I grew up on venison and have hunted deer all my adult life. I am 46. People are now discovering what hunters have known for ages: Eating wild game is healthy. While it may be difficult to promote hunting in Japan because of gun laws and fear of guns, I have never understood why Japan doesn't have an archery-only season for deer. I have taken many deer with bow and arrow and can honestly say that the modern recurve bows and arrows used today kill as efficiently and humanly as a firearm.
Hunting with a bow would seem to be a logical extension of traditional Japanese culture and its professed love of nature. Since much time afield is spent enjoying nature with a bow before ever getting a shot up close at a deer, hunting in this way invigorates the senses and reconnects the human spirit with the natural world. Instead of building park golf courses, municipalities in Hokkaido should be investing in archery ranges and promoting hunter safety courses in schools.
Here in Montana, a 12-year-old can pass a hunter safety course in two weeks to hunt deer with a rifle while accompanied by an adult. The individual hunter can shoot up to eight deer locally. Hunter safety is taught in Montana by volunteers who care about maintaining a healthy deer herd and the future of hunting.
Because rifle bullets can travel miles and still be lethal, many suburban areas in America restrict deer hunting to archery-only districts for safety reasons. There is no reason bow hunting and this kind of resource management and hunter education cannot be done successfully in Japan.
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