Taking the hunt to the streets

I was perusing the Cape Girardeau newspaper the other day when a headline caught my eye: "Conservation agent proposes bowhunting in Cape city limits." You don't say.

The thought of walking into Barnes and Noble, dodging arrows, immediately popped into my head. I have enough trouble trying to keep my wife out of Victoria's Secret, I certainly don't need the added hassle of worrying about keeping my head down when walking to and from my car when I'm up there.

I thought there had to be a mistake, but as I read on I found that a lot of urban municipalities around the state, including Columbia, are attempting to control their deer population by allowing bowhunting within the city limits with discussions now starting in Cape.

Apparently deer are fighting back. Tired of men going into their woods and killing them they are now bringing the fight to us. Since they don't have opposable thumbs and strapping a shotgun on to their antlers is a little tedious, they have become kamikaze deer. In 2005, four people were killed in accidents involving deer, 289 injury accidents involving deer were recorded and over 3,200 accidents involving deer were recorded by the Missouri Highway Patrol.

According to conservation agents, Missouri and every other state manage their deer populations through hunting. Trapping the deer and releasing them in another area is too expensive and euthanizing the deer and giving their meat to food banks isn't very effective, not to mention not very sporting.

Some people even advocate the use of birth control. That is probably a bit difficult. How exactly do you hand out condoms to deer? And is there a sex education class for deer? We can't even keep our stupid Hollywood starlets from reproducing so I don't think there is much chance to control deer.

So now people in some places can go bowhunting for deer inside the city limits. This brings up some interesting questions. If you miss and hit Joe Everyday on the street, do you get arrested or do you just go ask him if he saw where the deer went?

Is there going to be a new kind of camouflage? Now if you go to a hunting store, you have the typical leafy green type of camouflage, but am I going to be able to go into a sporting goods store and say, "I'm looking for something in a street sign." Or maybe you just lie in wait in the back of your truck and then pop up and scare the bejesus out of everybody.

But I guess my main concern is safety. Obviously, every time I go to Columbia now I am going to have to make sure I wear my bright orange hunter's cap, because it's all fun and games until you take a arrow in the butt. Unfortunately though, it might go deeper than that.

What if Norm Noseyneighbor likes deer and starts feeding it, but his neighbor, John Killeverything, lays the animal out with a bow? You could have another Hatfield and McCoy situation on your hands.

Plus, it is my understanding that bowhunting isn't easy. I've seen Wile E. Coyote struggle with shooting a bow on Saturday mornings and he's supposed to be a genius. I certainly wouldn't feel safe if some newspaper reporter passed a training course and had a permit to bowhunt. That would be scary dangerous.

On the bright side, maybe some of the friendly drug dealers in the state might switch over to bows instead of guns. "What officer, this bow? Oh no, it's just for hunting deer." Yeah, I don't have any problem with that.

Oh well, I like to live life on the edge. After all, when my wife heard that Cape might start allowing bowhunting she wanted me to go out and buy her a bow. Next time I go to Cape and she wants to visit Victoria's Secret I had better watch my back. Anybody have an arrow-proof vest?