I'm not sure what to say about this.
On the one hand I want to believe that no one owns the land.
That it belongs to all of us and
we should all have access to it.
On the other hand I believe that we DO own our piece of land.
And with that ownership comes rights and responsibilities
that we try our best to attend to.
One of those rights is being able to decide who can and cannot hunt on our property..
And for twenty years we've let a friend and his sons hunt on our land.
No one else.
The reasoning is simple.
It's about safety.
It's about respect.
It's about stewardship.
I often hear there are fewer and fewer places where one can hunt.
That nowadays the majority of landowners have posted their property.
"That's not how we used to do it," some say.
"That land never used to be posted.
It ain't fair.
I've been walkin' and huntin' up there my whole life."
I would argue that many people new to the community don't understand
the existing culture and its relationship to the environment.
Others just love the deer and don't want them shot.
And others, perhaps like us, would simply
like to have our rights respected for our safety and
the safety of the hunters who steward our forests with us.