In my teens\/early 20s I went through various dysfunctional eating habits. \u00a0One of these was a rather poorly thought out attempt at being a vegetarian and then vegan for a brief period. \u00a0This burst of insanity was primarily spurred by a desire to be \u201chealthy,\u201d not a feeling of sorrow for the furred, feathered and scaled creatures I had previously consumed.<\/p>\n
At the time, I was running 6-10 miles\/day 6 days a week and my body started to devour itself because all I fed it was lettuce and bread. Super healthy, I know\u2026<\/p>\n
Well, after a blood test came back with an absurdly low hemoglobin, I reluctantly started eating meat again. \u00a0I couldn\u2019t believe how much better I felt!!! \u00a0So ended my 4 year experiment.<\/p>\n
When I was 19, I met a great guy named Brandon. \u00a0He was a hunter. \u00a0Ugh. \u00a0While that was attractive from a \u201cman who has skills\u201d standpoint, it bothered me on an ideological level. \u00a0I had been shooting for several years but was not at all in favor of fuzzy animals being shot and killed. \u00a0The whole thing seemed barbaric and unnecessary to my uninformed mind.<\/p>\n
That winter I headed out west to attend a winter Yellowstone wildlife\/nature photo seminar. \u00a0Surrounded by photographers and beautiful animals\/scenery, my head was filled with thoughts of the future. \u00a0\u201cDid I really want to be dating a guy who hunted?\u201d \u00a0\u201cWas this a good basis for the future?\u201d \u00a0\u201cAnimals are so sweet and cuddly; how could I be in love with a guy who shoots them?\u201d \u00a0My fellow photographers for the week plied me with these sentiments as we explored Yellowstone.<\/p>\n
It was the second to last night of the week-long photo adventure. I was pretty sure that my relationship was going to have to end when I got home. \u00a0I just couldn\u2019t wrap my head around the hunting thing and didn\u2019t want to continue forward when we were so diametrically opposed on such a heavy issue. That weighed heavily on my mind as we set out for the evening\u2019s photo session.<\/p>\n
I can feel, see, hear and taste the scene from that night. It was 16 years ago, but I can still recall it like yesterday.<\/p>\n
It was Yellowstone National Park in mid-February. \u00a0It was a night so clear and cold, each inhale paralyzed my lungs and lingered in my nostrils. \u00a0The full moon illuminated the snow-covered valley like a sinister sun. Staring up in to the vastness of the black, star-studded sky made me feel both invincible and irrelevant.<\/p>\n
I settled into a snowbank a few feet from Brandi, a woman in my workshop. \u00a0She was a forklift operator from Texas. \u00a0Her nickname for me was \u201cHalf-Pint.\u201d \u00a0Brandi busily set up her tripod and adjusted her settings to capture the magnificent scene.<\/p>\n
I settled into the snowbank a little deeper and got my tripod and camera set up for our evening project. \u00a0I felt restless and agitated for some reason. \u00a0It was 20 below zero, no wind, clear and beautiful \u2013 a perfect night to capture night exposures. \u00a0I finally abandoned my half-hearted attempts at following directions just sat back to absorb the scene. \u00a0I felt a nagging unease that there was something about this I was missing.<\/p>\n
The cold began to seep into my muscles and I suddenly sat straight up and looked to the North. \u00a0There was a small hill about 600 yards north of where we were sitting. \u00a0It was illuminated like a snow-covered pedestal in the middle of the valley. \u00a0My breathing became shallow as I watched the hill. \u00a0On some level I was aware of the clicking sound around me of the other photographers, but it faded into the background.<\/p>\n
As I stared, transfixed, a wolf trotted up the hill and stopped at the top. \u00a0He surveyed the valley and it seemed he stared straight at me for the briefest of moments. \u00a0Then, he began to howl. \u00a0Measured and controlled, he howled once, then turned a quarter turn and did it again. Again and again the howls rang through the stillness.<\/p>\n
By now, the 7 other people with me were watching as well. Cameras forgotten, we just stared. Then, just as suddenly as the howling had started, it stopped. \u00a0Like a tide, 5 other wolves flowed across the snow and up the hill to greet the first one. They turned resolutely toward a grove of trees a few hundred yards further away from them and glided toward it.<\/p>\n
We hadn\u2019t realized it at the time, but there was a herd of cow elk yarded up in the grove of trees. \u00a0They were now agitated and beginning to leave the cover of the trees. The elk burst from the trees and started running across the snow-covered wasteland. \u00a0The wolves followed relentlessly and selected their mark, a smaller cow at the back.<\/p>\n
With a sickening scream the elk writhed to a halt, a wolf latched on each hind-quarter. \u00a0A third snap of jaws spurted blood across the snow as a third wolf ripped at her neck. In moments, the innocent peace of a snow covered valley was transformed into a scene of bloody violence. \u00a0The elk, now lifeless, lay mutilated upon the alter of Mother Nature. \u00a0Steam rose from the wounds as a visual analogy of life disappearing from what was a living, breathing being just moments before.<\/p>\n
We all sat absorbing the stillness. \u00a0Each of us took away our own lessons that night. \u00a0The lesson I came away with was this: Mother Nature is a cruel and vicious force, unstoppable and without remorse. \u00a0An ethical hunter has got to be more humane than Mother Nature could ever be. \u00a0I wanted to find out.<\/p>\n
Did I want to hunt at that point? \u00a0No. \u00a0What I wanted to do was feed the hunger that had unfurled within to find out more. What was hunting? \u00a0What was conservation? \u00a0What does it mean to me? \u00a0Do I have what it takes to take on the sacred responsibility of managing wildlife? \u00a0I didn\u2019t know, but I was determined to find out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In my teens\/early 20s I went through various dysfunctional eating habits. \u00a0One of these was a rather poorly thought out attempt at being a vegetarian and then vegan for a brief period. \u00a0This burst of insanity was primarily spurred by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":2271,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[146],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n