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JOHN HOLYOKE

Three shootings in one weekend a black mark against hunters

By John Holyoke, BDN Staff
Posted Nov. 09, 2011, at 2:14 p.m.
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Come November, I often end up in animated discussions with co-workers who don’t think dressing up like a pumpkin and sitting in a frozen tree for hours sounds like an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon.

They are nonhunters — not anti-hunters. These work pals don’t think (or have kept the sentiment to themselves) that I’m a barbarian or that I’m participating in an antiquated tradition that is no longer necessary.

They just don’t hunt. Many of them love being outdoors and like to hike or bike through the woods. But hunting? It’s just not their cup of tea.

Most of the time, I have pleasant conversations with this group of friends. They listen and nod and humor me when I talk about hunting. I listen and nod and humor them when they tell me about their hikes. But on Monday, all of that changed.

On Monday, I was trying to explain how responsible most hunters are. I was trying to tell my friends that a single tragic weekend doesn’t mean that the Maine woods are inherently unsafe during November.

And I expect my words sounded less than convincing.

Consider: Over a two-day period spanning Friday and Saturday, three hunting-related shootings were reported to the Maine Warden Service.

• On Friday, a Portsmouth, N.H. man who was target shooting in the woods of Casco was shot in the stomach by a hunter. The victim was taken by LifeFlight to a Lewiston hospital.

• Also on Friday, a Hebron man was shot in the leg by a hunting companion as they tracked a deer that had been wounded in Oxford. The wounded hunter was also transported to a Lewiston hospital.

• And on Saturday, 46-year-old Peter Kolofsky of Sebago was shot and killed while hunting in that southern Maine town. The alleged shooter, 61-year-old William Briggs of Windham, was hunting nearby but was not a member of Kolofsky’s hunting party.

Adding more fuel to the fire: Over the past week and a half two hunters shot and killed dogs in incidents that took place in Orrington and Magalloway. Both dogs were German shepherds that were mistaken for coyotes.

The good news, if there is any, is that hunting in Maine has become a very safe endeavor over the past few decades. In fact, the Sebago shooting was the first fatal hunting incident reported in the state since 2008. According to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, there were six shooting incidents involving deer hunting that year, just one nonfatal deer-hunting incident in 2009, and none in 2010.

All it takes is a single weekend, however, to convince plenty of people that the woods of Maine are full of wild, gun-toting folks who don’t care what they shoot at, whether it’s a deer, the family pooch or another hunter.

And that’s why, on Monday, none of my nonhunting friends seemed willing to believe anything different.

We hunters have an obligation to make safety — not bagging a buck and filling a tag — our No. 1 priority. We say we understand that. And many of us, most of us, do.

A few years back, however, I realized just how thin the line between “knowing safety” and “being safe” can be.

On a hunt with a well-known outdoorsman, I noticed that the muzzle of his shotgun often strayed, either while working through the woods or when we stopped to chat. More than once, it was pointing directly at me.

This man knew the safety mantra better than any. He probably even taught it to others. But over time, he’d become frighteningly lax.

The gun was loaded. I was uneasy. And I’ve never hunted with him again.

The state-mandated hunter safety courses have done a solid job teaching new hunters how important safety is.

Unfortunately, incidents will continue. Mistakes will be made. Tragedies will occur. And hunters will be tempted to blame the other guys: the guys who aren’t like them. The guys who don’t get it. The guys who messed up.

Today’s message, I suppose, is this: That attitude is fine, as long as we understand that all of those guys “who messed up” are just like us in one vital way.

They likely thought that only “other guys” ended up shooting someone while hunting, too.

jholyoke@bangordailynews.com

990-8214

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  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DK2NSO2GYJSIRQOPYAXLKVEIA4 James

    Common sense is so easy to lose, and so hard to get back. I hope the carriers of the dreaded 30-06 never lose it for all of our sakes.

  • Anonymous

    Maybe we need a hunter safety refresher courses every 5 years or a  safety pop quiz when you buy your licence. 

  • Anonymous

    Stay out of southern Maine woods.

  • Anonymous

    Well, when a hunter wearing blaze orange is killed by another hunter it does make me worry about being in the woods in November.  My grandfather was a hunter (and early conservationist in Ohio) but I don’t ever remember alcohol being a part of it.  I think today the drinking that goes along with hunting these days is scary.  (I’m not speaking about any of the cases in this article, but we all know hunters are known for drinking).

