Modern Hunters

Heard this great program on CBC today "Do Animal Lovers Hunt?"

well worth a listen.

Todd Golumbia

Yesterday a friend recommended that I find out about Todd Golumbia, and his work with Deer on Vancouver Island. Above is a picture of Todd with a lovely Black Oystercatcher chick, seems he has worked with them as well. Here is an article by the Vancouver Sun that describes his work on fallow deer deer culls and their mobile meat processor. Interestingly enough they appear to be utilizing a squeeze chute and are very concerned about the humane treatment of the animals. I think that Temple would approve. The meat they produce is sold to high end restaurants in Victoria and the antlers and hides are used by local first Nations. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Five Left

My friend Lincoln (yes he is American) is a pretty amazing guy. I met him while working with his wife Alison at Edie Hats. One Lincoln is so great is his talents with leather. Years ago my brother asked if he would make a bag like Lincoln's own, a rough, old-school, lunch box shaped wonder of brown leather. It was the manliest book bag imaginable. Lincoln made him one and after that, kept churning out more and more beautiful bags for men and women, and some wallets, and card holders, and bracelets, and myriad other wonders. He started a company called five left. Now my brother is the one working for Lincoln, usually at local craft fairs and a couple weeks back at the Eastside Culture Crawl. Check out his website , blog the article about him in the sun and on this fashion blog. Both Lincoln and Alison graduated from Emily Carr and I have been impressed and inspired with how they have both managed to make art a part of their lives (she is a part time high school art teacher and mother of 2).

Maybe I can get him to make bags out of Haida Gwaii deerskins?

The Living and Learning School

This week my friend moved up from Vancouver to work at the Living and Learning School! The most inexpensive alternative school in BC. I am so happy to have her here, as are the children, parents and fellow teacher and principal! This is an amazing school. The picture above is of a deer carcass that washed up on the beach in front of the school last week. The reaction to it was to cut off it's head and put it in a crab trap (courtesy of one of the dad's at the school) which would serve to strip the skull in a few days. One child in kindergarten wrote in her journal "my teacher is the best, she gets us deer bones". The kids also wrote about the deer bones on their blog.

I love this place.

My Market

I have spent months telling people about how there is a market among urban foodies for venison, and for the adventure of catching them. This week I was validated by an article in the Globe and Mail, passed along to me by a friend which is written by one such foodie. Thanks Micheal!

Check out the article, and related ones here.

Laskeek Bay

I just spent 2 weeks down in the park volunteering with Laskeek Bay Conservation Society doing research with some field biologists about birds. It was super interesting and has inspired me to look into doing a masters about the deer problem they have here. The deer are destroying the forest understory here which impacts the nesting sea birds as well as the other birds who have fewer berries and habitat as a result of all the munching. During our week on the water surveying for black oyster catchers we actually chased a couple of bucks off one small rocky island where it seemed they had been trampling on some oyster catcher and gull eggs.

I am thinking that the ideal long term solution would be to hunt the deer to get the population down to a number that is sustainable. According to what I've heard there are somewhere between 50,000 and 150,000 deer in Haida Gwaii and to get their numbers to a level that would be sustainable for the pre-existing ecosystem would mean taking 10-15,000 out of the system per year. I figure there are so many people looking for "organic" meat, and you can't get much more organic than this. Hunting these deer for meat would lead to fewer and happier deer, which are starving now and seen often eating seaweed on the beach due to the lack of greenery left to eat, and of course lots of happy eaters, not to mention jobs up here which would be helpful given the decline of the fishing industry. The only problem is of course, the law, which does not allow the sale of wild game. So that's what I need to work on :) I am planning on enlisting my brother and his poli-sci degree, but he doesn't know that yet...