Many `bad apples’

I have read so many letters to the editor in this paper concerning hunters and non-hunters that I felt compelled to finally respond with one of my own. Just a few things that I and probably a lot of others are terribly sick of hearing and reading. Referring to “Our Maine Heritage” of hunting, as expressed by the director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, George A. Smith (Readers Write, Dec. 11-12), what a load of crapola! Does the “heritage of hunting” (and I use the term very loosely) in Maine supplant the basic freedoms of feeling sale in one’s own backyard, wood lot or even home? Not to me it doesn’t.

Another is the old and tired, “a few bad apples are ruining the splendid reputation of hunters in Maine.” Bull! There are just too many instances of donkey shooting, dog shooting, pick-up truck shooting, people shooting, littering, trespassing, harassing and intimidation going on in this state during November to be just a few “bad apples.” Most hunters, not just a few, have no respect at all for someone else’s property. How would these idiots like it if I tramped all over their lawns, shooting at anything that moved or made a sound?

Then there was reader Tom Buckley (Dec. 9) who threatened to “push back.” Just what does this mean? I wish Buckley would realize that just because not everyone hunts, it doesn’t mean we are easily threatened or scared.

My family owns 200 acres of woods and fields in central Maine. My family has a long history of hunting, but no more. People are asked not to hunt here. It’s not safe to go out during hunting season at all. Why should I have to dress in blaze orange from head to toe? I can’t even let my dog out in my small, two-acre field without worrying that some Cro-Magnon will shoot at us. I see too many beer-drinking, heater-hunting trespassers to feel there are only a few…. Colin McDougal Hartland