A little over a week ago, a 14 year old boy and and his 16 year old brother were dropped off, along with their hunting rifles, by their grandfather early in the morning to take in the early part of bear season in the North Cascades.
Later that morning, the 14 year old spotted a bear approximately 120 yards away, lined up and took the shot.
But it wasn’t a bear that he had seen. It was 54 year old Pamela Almli as she was putting her backpack on.
The kid didn’t miss. Ms. Almli was hit in the back of the head with by his .270 Winchester projectile.
The boy is now being arraigned on first-degree manslaughter charges in Skagit County. The prosecutor charges that he acted recklessly by not being sure of his target. If found guilty, the boy could get nine months in the juvenile detention system.
The reason I didn’t want to have to write about this was because I’m torn about it, and for once, don’t know exactly what to think.
I was hunting when I was 14. Bears, Deer, Elk, Mountain Lions and Coyotes. By myself most times. Especially at the end of the day.
And I want to be mad at this kid, or at least his grandfather for setting him loose without adult supervision. But given my experiences, I just don’t know if that is right or even justified. I mean, he is 14.
This kid got his Hunter’s Ed cert at even a younger age than I did, and had been legal to hunt for five years. No one I know held onto their cert for five years without putting it to use, so I know this couldn’t have been his time out in the woods with a rifle, which means I’m not going to buy too much into a “buck fever” argument. I know that we all get excited at our first sighting of the season, but we all know to stop and look too. The first sight is never the best sight and I have never not had to wait for the animal to turn for me.
I really, really want to be mad at this kid or his grandfather because now the state is looking at raising the legal hunting age. This dude’s fuck up killed someone and will most likely cost all future young hunters something, though we don’t know exactly what yet.
More than 80 years of modern hunting regulations in this state are about to be undone by something that hadn’t happened in those 80 years (at least in local knowledge).
I know that I should be mad at the bastards who want to take one incident and beat hunters over the head with it for the next umpteen months. And I won’t be the least bit surprised if the areas are restricted even further than what they were this year, making it illegal to hunt anywhere there might be a hiker. Which, in the Cascades, means about 75% of everywhere.
And then the bear and big cat population is going to explode again, and we’ll have more attacks on the trails, and so on and so forth, all because this kid couldn’t check his target. Shit, maybe he had the power up too high on his scope. Or maybe he didn’t have it up high enough, or maybe he had open sights on his rifle. Who the fuck knows, because the media and the Fish and Game folks aren’t saying anything other than punitive crap.
So tell me, is there any reason why I shouldn’t be club-swinging pissed off at this kid and his grandfather?
And not to blame Ms. Almli, but if it is hunting season, shouldn’t there be a requirement to wear some damn orange even if you’re not hunting (and yes, I know that it is only during deer and elk seasons that the hunters themselves are required to wear orange).
