Deer (or animal) "HARVEST"

[warbirdlover]

I hate that term. I never use it. It would make me feel like I'm kissing some tree hugger's a**. No more X-mas in stores. Now it's the "holidays". This politically correct crap stuff is starting to get so rediculous. "We're going to harvest a deer!" Wheeeee.

Sorry. Rant over.

[kraigwy]

No more X-mas in stores. Now it's the "holidays".

Harvest regarding hunting limits dosn't bother me near as much is one complaining about replacing Christmas with holiday then in his rant X'ing out Christ.

What that has to do with guns is beyond me though.

[twins]

Variety is the spice of life.

Sensitivity training for all.

[shortwave]

Before this ones closed...

...I'm with kraigwy.

Can't stand the 'x-mas' thing.

[Scout]

I believe in hunt and release.

[musher]

Since I hunt to eat, harvest seems like a good word to me.

[stu925]

My wife once asked me when I came home from a hunting trip if I "caught anything". I thought that was pretty funny as I had a mental image of jumping out of my tree stand on top of the deer. Now she just asks "did you shoot anything?". The term harvest doesn't offend me, although I've had enough of all the other PC crap. Was a big stink a couple years back over a HS football team mascot, the team mascot is an Indian. That irritated me a bit but the school stood their ground which I was happy to see.

Stu

[hornetguy]

I have sort of liked the idea of using the word "harvest" when discussing hunting amongst non-hunters. It seems to give them a reminder that meat doesn't come from a grocery store.. it begins with the harvesting of an animal.
While I've never been one to be "politically correct", and this topic has nothing to do with politics, I have no problem with using the term "harvest".
When talking to just my friends that hunt, I'm liable to say that I'm going out to try to slaughter Bambi.

[chewie146]

My daughters use the word "catch" too. They're 4 and 6. That's fine with me. They're little kids. PC is here to stay, ladies and gentlemen...whoops. I said ladies. I forgot about that one. It's not a bad idea to be sensitive to others sensibilities. You're an ambassador for your sport, even though sometimes it's very irritating. Support for hunting is going back up nationally, even though hunting license sales are dropping some in many locations. The numbers of women and youth hunting is going up. If a name change is part of these other changes, that's fine with me.

[22-rimfire]

I like "harvest" better than "kill". But that is me. For years, states would publish maps or records showing the deer harvest by county. From their perspective, the term is correct as they are viewing hunting from a game management perspective.

When I read the term "harvest", I think of a hunter sitting in a permanent stand in South Texas or Central Texas where management rules. Ten deer are wandering around on a food plot or near a feeder and the hunter chooses the one he wants to "harvest" from his stand position. I realize as I present this, it has a pretty negative connatation from a traditional hunting point of view. But there is room for all kinds of legal forms of hunting. If I had the money I would be right out there trying to "harvest" one there myself. It is not as easy as it is typically presented in the hunting shows on TV. I have never shot a B&C 150 point scored buck in my life and would love to.

I can't agree with you more about Christmas. PC is taking over (for now); it will change.

[warbirdlover]

I didn't mean to PO anyone. Just got a bug in my rear I guess. Like we have to use the word harvest or they'll take away our hunting privileges. But I guess when dealing with the anti's etc it's probably a better word to use.

[Wyoredman]

The word "harvest" has nothing to do with political correctness and everything to do with game management. Historically, Americans have managed wildlife as a farmer would a crop. We hunters mandated that the States produce game in numbers above the minimum needed for a viable population. This approach allows us to "harvest" the excess animals by hunting, just as a farmer plants grains that produce enough seed to be planted again.

It is pretty much a given that in order to "harvest" an animal, one must kill that animal, but not always. Take for instance, the BLM wild horse program. Each year in the western states the BLM "harvests" the excess wild horses from the range and then these animals are made available to the general public. Another insance of "harvesting" game without killing it is the Bison roundup in Montana. This critters are then given to Native Americans to bolster their herds.

But I digress. "Harvesting" excess game with a tool (firearm) has been one of our founding game management philosophies since Aldo Leopold.

“There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

[Wyoredman]

In his book, "Game Management", Aldo Leopold defined it as "the art of making land produce sustained annual crops of wild game for recreational use".

In other words, he is sugessting that the land can produce a "harvest" of game for the hunter.

This, I believe, is where the word originated. Not from the PC world we live in now.

