Thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this video! Go to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, go to and add code “RAGUSEA” at checkout to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
Tess Gingery’s master’s thesis on fawn survival at Penn State:
Study indicating current U.S. deer populations are around their estimated pre-Columbian levels:
Study showing hunting (“harvest”) is the top cause of mortality for North American large mammals, including deer:
While factory farming should be stopped for environmental reasons, blah blah blah, I do not think it’s ontologically bad to eat meat.
This convinced me. To wild animals, death by human is the best way to go, sparing them from worse things and old age. Now I was thinking “well would I wish to die in my 50s to avoid dying sickly and old?” And the answer was no. But then I reconsidered that the reason I wouldn’t want to die is because I’d have my hobbies, friends and retirement to look forward to. But after deer find the peak of their life there’s no place but down. They have to keep constantly working every single day in an increasingly sick body to stay alive before dying a horrible way in the future. By hunting we lay them to rest, let them retire while they’re at the top.
Hunting may not be ethical but it is natural.
I’ve had one accident in 65 years of driving. A deer committed suicide with my front bumper. Grrr…….
A daughter married into a hunting family. They maintain a membership in a deer lease on the Rio Grande. As soon as my grandkids were old enough, Billy taught them gun safety and hunting skills. Naomi can field dress a deer in 45 minutes.
Billy once went to Canada to bag a caribou. Reindeer. The meat was processed and sent back to Texas. His wife prepared some for me. I’ve had a ‘Bou Burrito. Very tasty.
Most hunters start young with their fathers as mentors. All that I’ve known said that they cried with their first kill. They understood the spiritual nature of taking a life for sustenance.