To be honest, if one of the students in my Junior Duck Stamp classes ever turned in something like this, I would be elated.
(For a bit of background--a few years ago the Federal Duck Stamp contest rules were changed so that artists HAD to include some element of waterfowl hunting in their entries, whether they were comfortable with it or not. The above artwork may be my favorite example of malicious--or at least snarky--compliance.)
Here’s a redemption video since I feel bad about my first post. Great shot from Ethan that my dad and I didn’t even attempt. Also, we fist bumped before the duck even touched the water.
From your post about your grandfather it sounds like you think him teaching you to hunt and fish is a good thing. If that's right, can I ask why do you believe that? I get the whole passing the knowledge onto you thing, I'm just curious about what you think of that specifically
I'm sorry, are you trying to use my post about my grandfather dying on my birthday, which is quite clearly about grief, loss, and love for those who are no longer with us, to start a debate about the morality of hunting wild game?
i grew up in bear country. like, the “you can’t leave food in your car because the bears will break your car and eat it” kind of bear country. so up there people make sure to teach their kids how to avoid getting eaten by bears. and you know the number one thing you do to avoid encountering a bear in the first place?
you make sure it hears you coming
if you’re hiking with a friend, you talk loudly the whole time. if you don’t want to do that, or you’re alone, you wear bells or something else that makes noise. because bears aren’t stupid, they know humans are trouble, and they don’t wanna fuck with you any more than you wanna fuck with them
like. think about that. bears are walking tanks. they can cave in the door to a house or move around a 500 pound dumpster like its nothing. you can shoot a bear with a gun and not do much more than piss it off. a bear could absolutely pick off one lone human on a hike for a free meal. but bears never hunt humans, and they rarely attack humans
like imagine an alien visiting earth and their human friend hands them a bell and says “when we go through here we gotta make sure the local apex predators know exactly where we are at all times”
and they’re like “...oh, yes, of course. the other predators on earth must have learned that they can’t kill a human, and it’s better to avoid a fight if you can”
and the human says “no, if a bear attacked us we’d die”
and they’re like, wait, what?? you want to give our exact location to something that could easily kill us? do you have a death wish??? and their friend is like, no, look, bears don’t fuck with humans if they can help it
not because they can’t, but because they know better