My daughter Melissa is a vegetarian. She thinks the condition in which most "farm-raised" livestock live and die is awful. She's not opposed to killing animals - just opposed to raising and killing them like that. She further explained to me that the deer and other animals that live on Tall Tree Farm have it pretty good. They have 60 acres of woods, streams and pastures where they roam freely. My husband put up a gigantic corn feeder in the middle of the woods that shoots out corn twice a day (which he takes down when hunting season starts). Tall Tree deer have a wonderful existence.
In the final moments, poor bambi meets his/her maker with a single shot from a high-powered rifle. Not bad on the humane scale. I should be so lucky.
Then someone will say "Oh how could you kill that poor innocent creature?" Okay, when was the last time you ate a hamburger? You've already proven you're okay with killing animals on some level.
So, bottom line - my otherwise vegetarian daughter eats Tall Tree venison because she feels its animal rights have in no way been violated. I think that's cool.
Last Thanksgiving Day and the day following, the 2 Shorey men reached a right of passage. Each shot his first deer. They got up at 4am and tip-toed out into the woods with big guns and blew Bambi away. Well, actually it was Bambi's dad & some other male relation.
The rest of the Shoreys were safely snug in our beds, wrapped in quilts and down. After the sonic boom we had only to wait until the stomping boots came running into the house
screaming, beckoning us to come view the freshly dead, and bring the camera please. So off we marched, in pajamas and down jackets to take pictures and commend our brave providers.
In the Shorey house, if you kill it, you clean it and we eat it. No gratuitous violence. All winter, continuing into this spring we've enjoyed fabulously low-fat venison burgers, meatloaf, stew, steaks and well yes, tenderloin....this spring we're going for turkey.