Preserving the Land: Small Farms and Hunting

From my good friend Bill in Boulder, with whom I attended the Gunsite rifle course about three years ago, comes this outstanding link:

“Killing Endangered Species to Save Them”

From there you should also go to the original article, “Sacrificial Ram”.

These are points true conservationists have been making for years. As I read those articles, I thought of a recent op-ed in the WaPo, “Meat Eaters without Guilt,” which offered conscientious meat-eaters a more palatable alternative, pardon the pun, to mass farming.

Lady, you want real free range meat with a side order of clean conscience? Try hunting.

I say we revive thatgreat old tradition, and the sooner the better. It thins out the deer herds (we need that too), it puts meat on the table, it immerses us in the wilderness and reminds us where we came from. It is a great opportunity for fathers and sons (and daughters) to spend some clean and healthy days in the outdoors, away from the asphalt and the malls and the video games. It fits beautifully with small scale agriculture and offers family farmers another source of revenue. It helps keep nature alive and well in the face of urban encroachment.

And in the county where I live in northern Virginia, we are in great need of a plan to keep nature alive and well.