A little Thanksgiving food for thought

It's Thanksgiving morning and Boyfriend is getting ready to cook a modest feast for four - a fairly traditional assortment of turkey, stuffing, taters and the works. But when I looked at the turkey on the counter this morning, I gasped: It cost a decidedly untraditional $46.

Then I got over it.

We could've gotten a cheaper turkey, but we wanted free-range and organic. The closer we've gotten to our food supply by hunting (and in Boyfriend's case, gardening too), the more we've wanted to disconnect ourselves from factory-farmed food, not just because of some of the cruelties inherent in packed living conditions, but because it just doesn't have the same nutrition and flavor.

And producing food like this is more expensive - it takes more space and more care.

America, though, is enamored with cheap meat, so much so that we as a culture are willing to overlook its true cost, the poor living conditions for animals, lack of flavor (because everything's corn-fed) and a host of unwanted appetizers such as hormones, antibiotics and pesticides.

Up to a point, anyway.

On Nov. 4, Californians overwhelmingly passed Proposition 2, a ballot initiative that would require more living space for veal calves, pregnant pigs and egg-laying hens. The vote was 63.5 percent to 36.5 percent. Eight million Californians stood up for the factory-farmed animals.

Click on image to go to interactive map of vote results.

Sounds great, right?

Wrong. I call bullshit on these people, and here's why:

Californians have always had the power to change the living conditions of the animals that either produce or become our food. We didn't neet a ballot initiative to do it. We needed to pay more attention to where we spent our money at the grocery store.

Let's consider eggs, which is where we expect to see the most impact from this initiative. You can buy organic eggs produced by free-range hens any time you want. The more you buy them, the more farmers are going to produce them, and the more laying hens will be living in better conditions.

The problem is they cost $4.50 a dozen, when eggs produced by hens who live in those horrible little battery cages where they can't turn around cost $2 a dozen.

And guess what? Californians don't want to spend that much - they want their eggs cheap. The best estimates for the so-called "specialty egg" market are that it's anywhere from 5 percent to 10 percent of the market. That means, very broadly, that no more than 10 percent of egg consumers are paying to support an egg industry that provides better living conditions for hens.

But 63.5 percent of Californians voted to get rid of battery cages.

See the disconnect? I know this is a statistical reach, but for the sake of discussion, let's say this means about half of Californians want egg producers to treat their hens better, but they're not willing to pay for it.

What we know will happen now - and what we knew before the initiative passed - is that production of cheap eggs will move out of state, and all these people who hate cruelty but don't want to pay for kindness will keep getting their cheap eggs, which now will have the added environmental benefit of even more pollution being pumped into the air to transport this crap back into California.

Brilliant.

OK, I know that Boyfriend and I are blessed with salaries that actually give us the choice of buying eggs for $4.50 a dozen and a little 13-pound turkey for $46. I know that's not an option for people with small herds of children, and people living on minimum wage. I guess what I'd like to see is a little more awareness that cheap has a price.

If the Humane Society - which backed Prop. 2 - gets its way, that awareness will come sooner rather than later. The Humane Society knows that Californians will continue to buy eggs produced by hens in battery cages in other states; its goal is to get this law passed in all 50 states so that's no longer an option.

And when that happens, then suddenly everyone who felt pity for the hens but more pity for their wallets will understand the true cost of better food.

OK, I know a rant like this isn't your traditional Thanksgiving post, but this issue has been bugging me since Nov. 5.

And on a day that we celebrate all we're thankful for by eating a feast, it seemed appropriate to spend a little time talking about the true cost of that feast. Today, I am grateful that hunting has caused me to think more about deeply my food than I ever did in the first 41 years of my life. And I am grateful I can afford to align my grocery store spending with my values. In this economy, I know that's no small feat.

© Holly A. Heyser 2008

Huntress hubris and the end of penance

I don't consider myself a terribly suspicious person, but I must admit I feel like I've been paying for my pride over the past few weeks.

