So I’m playing scan the channels last night and decide to flip on over to the Outdoor Life Network, hoping to catch a late hockey game.
No hockey, but there was this show on that had a couple of dudes out in the snow. They were looking over a ridge at a big-ass grizzly bear. I’m thinking; “Cool! Something with a Wild Kingdom kind of vibe. This’ll be relaxing.”
Two seconds after I had that thought, one of the guys pulls out a rifle and shoots the bear.
Then they go down to the carcass and one of these guys commences to cutting of the bear’s front paw. All the while, they are going on about how long they had been tracking the beast and how beautiful it is to be interacting with nature.
What could I do? I had to go vomit.
Look, I really don’t have a problem with hunting. Most of my relatives hunt. It’s just an activity that doesn’t wind my clock. And maybe I missed an earlier part of the episode that related the tale of how this bear was responsible for the death of 30 people in the village of Aktuk, or whatever. But all I saw was this bear minding his own business and two guys coming along, shooting him from a safe distance, then cutting his damned paw off. In short, it wasn’t what I expected to see (though some might say it was less violent than your typical NHL game). It all seemed surreal somehow.
It gets better.
The show concluded with a message saying that the episode was dedicated to the memory of one of the hunters, who was killed by a grizzly while attempting to field-dress an elk. Of course, the poor man’s death is no laughing matter, but I couldn’t help but thinking how beautiful it is not to be interacting with nature. God Bless the Great Indoors.