Today I found the gutted remains of a wild pig about half a mile along the dirt road where I live. The hide and the head were all that remained. Even the hooves were gone, and I figure the hunters kept those for souveniers. They're probably nailed to a tree or a barn somewhere even as I write this. I'm not sure why they didn't keep the head.
In the last two weeks I've found the remains of two deer along the same set of roads. In one case it was just hide and a nearly stripped spine. In another case the hide, spine, and most of the skull were there. I'm pretty sure the pig was hunted. I've never seen a wild one get hit by a car. But the deer could have been road kill before the good parts were taken and the rest cast away as so much litter.
It's a clear sign that you're in the country when you find the butchered remains of animals along the road. It's a clear sign when all the "signs" have bullet holes in them. But gunshots? That's not any indication that you're in the country. I heard plenty of those in New Orleans. And the animals being butchered there walked on two legs.
That's a sad but true point about the urban world today. A hideous case of about 10 years ago is in the news here because the killer is close to execution. Nothing we can imagine compares with the creativity of the evil human mind or the impulse of the evil mind at least.
ReplyDeleteI understand the country all too well -- I grew up in the land of dead cows and vultures and all sorts of nature. Now I love everything urban and can't abide much nature, except running to and from my car, which is fine, given that I live in Detroit, a place I love. As for gunshots, I've heard plenty of those, in both places, but definitely more in the city!
ReplyDeleteI travel through some pretty rural country each day and am grateful to have never seen such a thing. I am terrified that I would pull the car over and go all fetal. Ya know Charles, I gotta get back in close to a city sometime soon.
ReplyDeletesadly, here in chicago, people shoot dogs at random for fun, not sport, both words truly having the same sickening meaning. not just pit bulls, i mean little fluffy annoying yorkshire terriers. annoying, yes, but not urge to kill annoying.
ReplyDeleteThere's plenty of road kill in Detroit; some of it from carjackings.
ReplyDeleteI live in a town that might as well be the country. All we got is a tavern and a post office, can you say yippy? Anyway. We get a lot of mutilated animals around here, mostly deer and raccoon. Around here, though, I think folks tend to keep most of what they hunt down, an not just toss the more undesirable parts. Don't ask me why. Waste not want not, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteOf course, in this small chunk of Iowa, we don't get much unnessessary violence.
Roadkill or not, I'd still rather live in the country than the city. Hell, I think I could be a desert hermit pretty easily, as long as I had AC.
ReplyDeleteWild boars are supposed to be crafty, right? I've heard many a creepy tale about them and the hunting of them. Besides nightmarish South Carolina hunters, I remember Belleau Wood in France, where wild boars still root around for the remains of thousands of soldiers left there from WWI. And in HBO's Deadwood, bodies are thrown to Mr' Wu's pigs to disappear the evidence.
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