MaineToday.com | Fall hiking - wear orange: Fall hiking

October 11, 2006

Fall hiking - wear orange

We heard a lot of gunshots when we were hiking the other day and the
kids don't like that much, even while wearing their bright orange hats.

Since I am not familiar with the world of hunting, I went looking on
the IFW website to see when hunting season was and learned some interesting stuff.

The first thing was that there is no CLOSED season for hunting coyote, woodchuck, porcupine and red squirrel. So basically there could be a hunter with a gun in the woods, legally, at any time of year.

I narrowed down my search dates to when hunters will be out in the woods
with guns to hunt deer and grouse/pheasant because all are in abundance in the areas where we like to hike. And since 67,725 deer hunting
permits were issued this year, that's the season we think we'll hear the most shots fired while in the woods.

So basically from now until the end of December everyone should be
especially careful while hiking and wear their orange gear.

Posted by Wendy Almeida at 08:17 AM

Comments

Always a good idea to wear orange while hiking this time of year. No guarantees, but from October to December, I also favor hiking in places where no hunting is allowed. (Um, unless I'm hunting...)

http://www.maineaudubon.org/explore/centers/directions.shtml

Posted by Tom
October 11, 2006 02:12 PM

It's as smart as wearing your seat belt when you go out on the road, for the same reasons. Even if it is "someone else's fault" you're still injured badly or worse.

I can remember the first thing my father ever told me about the gun he handed to me to teach me to shoot.

"You're the brains of this operation. This thing hasn't got a brain or a conscience. It's no more or less dangerous than the person holding it. When you squeeze the trigger, it fires a bullet. It can save a life, take a life, or hit a target and make you feel good. It can put food on your table, or take someone away from theirs'. So, if you've only got one thing you're ever going to be perfect at, let it be this."

It's a tremendous tragedy when an accident happens. The saddest thing is, most of them are preventable.

On the other hand. Some of the rhetoric I hear about this not only borders on downright insulting, it extends way over the line. Hunting, and hunters, have gotten far safer since the 1950's and 1960's, when there were many more accidents and fatalities in the woods. One is too many, but for far too many people, stopping hunting is their method of dealing with the problem.

Posted by Leon Richard
October 11, 2006 07:14 PM