From the Hood to the Holler by Charles Booker

Author:Charles Booker [Booker, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2022-04-26T00:00:00+00:00

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IN MARCH OF 2015, about a year into my tenure at Fish and Wildlife, I found myself fitting in and getting along in ways I never would have imagined when I started. I even got to go on that hunting trip that Tim Farmer had so kindly prepared me for. During one of our executive team meetings, Gregory Johnson, the department commissioner, announced to the group that he was encouraging me to attend a national conservation camp. “We all love Charles,” he said, “and since he’s in leadership here, this would be a great experience for him.” The program was called Conservation Leaders for Tomorrow, and it was a weeklong retreat at the Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation in Illinois. We would learn about the history and challenges of wildlife and habitat conservation, and at the end of the trip we would go hunting. It was the dead of winter, so it was going to be cold, too. The other directors were all smiling and patting me on the back, saying, “So, ready for your first hunting trip?! You excited? You scared?”

If the same thing had happened my first week on the job, I probably would have thought they were trying to haze me and alienate me, to make sure I remembered that I was an outsider. But now, having been around awhile and forged such strong connections with everyone, I could take it for what it was, just lighthearted joking around.

Still, the fact that I’d never hunted before felt like a chip on my shoulder. I knew, deep down, they would never fully accept me as part of the team until I had been hunting. The thing is, I had no interest in hunting. With so much gun violence in my community, I didn’t want to shoot a gun at anything other than a clay pigeon. Everyone was so excited to see me shoot that I was walking around acting cool with everything, but inside the idea of actually killing a living thing filled me with dread.

Of course, I do eat meat. I buy it every week at the grocery store, which is no better than pulling the trigger yourself. In some ways it’s worse, because you’re not taking the same kind of responsibility for your choices. So when they told me, “Whatever you kill, you’re gonna eat,” that helped me make peace with it. I could tell myself that I was doing it to provide food for my family.

Hunting proved to be a revelation in more ways than one. I expected to be bored on the trip, but the experience was far from dull. I learned how to break down and put together a rifle. I learned more about the science behind conservation and how important it is to manage diseases and the destruction of habitats. I also learned more about the history of hunting and gained a better appreciation for how hunting wasn’t just for sport, that there are ways to hunt that made sure the animals didn’t suffer.

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