My duck season started spectacularly last month. I got five ducks on a gorgeous hunt on opening day (a personal record), and followed it up the next weekend with an even better six-duck day at Tule Lake.

I was shooting pretty darn well, and I was pretty pleased with myself, given the struggles I've faced in my first two years of hunting. I indulged in the luxury of thinking I'd turned a corner.

Perhaps I had. But the gods certainly didn't reward that thinking with any more blessings. Here's what my weekends have been like since then:

Sunday, Nov. 2: Afternoon duck hunt at Delevan. Got a few opportunities to shoot, but missed everything. Had an incredibly good opportunity to shoot at some teal whizzing by at light speed probably 15 yards away, but was too dumbfounded to shoot. Doh!

Saturday, Nov. 8: Pheasant opener. Club planted birds in rice fields. But farmer had plowed too heavily, eliminating most cover, and the hawks got more pheasants than we did. Boyfriend and I shot simultaneously at one bird, which took 20 minutes to track down. Turns out it had only one piece of shot in it, meaning one of us missed. Probably me. Did something awful to hip and knee and spent the next week in agony.

Sunday, Nov. 9: Morning duck hunt at Yolo Bypass. The worst flight I've ever seen - hardly anything moving. The only group that came in good shooting range escaped unscathed after our entire party emptied our guns in their general direction. "Now stay away!" I yelled at them as they sped off, laughing at us.

Saturday, Nov. 15: Pheasant hunt with Boyfriend's new boss and four other hunters. Two hunters didn't show up. The hunters with the dogs. Saw one pheasant while we were out feeding sheep before the hunt, and me with my gun nowhere in sight. Of course that was the only one we saw all day. Boyfriend did get a dove, though...

Sunday, Nov. 16: Turkey hunt at a Napa Vineyard where I got my first turkey last spring. Unfortunately, the turkeys had disappeared without a trace more than a month ago. Boyfriend did cook a nice wild game dinner that night, though...

Now, we expect duck hunting to be awful in November; the resident ducks are wary and the unwary northerners haven't come down yet. That's why we filled the month with pheasant and turkey hunts.

Not that we expected to do well on every hunt.

But, dang, this was quite a dry run.

So it was with my tail between my legs that I dragged myself out of bed at 5 a.m. Saturday to go pheasant hunting at the Camanche Hills Hunting Preserve, about an hour southeast of here.

Our host would be someone we'd never met: Peter. Boyfriend, Peter and I have been emailing each other for months, kindred spirits in the newspaper business who found each other online and resolved to get together sometime. We were supposed to go frog gigging this summer but had to cancel last minute. When Peter invited us to Camanche, we leapt at the chance.

Now, normally I would expect a planted-bird hunt to offer decent shooting opportunity, but I thought no such thing Saturday morning. I stuffed my pockets with more shells than we could ever need, and we set out for what would probably be a nice long hike with guns over golden hills dotted with majestic oaks.

Right at the beginning, one pheasant lifted up on a hill hundreds of yards from us and settled down in the distance.

That'll be the only bird we'll see all day, I told myself.

We kept walking.

Peter's dogs, Asti Spumanti and Dolly, headed into a dried-up water hole and got all birdy on us. We readied our guns, but the rooster never flushed; the dogs just grabbed him and brought him to Peter.

Hmmmm... at least we got to see one up close.

Not five minutes after that, Peter's dogs flushed another bird from under a scrubby little willow, and I'll be damned if it didn't fly straight at Boyfriend. He fired; the bird fell.

"Next one's yours," he said.

Maybe 15 minutes later, the dogs flushed another bird. It broke in Boyfriend's direction. He fired; the bird fell.

"OK, next one's yours," he said sheepishly.

We walked up a hill and sure enough, the dogs got all birdy again. A rooster flushed, and we raised our guns. But it was flying up the gentle slope so low to the ground that we couldn't shoot without risking hitting Asti or Dolly, so we lowered our guns. When we scoured the area where the bird had landed, we came up empty handed.

