Yes, Sarah Palin Can Field Dress A Moose

(Published in the Connecticut College Voice September 12, 2008)

Much of the liberal mainstream news media have recently devoted quite a bit of time to the fact that Sarah Palin hunts, or more specifically, that she knows how to field dress a moose. Not only is this entirely irrelevant to her potential leadership qualities as Vice President, but these remarks exemplify a lot of what I perceive to be misguided thoughts about hunting. Many of us at Connecticut College are from parts of the country where hunting is not a reality of our lives, making it easy to stigmatize the killing of wild animals without giving it any further thought. (After all, many of us were part of the Bambi generation) With the popularity of vegetarianism and veganism—and I’m making no judgment on the laudability of these causes—it becomes easy to view meat consumption as just that, meat consumption. But the decision to eat meat is much more complex; hunted venison is not the same thing as store-bought or restaurant-served beef that was produced on a massive scale.

I know many are aware of the appalling realities of factory farms, from their conditions and pollution to the lower quality meat they produce. The illumination of these facts in recent years has fomented a new wave of animal-loving vegans, which I think is great. Though I am in no position to judge anyone’s food decisions, I strongly support skipping out on factory-farm products. But for those who choose to eat meat, I do want to re-examine common notions about hunting, and talk about hunting as a great way to obtain food.

First of all, humans are carnivorous animals, and historically there is nothing immoral or unnatural about eating other animals. That being said, a good hunter can kill an animal quickly and painlessly, especially when compared to the months a factory-farm animal spends immobile, frustrated, and pumped full of antibiotics and hormones. Also, for everyone who embraces the concept of “sustainability,” hunting is a far more sustainable way to procure meat than buying it from the supermarket. States issue a certain number of hunting tags every season, which helps to keep population sizes in check. Sustainable, by definition, means the ability for something to keep going, and humans have hunted animals for a very long time. With the proper attitudes and regulations, hunting has much less risk to an ecosystem than factory farms.

As a society, we have become so disconnected from where our food originates, particularly when the meat we eat is processed to the point of no longer resembling an animal. If you are going to eat an animal, something in your relationship to it and the earth is lost when you get a boneless, skinless chicken breast. But hunting can foster these largely lost and deeply important relationships. When you become responsible for the killing and processing of an animal, there can be a sense of interconnectedness, and a realization of the earth’s complex fragility.

Hunting is also an economical way to feed a family, though, granted, not everyone lives in a state where hunting tags are essentially unlimited. With the price of a gun as a fixed cost, a person in Montana can buy a deer tag and an elk tag for $26. That $26 can yield more meat than many families could eat in a year, not to mention healthy, naturally grass-fed, antibiotic-free meat. For many people in the world, hunting plays an essential role in their protein and iron consumption.

OK, so I’m not necessarily suggesting that you go buy yourself a rifle and move to Montana, and I’m not suggesting that you quit being a vegan or stop supporting small-scale farm meat operations (a good way to obtain meat for people who have no access to hunting or who cannot stomach it). However, I am hoping that if you harbor prejudices about hunting, that you question and rethink those assumptions; maybe you can begin to see hunting as a more sustainable, less cruel way to provide food for a family, and to create an important relationship with the outside world.

If Sarah Palin can field dress a moose, all the power to her, but let’s keep in mind that her skills in the field have nothing to do with her foreign policy ideas or ability to be Vice President (unless, of course, global warming causes some mass migration of large game animals to Pennsylvania Avenue…)