes. This omnivore has few dining options during a good chunk of winter. But by late-winter, the snow gives coyotes an advantage. This winter was a good example. The snowpack of 1 to 2 feet can form a crust that coyotes can navigate easily, but deer cannot. While deer are near the end of their rope by late-March, coyotes – whether single or in a pack – can take down even the healthiest buck.

I saw this recently when a neighbor showed me a deer that had just been killed by coyotes. This healthy buck had a puncture wound in the neck, and its back end had been eaten out.

The thought of coyotes killing deer is just too much for some deer-hunters to bear. A vocal set of deer hunters say killing more coyotes will help the deer herd, thus improving the hunters’ chances of tagging a deer in the fall.

Despite the good intentions of helping both deer and hunters, this misguided approach doesn’t work. Coyotes that dodge the bullet tend to respond to increased mortality by having larger litters.

Cold Eyes from a Postcard

We’ve learned plenty about Eastern coyotes in the past few decades, and there’s plenty more to learn. The Eastern is a lot bigger than its western cousin. We know it hunts in packs, though not as often or as organized as wolves.

And we know that the Eastern coyote is part-wolf (some refer to it as coywolf). We know it appeared in New Hampshire in the mid-1940s.

This point about the Eastern coyote’s emergence into New England touches home with me by way of a 1953 postcard that’s tacked to the kitchen wall at my family’s old camp in Cherryfield, Maine. It shows a Maine game warden inspecting the carcass of a big canine. On the back, the caption says that this was the “first timber wolf shot in Maine in over 100 years.”

Sure, maybe so. Or maybe not. Also possible that the mysterious canine was actually one of the first coyotes to be seen in that part of Maine. Part coyote, part wolf. A complicated story and a complicated canine.

The eyes of the coyote in that postcard are lifeless and cold. Nothing like the bright, alert eyes of the blonde, healthy coyote that glanced at me and my son a few weeks ago. And nothing like the eyes of Tawny, Scruffy and Healthy, whom I’ve come to admire over the past few weeks.

I hope to get to know these coyotes a bit more in the coming months.

Eric Aldrich writes from his home in Hancock.

Is Bigfoot Roaming the Hancock Hills?

Several sightings start scientific study of sasquatch on Skatutakee.

Is this a bigfoot that was photographed on a game camera

in early March? Dublin resident Miles O'Keefe claims he
also saw one on Sept. 31.

HANCOCK, NH, April 1, 2013 - Miles O’Keefe remembers every detail of that brilliant fall afternoon last Sept. 31, when he hiked up Mount Skatutakee in Hancock.

Weary from his ascent, though only a few minutes from the summit, O’Keefe sat against a huge pine, caught his breath and shut his eyes for a moment.

That’s when he heard it. Just a faint shuffle of leaves, somewhere off the trail.

“The sounds got louder, and I could hear the crunching of twigs,” said O’Keefe, a retired school custodian from Dublin. “It sounded like someone was walking in the woods.”

O’Keefe shouted, “Hey, who’s there?”

Not hearing a response, O’Keefe stood up and peered through the trees. Nothing. He waited a few minutes, took a swig and put the bottle back in his pack. Still nothing. So he shouldered his pack and continued up the trail, wondering if there was a bear in the woods or if someone was playing tricks on him.

Suddenly, he heard a crashing through the woods, something big. Expecting a bear, O’Keefe froze in his tracks and glanced toward the sound.

“It was about 40 feet in the woods and running away from me,” he said. “I could see right away it was no bear. It was about 9 feet tall and running away on two legs, covered from head to toe with dark, black fur or hair. I knew right away it was bigfoot.” 

Big Plans Afoot for Bigfoot 

While O’Keefe’s story sounds unbelievable, some new evidence of a large primate on Hancock’s hills has surfaced and the state’s wildlife agency is preparing to have its own look.

A Hancock resident who wants to remain anonymous claims that his game camera captured an image of Skatutakee’s sasquatch on March 9. The motion-activated camera, which the resident sometimes baits with carcasses, was on a remote part of the mountain when it photographed the ape-like animal.

Until now, N.H. Fish and Wildlife Department officials have been skeptical of periodic sasquatch sightings around the state. Now, the Department's Cryptozoology Program is planning a full-blown biological assessment of bigfoot in the Monadnock Region.

“Presented with recent convincing evidence of this elusive animal, we are now compelled to gather biological data to better understand and manage the population, if it indeed exists,” said Fish and Wildlife biologist Mark Englewood. “So we’re happy to use our extremely limited resources to gain some valuable insight into this curious mammal’s population dynamics and habitat use. Ultimately, we want to know if this presents an opportunity for recreational hunting, as well as some sorely needed revenue for the Department.” 

Mark and Recapture 

Now getting under way, the Fish and Wildlife bigfoot study will focus on Mount Skatutakee and Thumb Mountain in Hancock. It will be a classic “mark and recapture” study, which is a common method in ecology used to determine population densities and habitat use in a given area. The mark and recapture method can be used for creatures as small as a snail and as big as a black bear … or even bigfoot.

“What we’ll do is capture a sample number, tag and release those individuals unharmed, then go back after a period of time and attempt to capture and tag either the same or additional individuals,” Englewood said. “Using standard biological and statistical principles, we can extrapolate the number of individuals per given area. That, and a bunch of guesswork.”

If one or more bigfoot are captured, they will also be fitted with radio-telemetry collars to let researchers study the animals’ use of habitat. Shiny and brightly colored collars will also help the animals find mates.

Because bigfoot are elusive and potentially wicked dangerous, Fish and Wildlife will have the actual capturing done by unpaid interns.

“There are some obvious issues involving liability and reputational risk,” Englewood said. “So we think this would be an ideal learning opportunity for student interns. They would much rather be in the field, anyway, doing glamorous research for which they could ultimately be rewarded with fame, glory and … well, you know, fame and glory.” 

You Never Know What May Appear 

The bigfoot sightings are welcome news to Reed Cabot, semi-retired senior naturalist emeritus at the Barbara P.C. Harris Center for Conservation Observation in Hancock or Greenfield. He points to the value of protected habitats in the center’s Uber-Sanctuary, covering some umpteen thousand acres in 20-or-30-something towns.

“We’ve known for a long time now that, once these lands are protected, all sorts of wide-ranging animals will use these tracts as travel corridors,” Cabot said. “Species like bobcats, black bear, moose, ticks and bigfoot.”

Many questions remain, like, how did this big, hairy animal elude detection for so long?

Miles O’Keefe, who holds the lonely distinction of actually seeing a bigfoot in New Hampshire, thinks he has the answer. O’Keefe has now become somewhat of an expert in sasquatch ecology. Since his sighting, O’Keefe has become a card-carrying, certified bigfoot scientist by the Union of Scientific Sasquatch Researchers (USSR).

“Things appear in the woods when you do what I did that day in September,” O’Keefe said. “Just sit down for a minute and be still. Let the forest settle out and keep an open mind. You never know what may appear.” 

Eric Aldrich writes from his home in Hancock, where you never know …