Time to go back to the cars for water and to take off a layer of clothes. As we headed toward our cars, I declared that there would be a rooster waiting for us, right there in the parking lot.

Surprisingly, I was right.

Unsurprisingly, it was another hunter who flushed and shot that bird just feet from our cars.

I was getting that familiar grim feeling.

"Wanna go up into those hills?" Peter asked. "Sometimes the birds that get away go up in there, and a lot of hunters don't go after 'em."

"Sure!" I said. What's a little shoe leather?

We made our way up into less-traveled territory, but the sun was rising higher and the dogs were getting tired, and so were we. The morning hunt was scheduled to end at 11 a.m., and around 10:40, we conceded that we'd better angle back to our cars.

We straddled the hilltop, enjoying vistas that made me break out into song like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, only much less talented. Nice walk...

And then, Asti and Dolly perked up. "Holly," Peter said urgently, "They're getting birdy, move in!"

The rooster flushed before I could get as close as I wanted, but I raised my gun and fired. The bird tumbled.

My long dry streak had ended. And it had ended well: one shot, one bird. A modest take. And I hadn't embarrassed myself.

Well, there's still plenty of time to do that this season. And now I've got one more friend who can witness it.

Epilogue: To see what Boyfriend did with these pheasants, click here.




© Holly A. Heyser 2008

Why I love Tred Barta AND Ted Nugent

Ted Nugent never saw a gun he didn't love or a bait pile he didn't want to hunt over. Tred Barta can't talk about bear hunting without bragging about his stone-tip arrows and complaining about people baiting bears with jelly donuts. That puts Ted and Tred about as far apart on the spectrum of hunting ethics as you can possibly get.

So why do I love both of them?

Let me start with Ted. I loved Ted Nugent as a teenager. His music was hard-charging, obnoxious and infectious, and his concerts were reputed to be the loudest around. (Fun fact: I saw him once at Selland Arena in Fresno and actually fell asleep during the concert. Not that I was bored - just exhausted from playing in a big high school tennis tournament that day.)

Now, as an adult who hunts, I watch his show, sometimes in horror, as he gleefully promotes some things I really don't agree with, like hunting over bait, which I would do in a subsistence situation, but find unappealing in times of plenty. Or when he tells viewers it's their "spiritual duty" to own guns to protect the bodies that God gave them.

Whoa. Really? I would never foist a gun on anyone who didn't want one.

And then there's Tred, who's willing to travel all over North America just to come home empty-handed because he's so stubborn that he wants to kill everything with his handmade longbow and stone-tipped arrows. And it's all gotta be spot-and-stalk, no blinds allowed.

On one episode of his show, he briefly succumbs to the urge to make a blind out of branches, berates himself like a recovering alcoholic who's fallen off the wagon, then tears it down. And of course, he ends his hunt without game.

Oh my. It must be nice to have the luxury of not caring about the outcome, but when I invest my time and hard-earned money in a hunt, it's really important to me to bring back some meat for the freezer. Not that I'm willing to do anything to get it - I know coming home empty-handed once in a while is part of the deal. But I'm sure as hell not going to tie my hands behind my back to prove a point.

So back to that question: Why on earth do I love both of them?

Two reasons:

One, they both strike me as utterly sincere about what they say. In a television environment where 95 percent of the shows are thinly veiled infomercials for bait, food plot programs, camo and weapon makers, I find that sincerity refreshing.

Sure, Ted touts his sponsors' products, but when he winds up for a Holy Roller-style exaltation of the Second Amendment, it is authentic Ted, not a canned speech laced with references to C'Mere Deer.

And yes, critics pick apart Tred for killing a pig with a knife ... while it's being held down. Or taking an long shot at some running deer ... with a long bow. But I never doubt for a second that he believes in what he's doing, because you can't really do product placement with homemade stuff.

