Friday, May 29, 2009

Count On San Francisco To Make It...Diffferent

Count On San Francisco To Make It...Different

Even when they are doing something traditional. This May 29, 2009 San Francisco Chronicle story is about how even something as traditionally individual as hunting has to be turned into something collective:
It's 4:30 in the morning, and Nick Zigelbaum, bedecked in camouflage from head to toe, is surveying the pitch-black valley below through a pair of binoculars. Beside him is a .270-caliber Winchester rifle.

He is looking for wild boar, which feast at almond and alfalfa farms in the hills, then saunter down to the valley for a drink. "Basically, we're trying to catch them between their lunch and their dinner," he whispers.

Zigelbaum, 26, is a co-founder of the Bull Moose Hunting Society, a hunting club and wild game cooperative based in San Francisco. He and Nick Chaset, 27, launched a Web site a year ago to connect with other city folk eager to gain intimacy with the capture and slaughter of the animals they eat.

The society provides guidance through the hunting license process; help with equipment purchases (including a rifle); lessons in tracking and shooting game, cleaning and gutting a carcass in the field, and butchering meat in the kitchen.

This quest to recapture long-dormant predatory instincts has baited plenty of aspiring trappers and foodies in the Bay Area. At present, the group has 25 members - the limit until a new crop of hunters can be trained. Zigelbaum says about 50 others have contacted him about joining.

As an energy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council and a program manager for a solar energy company, respectively, Zigelbaum and Chaset's primary goals, as outlined in The Society's mission statement, are to "leave no trace, take a clean shot, respect the animal, and be a part of nature."

I can't criticize this--at least it doesn't involve the government.

The more I think about this, the more it strikes me that this is a return to when our ancestors had to work together to hunt mastodons.

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