My Battle with Disney

I will admit it. The nostalgia got to us and we threw our money at Disney+. Hubs and I were excited to show our kids the cartoons and movies that we grew up with. It never dawned on me that I would be faced with defending my love of hunting and trapping to those kids as we watched the movies.

The Fox and the Hound

Are those the traps you use?

Why would Copper hunt Tod if that’s his friend?

Amos Slade is the antagonist. An “evil” trapper who wants to hurt poor, cute Tod the fox. He raises hounds, sets jaw-toothed traps (the illegal kind) and continues to threaten the Widow Tweed about Tod getting into his chickens and needing to return to the wild. The story is more about the conflict around the friendship between the dog and fox but the underlying issue is about hunting and trapping.

Beauty and the Beast

Another antagonist, Gaston is described as an "arrogant hunter" who sings about how no one can shoot like him and that he uses antlers in his decorating (who can blame him?!). If you are a kid watching this, you probably wont pick up on all of the antlers and heads mounted on the wall of the tavern or that he walks around with a quiver full of arrows but for someone who does some of those things, it's easy to spot and see how Disney is equating those activities with someone who is the bad guy.

Bambi - this one is the worst!

Where did is mom go?

Why would they let their campfire get out of control?

Why are there so many dogs chasing Filene? Is that what happens when you go bear hunting?

I have not watched this movie for a LONG time but I knew his mom dies and I was prepared for it. Disney likes the dramatic narrative and mom's are an easy target... we saw Coral get eaten by a barracuda in the first five minutes of Finding Nemo. The idea of killing a deer so that we can eat it, is not foreign to my kids and I wanted them to be prepared for it when it happened in the movie. But before we got to that point, there was the campfire that spread throughout the forest caused by hunters that left to go hunt birds and rabbits (you watch the animals get shot in the movie!) His mom dies and then Filene (Bambi’s love interest) gets chased by a pack of dogs, presumably out hunting deer. It was mortifying. The movie was released in 1942, when hunting was more of a common thing but the entire movie is just one example after another of how bad hunters are. I was happy that the kids were bored with the movie and had no desire to watch it again.

Anthropomorphizing cute cuddly animals may sell tickets to the movies but when we see people going into the woods and Nation Parks thinking that those bears, foxes, moose, buffalo etc. are friendly, the reality can have devastating consequences.

So, for every anti-hunting and anti-trapping movie we watch, I will make my kids watch an episode of Drury Outdoors, MeatEater and Jim Shockey’s Hunting Adventures.

The unlikely bear hunter

Jesse Phillips had no intention of bear hunting. He was along for the ride with friend and host of Blood Origins, Robbie Kroger, who was on his annaul bear hunt with Grove Hill Outfitters. Being convinced that he should go hunt, Jesse grabbed the 45-10 and headed into a treestand. He wore his cowboy boots, jeans and flannel, "the only thing I didn't do was put on deoterant" Jesse laughed. Climbing up into the stand a little before 2pm, he held no expectations for seeing his first bear in the wild. He was doing this just to apease the guys in camp. At 4:02, a bear appeared. "He was about 40 yards away," explained Jesse, "and he was just walkeding around, sniffing and eating. He wasn't interested in the bait at all." Watching the bear, Jesse knew he needed to remain calm. He was in no position to move his gun and take a shot without the bear spooking. The bear walked in and out of the opening with no intention of heading to the bait. Jesse wat…

Eagles on the trail

Reason number 3,657,935 why my Dad is the best: As we were snowmobiling, we approached a bog and three eagles with about 20 crows took off. It could only mean one thing in my book - something was dead. We circled back and walked around in the snow but the birds had left and we couldnt find anything that would resemble a meal. A part of me thinks that we were in the wrong piece of land and should have been on the other side of the bog but in our snowmobile gear, we were not going to cover a lot of ground. I was disappointed that we couldn't find what the birds were eating but I was able to get some good pictures of one of the mature eagles and the immature eagle that were flying around.

The Blood Origins Project

"I was looking for a narrative that described who we are as hunters,” my friend Robbie Kroger explained to me, “Essentially looking for an authentic truth about who we are. I couldn't find it. So we built it with Blood Origins.” If you have never heard of Blood Origins, set aside a solid hour and watch the videos on their website or YouTube, featuring some of the most influential people in the hunting world. People like Will Primos, Cuz Strickland and Jim Shockey all share a small piece of their story and the how and why hunting was so important.

Robbie has more than 30 unique stories from hunters, nonhunters, men, women, veterans, young and old and each one is a personal look into the importance of hunting and conservation. “It is about our community, and conveying the truth around hunting” said Robbie.

The fact that Robbie and I even connected is a testament to the power of the hunting community. As a native South African, American and Mississippian, Robbie was determined to…

and a strong cup of coffee

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