But the second reason I love them both is the more important one: They both challenge me to consider options and ideas outside of my comfort zone, or at least to remain open-minded about them.

As a new huntress, it is my goal to improve enough each year that I can withstand greater and greater challenges. I've done some pretty easy hunts in my first two years, and I'd like to think I can grow tough enough to handle a multi-day hike in steep mountains to track mountain goats or bighorn sheep, or to use less and less sophisticated weaponry. Tred reminds me that this is a noble goal.

But Ted brings me back to my core beliefs about hunting: Humans eat animals, and to eat them we must kill them, and beyond science-based game management practices that ensure we don't wipe out any species, and beyond our universal desire for the cleanest kill possible, the methods we follow really are a matter of personal preference - nothing more. Attacking each other over these methods serves no one but the enemies of hunting.

It just doesn't seem unreasonable to me that the hunting community should have room for both points of view.

© Holly A. Heyser 2008

Ring, ring, ring - NRA calling...

So I'm sitting at my desk at school today when the phone rings and who's calling but the NRA.

"Hey, we saw this article about you in the Stockton Record and wanted to see if you'd like to be on our radio show..."

It turns out being a female journalist academic who hunts makes me the trifecta of weirdness. In a good way, of course.

"Uh... sure. OK. Uh, no problem. What time?"

I actually love radio. Back in my last life as a newspaper reporter, I'd occasionally be a guest on both radio and TV programs, and I must say radio was my favorite because I didn't have to worry about how I looked. Not that I'm a hag or anything. But even my mom says I'm better on radio. Thanks, Mom.

So, anyway, the deal today was that I'd be a guest on the Cam & Company show, which streams live on the NRA's website.

So I get the call at the appointed time - 8:20 p.m. - and start talking. Everything's going fine.

Except for my cat.

Giblet is a spoiled little kitty who likes to be doted on a LOT. And if there's one thing that drives her crazy, it's me talking on the phone, because I'm not paying attention to Little Miss Princess.

First she starts making her little harumphing noises. "Mrrrph? Mrowf?"

I ignore her.

Then she starts hacking like an old man. She's getting over a cold, and when she decides to clear snot from her little sinuses, it's really quite spectacular.

"Hchwack! Hchwack! Hchwack!"

Oh lord, can Cam hear this? Can the audience hear this?

If Cam could hear it, he wasn't saying anything. So I kept talking. "Hunting with my boyfriend blah blah blah writing a blog blah blah blah..."

Then Giblet decides to jump on a precarious stack of my mother's photo albums, which I store here during fire season in case her mountain home goes up in flames. Giblet is about to topple the stack, which includes one ancient volume filled with black-and-whites of Mom and my late father during their courtship.

Yikes! I leap out of my chair and remove the cat, trying to remain coherent and nonchalant with Cam.

With Giblet safely on the floor, I sit back down and relax.

Until I hear it.

Scratch scratch scratch.

Scratch scratch scratch.

What the hell is it with cats scratching the kitty litter and litter box 300 times? Can they not just poop, cover it up and be done with it?

More importantly, is the sound of my kitty's bodily function being transmitted to fine, gun-loving Americans everywhere?

Not a peep from Cam, so maybe not. He finished up with me, told his listeners that I was a good-news story and went on to his next piece.

Of course, as soon as the show was over, I immediately went to the archived show to see if I could hear Giblet's mischief.

Not really. I don't know. I don't think so...

All in all, though, it was a very good experience. But if Cam ever invites me back on the show, I'm locking Giblet in the garage.

How to hear it: The show streams live on the NRA's website, but each show remains online only until the next one begins. I did, however, make a copy of the webcast, which you can view/hear below. YouTube won't let me upload it in one piece, though, so you have to watch it in two parts. And, fair warning: The quality is poor because I literally had to videotape the screen of my computer - the original webcast isn't downloadable or embeddable.

Part One:


Part Two




© Holly A. Heyser 2008

Barack Obama, guns, hunting and you

I wasn't planning to tackle this subject, but FS Huntress has inspired me - as she often does - to weigh in.

