Arndt death reminds us of importance of safety, ethics
Phil Taunton
Friday, March 6, 2009
Many years ago, I cut my pheasant-hunting teeth with my father and an uncle up near Hollis, northeast of Concordia just across the beautiful clear-water, sand-bottomed Republican River. Oh, such memories! Dad wasn’t the best shot, and our dogs were just as apt to chase fur as they were to point a bird.
Our host, my uncle Walt, lived in Concordia and was quite a rounder. He was once the sheriff of Cheyenne, Wyo., or so he told me. But he did have a retired sheriff’s badge and pictures to prove it. Walt was a big fan of western epic writer Zane Grey, and was a fancier of fine sporting firearms and antique revolvers.
Walt also had a bad heart. Though he couldn’t tromp the fields with us, he was instrumental in our hunts by dropping us off at one end of a “soil bank” section and going to block at the end of the field. He really enjoyed being part of the hunt, and just moving the vehicle to the far end of the field for us was a tremendous help. He could never get far from the car and would block from the road. And in his role as a blocker he would shoot at a pheasant if afforded the opportunity.
On one particular hunt in the early 1960s, Pop was able to connect on a pheasant close to where my uncle was. Yes, miracles do happen, and I remember this instance as if it were just yesterday. Only this time, the bird Dad had harvested was a hen, which is illegal to shoot. When we got to the car, my uncle asked my father if the bird was a hen or a rooster, and Dad questioned why he was being so nosy. Because it was our final hunt of the day and we would be heading back to Concordia, Walt explained that the game warden had a game check station on the high road!
Without blinking an eye, Dad told Walt we had better take the low road back to town. My father was a veteran of World War II and was an ethical hunter. He never made it a practice to break the law and repeatedly versed me on the ethics and responsibilities of being a safe hunter. Our image in society can be tarnished very easy. But mistakes do happen. The hen had flown into the bright day’s setting sun and, in Dad’s excitement, he failed to properly identify his target. To leave the hen in the grass would have also violated the wanton waste law and he could have been issued a game violation if he had let the bird lie.
On Saturday, there will be another hunter education class at Camp Alexander. It bothers me that some people think all hunter education is about is teaching kids to kill things and NRA objectives. Nothing could be further from the truth! Tomorrow marks the 12th year I have been coordinating classes in and around our area, and Lyon County has one of the best group of dedicated instructors I know of who truly care about the heritage and traditions of hunting and its future.
Anyone who has a pulse, hunters and non-hunters alike, should be aware of the Beau Arndt incident, when an unethical shooter shot into a group of goose decoys and mistakenly hit Beau, taking his life instantly just a day short of his 19th birthday. The shooter said he was shooting at a coyote. This shot was heard not only across Kansas but throughout our nation.
I certified Beau as a Kansas Safe Hunter in 2002. At the time of the tragedy I pledged to his parents that, though statistics show hunting and shooting sports are some of the safest activities there are, and his death was an accident, it would not be in vain.
Yes, it was a shot heard across Kansas — or so you would think. Early last month, as reported by Mike Corn of the Hays Daily News, another poacher/unsafe shooter fired two shots from the road into a group of hunters, 13 fathers and sons, tucked into lay-out blinds throughout a field of 1,200 snow goose decoys. These hunters were taking advantage of the conservation order concerning the harvest of snow geese and just doing what they loved to do in the company of family and friends. Luckily, no one was harmed.
One of the things we stress in hunter education is the Ten Commandments of Firearm Safety. Commandment No. 5 states to be sure of your target identification before you pull the trigger, and always know what lies behind the target. No. 6 is to never point a gun at anything you do not want to shoot.
Since Beau’s unfortunate incident, instructors all across the state have adopted another commandment: Be sure to load your brain before you load your firearm.
Simple rules everyone should take to heart. Unfortunately, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t always make it drink.
KDWP commission meeting
The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks will hold a commission meeting and public hearing on March 12 at the Dillon House, 404 S.W. Ninth, in Topeka. There will be a legislative luncheon starting at 11 a.m. at the Dillon House. The meeting will be called to order at 2 p.m., and after the introduction of commissioners and guests, the public can comment on non-agenda items.
Under general discussion during the afternoon session will be an item on the agenda that addresses an update on laws and regulations pertaining to coyote hunting. At present, the law allows for coyotes to be taken with the use of a motor vehicle and two-way radios. It is also legal to shoot from some roadways onto land a person has permission to hunt. Livestock producers must be able to protect their investments. The winds of change are blowing, and hopefully the lawmakers will find a way to best provide protection and safety measures for hunters, farmers, rural landowners and all concerned.