The Game Preserve

Preserve nothing.

There is a so-called game preserve in our little community. I don't know how many acres are back there in the far parts of these hills, but it looks to be hundreds. We've walked by that property, and also driven by with the car, to see how far back that particular road goes. We turned around before we got to the very end of it, so it's a large spread of land.

A few days ago, one of the neighbors asked us if we heard all the gunshots coming from the preserve. We hadn't heard a sound, because that was the day we went to try and find the parts my husband needed to knock the virus out of his computer.

Apparently, that game preserve does indeed preserve the wildlife in there-- but only till the opening day of hunting season. And we're guessing that the season opened on the day we were out of town. Our neighbor told us that the guns were going off all afternoon, just one after another after another. The hunters have begun hunting.

Give me a blessed break. Hunting? As in hiding in the woods and stalking the wildlife while you're trying not to make a single sound because if they hear you, off they run into the forest. Their forest.

That's not what is happening on the game preserve, however. The wildlife is settled there... they know food and water are always ready and available, and they don't have to go foraging for their meals. They also probably know they're safe there-- the humans are feeding them all year long, not shooting at them. Until the opening of hunting season. Then safe becomes unsafe.

And then.... the humans who feed them become the humans who shoot them.

That's supposed to be a sport? Men go up onto that property where the wildlife is all fenced in, with no means of escape, and they can shoot till they have enough dead animals to decorate the walls of their family rooms with the heads?!

Men do stupid things in the name of sport.