[doofus47]

I'm more in line with Warbird and Kraigwy, although not enough to rant.

Words have meaning. If I don't harvest cows at the slaughterhouse, I don't harvest game 3 miles off the beaten path in the dark timber.

[hogdogs]

I HARVEST deer...
I am not a sport hunter...
I feed them corn and shoot them from my bedroom window or from a lawn chair with a cup of coffee beside me.

When I "hunt" in the woods, I am just strollin' with a gun in hand. Deer steps out, if legal, I shoot him. Not much huntin' there...


Now hog doggin' I never call "Hog Harvesting"... I actually have to hunt and work and am hands on with a potentially lethal animal...

Brent

[Art Eatman]

Forty/fifty years ago, it was quite common for deer hunters to tie Bambi to a fender or across the trunk for the ride home if they were in a car. Even the ladies would ask a guy whom they knew was a hunter if he had killed a deer, yet?

Then PC attacked, and successful hunters now hide their deer under a tarp and talk about harvesting. In modern America, the deal is to avoid talking about reality and the way the world really works.

[buck460XVR]

I think some use the word "Harvest" outta respect for their quarry. In many cases it is actually more appropriate than the word "hunt". If you plant a kernel of grain and nurture it and protect it till it is ripe, you don't "hunt" it, you "harvest" it. That is what deer hunting has got to be in many places, especially behind high fences. Folks feed and water deer, protect them from predation and other hunters and then when they have antlers big enough or they don't produce quality offspring, they don't really "hunt" them, they just go out to the feeder and "harvest" them. Either way, I still like the term better than some of the newer terms that many like to use, i.e......"DRT" and "Whack 'em and Stack 'em!".

[Indi]

Wouldnt that be the right term if you are going to kill it for consumption. My buddy told me that his family used to grow beef (raise cattle).
I guess if you grow your own beef, you could harvest it

[AllenJ]

It seems like more and more we are told not to "offend" people by saying "Christmas time" or "I killed a deer". Yet I have to put up with listening to other use vulgar language in public and allow them to let their behind hang out of their pants? Now my rant is over

[musher]

My wife once asked me when I came home from a hunting trip if I "caught anything".

That's a pretty common way to talk about it up here. I often say things like "We caught a moose".

I'm sure it's not a result of any excess sensitivity on my part, having been certified by those who know as somewhat lacking in that respect.

[ISP 5353]

I don't get real hung up on what people want to call it. I hunt and kill deer, but if others prefer "Harvest" then that is fine with me too. I am just happy to see people out hunting!

[warbirdlover]

Forty/fifty years ago, it was quite common for deer hunters to tie Bambi to a fender or across the trunk for the ride home if they were in a car. Even the ladies would ask a guy whom they knew was a hunter if he had killed a deer, yet?

Then PC attacked, and successful hunters now hide their deer under a tarp and talk about harvesting. In modern America, the deal is to avoid talking about reality and the way the world really works.

In Wisconsin you HAVE to display the whole deer outside of the vehicle (or in the truck bed with the tail gate down) until you have it registered.

So we still drive around with our harvested, dead, bloody deer on our fenders!

[Saltydog235]

I'll third the taking Christ out of Christmas sentiment. If you aren't celebrating His birthday then you should be working or something.

I don't harvest anything but veggies. I take game I kill it. I shoot deer, you could concievable call it murder or assassination, I call it fun and rewarding.

[Brian Pfleuger]

I call it harvesting. I actually think it works FOR our cause rather than against it.

I harvest corn, beans, all kinds of trees for building and heat.

There really is no distinction. We have dominion over the plants AND the animals.

It is no less immoral to eradicate an entire forest full of Red Woods for no purpose than to kill a herd of deer for no purpose.

It is equally moral to harvest animals for human use as it is to harvest corn, or trees to build a house.

Only humans can be murdered. Animals and plants can be killed and wasted.

[Pahoo]

warbirdlover
I too take some exception to this term and it's application. To me, animals are flesh and blood and have never seen any roots.
Another term you hear, is Cull or Culling and that seems more applicable.

There are times I teach Hunter Ethics during our Hunter safety classes and I call it like it is and that is killing animals. I don't want to soften or play it down. I want the students to understand what we are doing and be fully responsible for our actions. I get some strange looks when I state then I'm not out there to hurt animals but instead to kill them. Not a big hang-up but I do have them ... .


Be Safe !!!