600,000 hunters stalk prey today
Aaron Hummel
Issue date: 11/15/07 Section: News
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Most hunters consider this the most significant day of the year because more deer are harvested today than on any other day. For many of these hunters, including several from Hillsdale College, this is a sacred day, akin to Christmas or New Year's.
"Nov. 15 represents a constant in my life," said senior Tom Molter, who planned to hunt near Adrian, Mich., on his family's property today. "Some people measure time by birthdays. Others do it by seasons, particularly hunting season."
Across Michigan, Molter is not unusual.
A Jan. 10 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report ranked Michigan third in the nation for number of hunters and fishermen in 2005, the latest year for which data is available. With 789,244 total license holders in 2005, Michigan falls behind only Texas and Pennsylvania, the report said.
Most of those license holders are deer hunters.
In 2006, 691,000 hunters harvested almost 456,000 deer according to the Michigan DNR. This amounted to 10.1 million days spent hunting deer for a success rate of 46 percent.
But numbers aside, for many sportsmen, hunting is a family tradition passed down since Michigan was first settled in the 19th century.
"My father did it, my grandfather did it," Director of Financial Aid Rich Moeggenberg said. "It's no different than any other sport. Some of my best memories of my father, my grandfather come from hunting [and from] being outside."
Moeggenberg expected to be hunting with relatives in northern Michigan today, he said last week.
Sophomore Sam Nutile, who won't hunt until Thanksgiving break, also chases deer in northern Michigan with his father and younger brother.
"It's something my dad did, and I was brought up with it," he said. "I think it's fun."
But for Professor of Economics Gary Wolfram, who estimated that he has killed about 20 deer since 1985, hunting is about the excitement of seeing deer and the challenges of the great outdoors that hunters must overcome.
"I hunt because I enjoy the interaction with nature and the feeling that, as Hank Williams Jr. put it, 'A country boy can survive,'" he said.
Assistant Professor of Biology Anthony Swinehart began hunting last year, and already he is planning on getting most of his meat from the deer he kills.
"There are four reasons why I hunt deer: Cheap, lean, red, meat," he said. "I'm really starting to get interested in subsistence farming, but I travel too much to raise meat other than chickens, so I haven't bought meat in more than a year. Since I shot that doe, I haven't bought meat."
Swinehart usually hunts alone or with former students in Hillsdale and Lake counties, he said. He often uses a replica of a Kentucky long rifle musket and tries to imitate deer
vocalizations with a grunt tube. He also uses aromatic mixtures to conceal his own scent.
"I use an earth-smell spray on myself, and I use a sweet acorn scent around where I hunt," he said.
Wolfram and Swinehart said they won't hunt today, but do plan to get out later in the season.
Swinehart said that it is important to maintain annual hunting seasons because humans have removed the natural predators that keep deer populations within a level that their habitat can sustain.
"We're just fulfilling the role as predators," he said. "Predation or killing by carnivores is unpleasant for the individual, but good for the population as a whole."
For Molter and Moeggenberg, the best part of hunting is the relaxation of getting away from civilization.
"It's about sitting next to an oak tree and staring at a bird in the tree," Moeggenberg said. "It's a natural high - I get off on that."
"I love the stories that come out of it," Molter said. "Every time you go out in the woods something different happens."
Hillsdale College Collegian, 2007
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