  • http://twitter.com/NorthernRants Bill Buck

    % of people killed in boating accidents > % of people killed in hunting accidents
    % of people killed in ATV accidents > % of people killed in hunting accidents
    # of people killed kayaking in 2010 > # of people killed in hunting accidents 2010
    # of people killed in animal related car accidents in 2010 > # of people killed in hunting accidents 2010

    Oh, wait, hunters carry guns and kill those poor defenseless Bambi’s, so it is OK to pick on hunting. Come’on.

  • http://twitter.com/NorthernRants Bill Buck

    We all know that Mexicans are known for hardworking.
    We all know that Asians are known for being smart.

    Oh, these are wrong to say?  But ‘we all know that hunters are known for drinking’ is OK?

  • Anonymous

    You know, as soon as I posted this remark I regretted it. Thanks for calling me on it. I don’t want to think badly of hunters. But I do worry about guns and alcohol and walking in the woods in November. The death in Sebago, no matter the blaze orange, has stopped me from being in the woods. But you are absolutely correct.

  • Anonymous

    And being known as ‘hardworking’ and ‘smart’ is not a bad thing is it? But I do understand your point and will take it to heart.

  • Anonymous

    Is there a HUI law in Maine?

  • Anonymous

    Wearing blaze orange only protects you from people who don’t want to shoot you. Never say anything to provoke a drunk redneck with a gun. LOL

  • Anonymous

    I don’t sit in a tree stand, never really considered that hunting, but I guess walking through the woods means my days are numbered, although today I did check to see if the tree stand hunter was in his stand before I walked through his crosshairs, he wasn’t

  • Anonymous

    Drove down the Stud Mill Road the last saturday afternoon.  Bad idea.  The road was swarming with trucks, guys in orange with guns.  (no problem, I come from a family of hunters, my dad taught me to shoot as soon as I could carry a gun).

    What I noticed though, was only one or two vehicles parked (whereby the driver would be walking the trails or hunting in the woods).

    Me thinks they were all ‘heater hunting’.  You know, hoping to see a deer from the road and shoot it.

    pretty pathetic if that’s the case.

  • Anonymous

    Yes.

  • http://www.facebook.com/lpilot Lisa Pilot

    When I lived in a small town out in rural Maine, I stayed inside during the month of November.  My property was posted with No Hunting signs because I had small children who played in the woods, and the signs were shot down.  We heard gunshots after dark night after night.  If I’m in an ATV accident, chances are I’m riding in the ATV at the time.  If I’m in a hunting accident, I may be outside in my yard hanging laundry.  Just saying.

  • Anonymous

    on another article, about the German Shepard, a commenter said ‘that’s what you get for being outside this time of year’.

    I can’t get that comment out of my mind. 

  • http://twitter.com/RobKellley Rob Kelley

    nothing has changed in the past 30 years in this state since I started hunting here.  Just moved home after a long stint away and 18 years as a hunter safety instructor in another state.  Maine is still way behind the power curve on hunting seasons and safety.  Want to make it safer?  lengthen the season and let it be 7 days a week.  Take the pressure off the woods by allowing twice as many days as the average person has available a week now and you’ll see the numbers drop.  Time for another “Blue” Law to change.

  • Anonymous

    Now that’s paranoid.

  • Anonymous

    Being afraid is not being paranoid.

     Remember when a  woman was shoot outside her door, and some outdoors “men” said she should know better than to wear write mittens ? 

  • http://twitter.com/RobKellley Rob Kelley

    she was not “outside” her door,  she was running through the woods in levant wearing a brown jacket and white mittens trying to scare the deer out of the area so a hunter in there wouldn’t shoot one.  She lost her life and he will never be able to live it down.  all he saw was what he thought was a deer running away and fired.  once again failure to positively identify your target and what’s beyond it.

  • Alykins

    Cite your sources, please.

  • Alykins

    Is it enforced?

  • Anonymous

    I really don’t know to be quite honest.

  • Anonymous

        Rob,
        I am a long time hunter, sixty years old, having spent 45 years hunting deer and other game. I followed closely the details of that tragedy.
       
        Karen Woods was wearing a dark blue coat.
        Karen Woods was standing 189′  { 63 yards} from her home.
        Karen Woods was not running through the woods.
        Karen Woods was not wearing a brown jacket.
        Karen Woods was not trying to scare deer so they would not be shot.
        Karen Woods died protecting her two, eight month old twin baby girls; who     were asleep  upstairs in their woods facing bedroom.
        Karen Woods saw the flurescent orange of a hunter, too close to her home and stepped out side and while standing 189′ from her back door and tried to wave the hunter away from her home and her babies; as she was shot in the chest with a 30:06 rifle and died.

