Hunters' Harvest

In New Jersey, exciting steps have recently been taken to curb the rampant and potentially treacherous wild turkey population with the reintroduction of seasonal hunting (official term, harvesting) of these ungainly birds. (A historic note: The wild turkey became extinct in New Jersey in the 20th century through land development and overhunting and had to be reintroduced from Vermont 20 years ago.) Deer hunting by gun and by bow and arrow is allowed, in fact, encouraged, in certain counties, in an effort to control the burgeoning deer population, which numbers now in the many thousands and is a considerable problem to motorists and to suburban property owners whose trees, shrubs and flowers are devoured by the starving animals. Of course, there is widespread sentimental opposition to hunting on the part of individuals, often female, with an unreasonable repugnance for the display of human violence against helpless, semitame creatures; and on the part of individuals who more selfishly shrink from the sight of wounded and dying creatures staggering about on their property--deer with clumsily aimed arrows through their haunches or (concluded on page 226)Hunters' Harvest(continued from page 106) necks, for instance. Persons who object to the harvesting of wild turkeys are similarly shortsighted, refusing to see that the turkey, while seemingly harmless and in some quarters considered a beautiful and exotic bird with the singular heft and gawky grace of the peacock, has the capacity like any species to overbreed. If left unchecked, in a few years there could be millions of wild turkeys swarming over New Jersey expressways, into malls and onto private property. To consider the droppings alone is to recoil in disgust.

New Jersey, one of our most densely populated and "civilized" states--a bellwether for the nation?

Such hunting--harvesting--rituals are beneficial to the commonwealth, then. Yet more important, they are beneficial to the hunter, an individual, usually male, of strong atavistic passions and needs. For hunting, as we know, is not just a crude, cruel, anachronistic display of adolescent aggression but a deeply mystical, even sacred, rite that unites 20th century man with his distant carnivore ancestors.

But such forms of hunting, while temporarily exciting and diverting, are finally inadequate. How often we hear the more manly hunter lament that the slaughter of harmless game such as deer, squirrels, turkeys, geese and fish is not truly satisfying. One wants something more, somehow; the primitive blood lust of the hunter craves fulfillment and may wither away if unexpressed. Or erupt into domestic violence. My proposal would change all this.

Many have complained of stupefying traffic congestion on the state's highways, especially the New Jersey Turnpike at rush hours and Route 1 in the vicinity of Princeton. The threat to New Jersey's fabled civility from an excess of human beings is very real, not to be lightly dismissed as ecologically induced paranoia. Clearly, the human population problem is a far more immediate and terrifying one than even that of the deer and wild turkey.

(Human beings, too, are frequent carriers of ticks, including the notorious Lyme disease-bearing deer tick. This escalates the natural danger humans pose to one another, particularly in hot, humid weather.)

Accordingly, I submit the following proposal: Let's select a comparatively rural, scenic county (Hunterdon, for instance) to play host to a widely publicized Hunters' Open Week--or Hunters' Harvest Week--each autumn, during which qualified, licensed hunters could, for a fee, legally hunt one another in a public display of camaraderie, courage and mystical "love of sport." Weapons would be limited to rifles, shotguns and bows and arrows; excluded, at least initially, would be automatic weapons, handmade bombs, airborne toxins, booby traps and other paramilitary paraphernalia. What a rush of collective male adrenaline would be wafted on the autumn breeze! What a quickening of the communal pulse! Here would be a watershed in our American saga: For once, civilian hunters would be trailing, wounding and killing not the usual confused, uncomprehending "wild" beasts but their own cunning and worthy kind.

What a celebration of the American frontier! Of the individual and his God given right to bear arms!

I predict that the Hunters' Open would soon rival Atlantic City in its boon to the local economy. Hunters from every state, as well as foreign countries, would clamor to participate. State politicians from the governor downward, presidential candidates and freelance consciences such as Pat Buchanan would hurry to have their photographs taken having bagged a human trophy or two. In contrast to the limp dead duck with which George Bush was proudly photographed in a waning year of his presidency, what an iconic, marketable image the man-killer would present! Here would be a brilliant synthesis of American passions for sport, red-blooded masculinity and political acumen.

Of 20,000 hunters licensed to hunt one another, perhaps 2000 would emerge in various stages of well-being. Or perhaps only 200 would emerge, or two. Or one. (And what international celebrity would accrue to that one!) More important, consider the societal benefits of such a hunt:

--soaring business in the sale of sports equipment, camouflage gear, bulletproof vests, rations, etc.

--soaring business in the medical trade (ambulances, hospitals, surgeons' bills, etc.)

--soaring business in the death trade (funerals, burials, cremations, sales of cemetery plots, plastic geraniums and begonias, etc.)

--soaring business in the tourist trade (motels, restaurants, souvenirs, etc.)

--decline in population

--general rise of population IQ

I await the inevitable sentimental-liberal objection to my proposal but am at a loss to anticipate what it could be.

In contrast to Bush's limp dead duck, what an iconic, marketable image the man-killer would present.