Sir: I read Jim Blake’s lead story in The Chatham Voice (Feb. 11) with mixed feelings. Mixed because I chuckled when I had first noticed the sub headline, “Don’t want to be shot in their own backyard,” thinking I had found a light-hearted story. No. I thought I wouldn’t want to be shot in anybody’s backyard.
Then I got into the nitty-gritty of the story and read about Mac and September MacAlpine, who operate the 12-hectare MacAlpine Christmas Tree Farm on Pinehurst Line.
From what I hear of this couple, they are good, caring folks. They don’t deserve to be troubled by irresponsible hunters or even just plain troublemakers.
In 2012, they kindly agreed to help in the provincial government who wanted to construct a wetland that’s about half the size of their 12-hectare property. It seemed a good idea. A wetland is good for the environment as it assists at-risk species, and the MacAlpines, whom, as I said, seem to be good folks, are in full agreement.
While living in Elliot Lake, northern Ontario, from 2001 to 2009, I belonged to the Penokean Hills Field Naturalists where I learned all about wetlands and how the provincial authorities had to battle the beavers who always have their own ideas about wetlands. Like Mac, I didn’t know hunting would be an approved use of the wetland site. But apparently it is, as long as you use a bow and arrow and not a gun. And apparently there are signs issued by the Ontario government announcing this fact, although I can’t help feeling an arrow can be a dangerous weapon if used by an irresponsible hunter. For centuries arrows were used for slaughtering man and beast.
I have friends and relatives who enjoy hunting. Many of them, like the MacAlpines, are good, caring folks. But I have been fed up for years with hunting practices.
While on a trip to South Africa in the 1980s, my wife and I stayed with a widow who had lived in Zimbabwe when it was called Rhodesia. She horrified us by talking about wealthy American trophy hunters who paid thousands of dollars to have wild animals driven up to a fence so they could be slaughtered.
I remembered how, in the 1960s, I had corresponded with American writer and rancher Judy Van Der Veer with whom I became quite friendly. She lived in the backcountry of San Diego, on a ranch her father bought near Ramona. Her writing reflects her love of ranch life and her deep appreciation of nature. You may have come across her books, which include November Grass, The River Pasture, A Few Happy Ones, Hold the Rein Free, Higher Than the Arrow, and two children’s books, Wallace the Wandering Pig and To the Rescue.
In a letter to me, Judy once wrote: “I live in the country with lots of animals and see lots of people. I hate to travel but have done some. I have more fun at home. I also hate all hunters, trappers and poisoners. I am interested in things like the importance of the individual, whether animal or human. And I like all races and/or colors of people, but hate people who destroy land and animals.”
She frequently had her animals shot by irresponsible hunters.
I once had an argument with the owner of a bear-hunting lodge in Elliot Lake because of their boast about the baits being “strategically placed by experienced baiters well in advance and kept active for the hunters’ arrival.”
I would have enjoyed discussing all this with Judy but she died of cancer in November 1982.
Stephen Beecroft
Chatham
