Attribution: Henry Farny, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper submitting his formal resignation as a natural predator, which means, of course, that he is no longer a member of the hunting crowd that now swarms over the land like an alien invasion force.
Being a hunter was accepted by the keeper as a natural identity for most of his life and assumed an order of importance far out of proportion to the domestication that characterized his contemporary human predatory life.
The keeper did it all, and in the doing, though “fair chase” and merciful killing were always the goals, there were inevitably times when the burden of witnessing a creature’s death at your own hand put a pause in the celebratory aspects.
But only a pause, before the trophy photos and the toasts and the campfire stories with fellow predators, especially family members.
The keeper handed off his guns to those family members some years ago, and now his predatory hunting is limited to the grocery store with Phyllis who does her best to steer him over to the salad section and away from the meat counter.
“So, I was sneaking up on this big head of lettuce when……”
Once a predator always a predator!