            I was in the woods deer hunting in Garland that afternoon. Later, when the details of her death became known after the trial, I did some long hard pondering. You see Rob, I also had a 10 month old son sleeping in a back bedroom facing our woods in Garland. I also had built a clothesline for our laundry outback of the house. I got a tape measure and measured the distance, 189′ that Karen Woods stood from her home, and placed orange flagging at that point, { it was 50′ further than the end of my clothesline}

            Shortly there-after, the hunter was found not guilty, many, many Mainers came to the defense of the hunter, essentially blaming Karen Woods for her own death. It was at that point I realized if my wife was hanging any white clothing on the clothesline or if she were trying  too wave a  hunter away from our home, she alone would be held responsible for her own death if shot by a hunter.

       My pondering wasn’t whether I would hunt again, for I will hunt as long as my legs will carry me, but whether or not I would post my land to save the lives of my wife and children. It was a no brainer.

       Rob, you disrespect memory of the victim Karen Woods and of the good person who made a terible mistake.

  • http://twitter.com/NorthernRants Bill Buck

    Narth, you are the first person on this board I have ever sincerely seen a remark taking something back.  Kudos to you.  You are a stand up person.

  • Anonymous

    Thank you, Bill.

  • Anonymous

    yeah, it seems like hunters now can hardly be bothered to get out of their trucks to hunt. do you hunt still?

  • Anonymous

    no,  not since childhood.   i’d like to do some turkey hunting (yumm). 

    nothing against deer hunting, it just doesn’t excite me much.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NXPTPFL746OV2VGR5WBOEUF6W4 Roger

    Once again instead of making safety training mandatory they say wear this orange vest and you will be safe.

    If hunters safety class  required learning and being tested on the practical and actual use of the four rules hunter orange would not be necessary.

    EVERY person shot in the woods is a result of a violation of on of the four rules.

    1) All firearms are always loaded. Even when they are not.
    2) Never let the muzzle cover anything your not willing to destroy.
    3) Keep you finger OFF the trigger until your target is in the sights and your ready to shoot.
    4) Be sure of your target AND what is beyond it.

    These rules are standard at almost every range, shooting school and facility. If you never violate one of these rules then you will never be in the paper for the reasons in the article.

    As a life long hunter a former range officer and teacher of safety classes and CCW classes these articles just irk me . These are not the majority of hunters. but all of us are lumped in with them as crazy unsafe people running around in the woods with some type or abnormal blood lust that can only be quelled by killing something. I would love to see the state of Maine and the IFW institute a training and testing system that would at least be as through as the requirements to get a drivers license.

    Of course many landowners are posting for things juts like this and recently because now they passed a law that to ride a four wheeler on land you do not own you need written permission form he land owner but land the is not posted means anybody hunting can use the land without written permission or even asking verbally. Of course when you do post your land just try to get the IFW to help you in any way.

  • Anonymous

    I can think of three or four incidents this year of boating accidents, one of which was a kayaker where people died.  I can recall two atv accidents that were fatal, and those were on the BDN this year.  That’s not to say there are more, cause it is probable, those are just incidents I remember.

  • Anonymous

    Lot of people that drive like to drink too, just look at court news.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Cecil-Gray/1027119962 Cecil Gray

    Apples and Oranges Bill.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Cecil-Gray/1027119962 Cecil Gray

     % of people boating killed by another boater?
    % of ATVers killed by other ATVers?
    % of people kayaking killed by other kayakers
    % of people killed by animals?

    No body is picking on hunting. Target ID is paramount and also a deadly decison.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Cecil-Gray/1027119962 Cecil Gray

    Sunday hunting would make it more dangerous on Sunday.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Cecil-Gray/1027119962 Cecil Gray

    Bill, some Mexicans are not hard working, some Asians are not smart, and like wise here in the good old USA.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Cecil-Gray/1027119962 Cecil Gray

    Well said Sir and a valid defense of a maligned victim.

  • Alykins

    Yes, I recall a bunch of those incidents as well. But that is not a percentage, it is just raw data.
     

  • Anonymous

    But you can’t argue that there have been more incidents in those categories than in hunting, though statistically there is possibly more people boating and out on ATV’s.  It all depends on how you look at the data.

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