Despite criticism, Blazers pursue their passion for hunting

Senior Patrick Brice still remembers back to that day last month - he had stood silently in the woods for nearly four hours, occasionally radioing two of his friends who were further from him. His hand rested tiredly on his gun, a muzzleloader, as he waited for an animal to come. Finally, he heard the crunching of leaves as footsteps slowly approached. Raising his muzzleloader with his eye fixed intently on the target, Brice squeezed the trigger. The last shot rang out and then soundlessly, the body thumped to the ground. Brice's first deer lay dead.

For Brice, this scene is one of his happiest memories. "Every hunter remembers his first deer," he says.

Although it may be a hobby whose violent nature is often frowned upon, nearly 21 percent of Marylanders hunt, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) web site. At Blair, according to an informal Silver Chips survey of 100 students on Feb. 23, only five percent of Blazers said they have hunted for sport. Although now less gunshots ring through the air as hunting season wraps up this month, these Blazers have taken full advantage of the season, refusing to let negative attitudes towards hunting keep them from their hobby.

The finger on the trigger

Brice's passion stemmed from a simple childhood Christmas gift - a bow and arrow. "I was used to love Robin Hood when I was little," Brice says with a grin. "So I started shooting my arrow when I got it after I was five."

Three years later, a friend of Brice's mother mentioned a program she thought would interest him, offered by the Izaak Walton League. The Izaak Walton League is a national group of nearly 5,000 men and women devoted to outdoor recreation. Brice's mother immediately thought of her son and decided to investigate the program further. "It seemed like something I'd like since I was so into arching then," Brice says. "So I checked it out."

Today, this progression consists of Brice visiting hunting locations in Maryland nearly every weekend. He regularly goes to Monocacy Watershed, located between Montgomery and Frederick County, and McKee Beshers in Montgomery County. "You're guaranteed to find me [there] every Saturday, probably," he says.

These Saturdays, Brice is likely to be seen clad in his camouflage gear - jacket, dark pants and boots - and his muzzleloader, peering below from his tree stand. Because of his frequent practice of the hobby, Brice says he has shot around 40 birds so far in addition to the one deer. However, he admits the sport does have its downsides.

"Sometimes you'll be up [on the tree stand] for nearly half a day, waiting for a deer to come by. It can get boring sometimes," Brice says, adding that waits amount to five hours long and despite the waits, there are days where he does not shoot or even see any animals.

Some Blazers become exasperated with the waiting that hunting entails. Senior Max Czapianskiy, who has hunted numerous times with his father, says he stopped because of how dull the waiting could get. "I like it because it gives you an opportunity to be so in touch with the outdoors, but it's just too much waiting for me."

For Brice, however, the waiting does not detract from the excitement of hunting. "It's always worth it in the end,” he says, remembering back to his first deer. "We were out in the woods. And I couldn't believe I had gotten one. My heart was pounding. It was sad I had killed it, but as a hunter, you feel so proud of yourself."

Out of range

Despite Brice's passion for hunting, he acknowledges the criticism often levied at the sport. "People think it's really wrong, that I shouldn't be killing animals. What they don't understand is that it's a sport - and it's for food," says Brice, adding that all of the first deer he shot was eaten. However, he claims he is somewhat understanding when the criticism comes from vegans or vegetarians, who don't eat meat.

One of these people is senior Chris Cambero, a proud vegetarian of nearly 11 years, stopped eating meat at age seven after seeing an exhibit of animals being processed into food at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. "I didn't touch meat afterwards," he says. "It made me sick to see that being done to animals. The whole thing was just sick," he explains. "I look at hunting, and I think it's cruel. Some innocent animal doesn't deserve to be shot." He adds with a shudder, "Picture a piece of metal going through your skin and into your body and your life fading away. That's hunting, and it's sick."

Although Czapanskiy admits to not always enjoying hunting, he argues that sometimes shooting animals is needed, especially in the case of animal overpopulation. According to the DNR web site, the Maryland deer population is so severely overpopulated that during winter, many deer starve to death. "I think hunting is justified because they'd suffer more from not having food," says Czapianskiy.

In addition, Czapianskiy points out that hunting can often be beneficial to the community. DNR efforts have created several programs that allow hunters to donate deer meat to butchers, who distribute the meat to homeless shelters throughout the area. "You're killing the animal, but think of all the people it's feeding," Czapanskiy says.

The final shot

For some, however, the negative aspects of hunting have been enough to steer them away from the hobby. Sophomore Ivan Mejia says that two years ago his uncle asked him if he wanted to go deer hunting. Mejia had never been, so he decided to try.

When he arrived to the hunting location in Dorchester, Maryland, Mejia sat with his uncle's guns, waiting for a deer to come by. But when a deer finally did, instead of shooting it, Mejia was transfixed. "I had never seen on in its environment like that," he says. "I was watching it, and it was such a beautiful animal that I forgot I was going to shoot it." When he did lift his gun to shoot, he immediately put it back down. "I couldn't," he says, shaking his head. "It felt wrong."

However, for some hunters, the rush is too strong. "You have a lot of mixed feeling when you kill an animal," admits Brice. "You feel bad and guilty, but at the same time, you have such an adrenaline rush, and you know you have some justification for killing it. It's a natural thing, and I love it too much to put my gun away."