As you've probably heard, there's been a rush of gun sales since Barack Obama was elected on Nov. 4. Click here to see CNN's take on it.

Now, I take my gun rights pretty seriously, but this phenomenon just makes me giggle, and heres' why:

First, Barack Obama can't ban guns all by himself when he takes the oath on Jan. 20. It doesn't work that way. Legislation takes FOREVER to get through Congress. Hell, even the recent bailouts took a few days, and that was when we were in serious danger of terrifying economic collapse.

Don't get me wrong - I'm super happy for the gun retailers. Good for the economy, too. But seriously, folks, at least take the time to purchase wisely.

And second ... well, my second point isn't really a laughing matter.

Obama's positions on guns and hunting aren't funny at all. His views betray an ignorance that terrifies me, because I don't want to be that seriously misunderstood by people who have the power to restrict my rights and privileges or tax the hell out of the products I use.

And I don't buy his explanation about expressing himself poorly with that comment about folks clinging to guns and religion out of bitterness - I've traveled in liberal circles enough to recognize that as an authentic statement, not a tongue-tangle.

I also know that I would not have had to watch my back on guns and hunting - at least not as much - with McCain in the White House.

But that's a moot point. Here's what matters now:

Hunters and gun owners voted for Obama.

No, really.

Obviously not all of them, and I'm sure not even close to a majority of them. But as "Ricochet" author and former NRA lobbyist Richard Feldman told me this summer, there are 10 million gun owners in America who identify themselves as "liberal." And according to a 2006 Responsive Management survey, 11 percent of hunters and anglers identify themselves as "liberal." (Click on that chart to see it in detail.)

If you need further evidence that hunters voted for Obama, check out Rednecks for Obama, whose motto was, "We hunt, fish, drink beer and support Barack Obama." (Click here if you missed the San Francisco Chronicle story on them.)

Why does this matter? Because those people can now go to Barack Obama and say, "I own guns. I hunt. And I voted for you. Please allow me to tell you why guns and hunting are important to me."

And if you're one of those people, I hope that's what you'll do. If there's one thing I learned in a decade of covering politics as a newspaper reporter and editor, it's that politicians listen to those who voted for them. That's why politicians never, ever mess with seniors, who vote religiously, and why they don't spend much time, on the whole, on age 18-24 issues because - with the exception of last week - youth are notoriously lazy about voting.

I'll go one step further, though, and say that even if you're not one of those people, perhaps you should write a letter to Obama too. After all, he is our president-elect, regardless of whether all of us voted for him.

When I was a kid, my grandparents were inveterate presidential letter-writers, bombarding Richard Nixon with advice probably on a weekly basis. I was so inspired by them that I wrote him a letter too, when I was seven years old. It was filled with advice like, "Make new jobs and make new parks and above all, never lie." Seriously, I said that. I was a kid - I didn't know that lying was a key issue in Watergate. I thought Watergate was a dam.

I still have a copy of that letter, and the polite - and likely bemused - thank-you note from an aide typed on a small sheet of onion-skin paper with the presidential return address on it.

I always wanted to keep writing my presidents. But I never could, because news people have to take this vow of political silence in order to maintain an image - many would say a facade - of objectivity.

But I think I will now. And I hope you will too. Here's the address of Obama's Washington Senate office: Sen. Barack Obama, 713 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510.

Remember: One sincere letter from a constituent is worth hundreds, if not thousands, of identical postcards or web-generated letters that read exactly the same.

And remember:

Yes we can ... own guns and use them, ideally at the target range and, God forbid we should need it, in self-defense.

Yes we can ... hunt ducks and deer and hogs and all variety of wild creatures to provide local, organic, hormone- and antibiotic-free food for our tables.

Yes we can ... tell our new president the real reasons we cling to this lifestyle, which are ... oh, I'll let you fill in that blank yourself.

© Holly A. Heyser 2008