The Wrath of Sparklegirl, Part I

I never thought I'd be okay with shooting a squirrel, but guess what?

I tend to think of myself as -- at least when it comes to animals -- fairly tender-hearted. But things change, and the gaggle of squirrels that has been digging up my plants with near-surgical precision (seriously, it's like they're deliberately mocking me) was beginning to push me over the edge. So when M mentioned the air rifle, I laughed, but then I really thought about it.

A few days later, I mentioned it to a friend, who replied, "But aren't we encroaching on their land?"

I surprised myself by saying, "No way. We're not talking about a species losing its habitat because of suburban sprawl. This is a city and has been for more than a hundred and fifty years, which is why the squirrels are here -- they're living off of us and our gardens and garbage. Plus, there's hardly a shortage of squirrels."

The funny thing is, I've been feeling more okay about certain kinds of hunting since I moved to Minnesota. When M first told me that his yearly deer-hunting trip (a tradition going back to his early childhood with his grandfather and dad), I wasn't sure what to think other than "Yuck: guns." But it gave me a reason to learn about it.

Deer hunting here is carefully regulated by the DNR (that's the Department of Natural Resources for y'all non-Minnesotans), which issues a certain number of permits based on the deer population of a given year. In general, our deer population can get pretty out of control, so hunting plays important role in keeping the ecosystem of our beloved Minnesota forests from getting out of whack. And when the deer population is low, the DNR will reduce the number of "doe permits" to allow the population to recover.

In addition, although I'm sure there are people who do it only for sport and never use the meat, that's not us. I've worked hard to learn lots of venison recipes (my venison stroganoff is semi-famous), and we use all of it that we get. It reminds me a little of a conversation I had with Mike back when he was a vegetarian who also ate non-farmed fish. "Well," he explained over an order of take-out Chinese shrimp, "I figure these little guys had a free life, unlike most animals raised for meat." I'm not suggesting that Mike would be pro-hunting, but I figure that "free life" idea is true of the deer we eat, too.

So. Having married into a Minnesota family that does a little deer hunting probably laid the groundwork for me being able to think about shooting squirrels, but I was still pretty conflicted about it. (It seemed so much like something that a seven-year-old Dick Cheney would do.) That is, until I came home from work last Friday. And what I saw unleashed the wrath of Sparklegirl.

To be continued ...