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Portraits of Pennsylvania

Buck Season

Posted by David Walker on 12/07 at 03:52 PM

Charlie Kauffman of Jonestown took this 8 point buck on his farm the 3rd day of rifle season.

Chicken and waffles, beer distributors and first day of buck are all things I consider to fall under the “very PA” category. I always get a good chuckle when friends that live outside the state ask me silly questions like “What are perogies?” or “Why can’t we just go down to the gas station and get a six pack?” But my favorite question is easily “You guys close down schools for deer season?”

I ask them if it would make sense to keep schools open since so many, teachers and students, would be out, hunting! To a large population of Pennsylvanians, it’s tradition. It’s a duty passed down from one generation to the next. It could even be seen as a rite of passage in many families, donning funny orange clothes and sitting for hours in the cold woods just waiting for that perfect moment. It’s a way to put food on the table.

Thank goodness we continue to pass on this tradition, too. Could you imagine how severe the negative impact would be if we just stopped hunting?  For one, we would have the most outrageous car insurance prices due to the higher risk of hitting deer. Locally grown produce, such as corn, would slowly disappear as the deer population increased. Our forests’ ecosystems would be completely turned upside down. The importance of this tradition is often overlooked by many outsiders, though. From those who don’t understand, I have heard that hunters just love killing defenseless little animals and if we were to give the deer a rifle then it would be a true “sport.” But let’s be honest, that wouldn’t be fair either. Deer don’t have thumbs.

So the next time you’re visiting your PA hunter friend, don’t scold him for killing Bambi’s dad. Tell him “Thanks, thanks for making PA a safer place to drive through…can you pass the deer bologna?”