Customer Reviews

Bloodties: Nature, Culture, and the Hunt

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4 star:		(1)
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This book won't appeal to the hunter who views a succesful day only by the weight in the game bag, nor will it appeal to the anti-hunter who thinks all hunters want to do is kill. It will appeal to those who look for a deeper understanding of why they, and other people, hunt. This book should appeal to those who keep a copy of WALDEN, or A SAND COUNTRY ALMANAC within easy reach on the book shelf.

The author presents an intelligent, balanced discussion about the ethics of hunting ­ arguably one of the best ever written. Kerasote, hunter, environmentalist, and ethicist, presents three examples of hunting: subsistence hunting with the Eskimo, big game trophy hunting, and a personal hunting trip. Although an intensely personal book, Kerasote provides a much wider and reasoned view of both sides of the hunting issue than is normally presented in most discussions on the subject. Some of his envronmental arguments are particularly telling.

"I put him in my mouth and began to feel the land pass through my body."

--Ted Kerasote on eating an elk he had killed.

This is not a "how to hunt" book. Bloodties: Nature, Culture, and the Hunt is a book on why people hunt. And Kerasote gives it to you with both barrels (pun intended). From Greenlanders making the transition from traditional subsistence hunting to a world full of modern gadgets, to the wealthy trophy hunters looking for ways to get their trophies and names immortalized in the Safari Club International Record Book of Trophy Animals, to Kerasote himself growing potatoes and hunting elk to put food on his own table, the issues involving why we kill wild animals for food and pleasure are debated. Kerasote also searches out Wayne Pacelle, currently chief executive officer of the Humane Society of the United States (but at that time an advocate with Fund for Animals), to get a perspective on why people should not hunt.

I've used Kerasote's book as a text in a wildlife course over a four-year period. For college students from a wide variety of majors, it has proved to be engaging, thought-provoking, astonishing for some, irritating for others, and a book most students don't try to sell back at the end of the semester.

If I had a suggestion for this book, it would be that it needs the perspective of a "Dick and Jane" hunter. Kerasote himself does not fit this bill. If you are a statistically average recreational hunter, you won't see yourself categorized here. However, I guarantee that you will relate what you are reading to what you do and why you hunt.

"I like to think that someday my bones will fertilize the grass that will make his grandchildren fleet."

--Ted Kerasote on the consequences of eating an elk he had killed.

This is a good book, well worth the effort to track down and read... the perfect gift for the thoughtful and reflective hunter.

This is a 'thoughtful' hunter's book. Covers multiple sides of the debate in a way that makes you ponder your own view points on the subject matter. Please read all the way through to get the full picture of what Mr. Kerasote is trying to convey. Can be very vivid at times, though never needlessly graphic. Also recommended for the non-hunter as a contemplative read into an often-times uncomfortable subject. Very enjoyable read- something I turn to prior to every fall hunting season.

Kerasote's book should be required reading for all modern hunters (and people who don't understand the hunting ethic). Divided in 3 sections, the author spends several weeks subsistence hunting with Greenlanders, several days in cold Siberia after a rare Snow Sheep, and finally some time around his home range near Jackson Hole Wyoming. He spends a lot of words on wonderful, detailed descriptions of the people, activity, and culture surrounding these sorties. He give equipment folks just enough details about the weaponry to make it interesting. But this isn't a book about how to do it and where to go. I especially recommend this book for experienced hunters who are struggling with the "why" and the decreased desire that comes with maturity. The book is also a good guide for those teaching others about hunting. It should be required for every parent teaching children about modern hunting. Kerasote gets a little slow in the last third, but don't skip or skim this part. Every page or two a paragraph appears pregnant with meaning and insight. Order this one today.

I met Ted Kerasote in Katmai, Alaska, while writing Chapter X of Travles with Samantha. Here's what I wrote...

As it happens, I wasn't the only PowerBook addict in camp. Ted Kerasote, a writer for Sports Afield and Outside magazines, was here writing about bear management. We happened to be sitting next to each other around the lodge fireplace and he'd already heard all about me.

"You must be that guy from Boston."

Ted beautifully illustrated the mellowing effect that living in a Wyoming town of 90 for years can have on someone born on the Lower East Side. In a patient soft voice, Ted summarized his new book Bloodties, about animal rights and hunting.

"Hunting in one's bioregion can be ecologically more sound than being a supermarket fossil-fuel vegetarian, i.e., someone who has plugged-into America's factory farm system which has destroyed so many different types of wildlife. Remember that the wheat field used to be a buffalo range, pesticides kill animals, and combines kill all kinds of small animals. Exploration for the oil that powers the combines and makes the pesticides displaces and kills animals."

What about Prudhoe Bay? It is only a 250-square-mile outpost on the Arctic Ocean and produces all of Alaska's oil. With millions of square miles of identical wilderness all around, how could this tiny settlement make a difference?

"Good point, but think about the Dalton Highway that was built to service Prudhoe Bay. That opened up those millions of square miles of wilderness to hunters who go in and kill moose and wolves.

"My book calculates the fossil-fuel cost of different diets. A guy in Wyoming expends 79,000 K-calories to shoot 150 lbs of elk meat. The equivalent amount of Idaho potatoes costs 150,000 K-cals. Rice and beans from Northern California 477,000 K- cals."

That's great, but I hadn't seen too many elk roaming around my Boston suburb, whereas we are well-supplied with supermarkets. Can a significant number of Americans really live off game?

"There are more white-tail deer now than when Columbus landed because the forest has been opened up and they flourish on the edge of timber land."

[Reviews of Ted's book spoke volumes about the difference between East and West Coasts. The New York Times review read much like this synopsis, focusing on his argument and its numerical underpinnings. The Los Angeles Times review started and ended with a discussion of the similarities between hunting and sex.]

this book will only appeal to those seeking an alternative lifestyle. It does not represent modern hunting or hunters. Buddists, yurts, and nude chanting in a spa! Give me a break.I wish I hadn't bought it, and so will you.