Beautiful Fall day just before Halloween, escaping for a few hours in the public forest owned by us all, managed by the Army Corps of Engineers as the Knightsville Reservation for "multiple use"—meaning for flood control, hunting, recreation and Field Environmental Philosophy educational purposes.
A student up ahead calls it out. "Look! There's a camera on the tree!"
Instantly gone: all sense of being free of the megamachine that we have purposely removed ourselves from, so we can experience a forest where wild things live, and through that experience access the vast part of ourselves that belongs on our planet the way they, and our pre-industrial era ancestors, know and knew it. We are under surveillance. Somebody we do not know is taking, and collecting, pictures of us. The private property we call our identities is being taken from us without our permission. To the extent we consider ourselves sacred, as in embodying the pneuma or divine spark of the deity, we are being defiled. Contrary to the popular belief we are free Americans, we are in a carceral state: "of, relating to, or suggesting a jail or prison."
The camera is camoflaged unnecessarily because the creatures who live in the forest are more or less colorblind: which is why hunters wear dayglo clothing when they hunt. Why isn't it dayglo so we know it's there? It does not have a tag or label to inform us of who owns it. Why is its user perfectly anonymous and secret, while we are fully exposed having our pictures taken and used for whatever purpose they want?
We feel violated. The feelings of freedom and joy, so good for our mental health—and a prime reason we walk here—are gone. Paranoia and disgust replace them. I know this forest well. I smashed a streaming video surveilllance cam here a year ago, and got into big trouble for doing so.
I know this camera we are standing around is one of many; we're in a labyrinth of surveillance cameras all connected and rigged to surveil each other. If I touch this one, other cameras are recording the touch.
This part of the public forest is no longer public. It is being used by one person who controls it for their own individual profit and benefit. Since this area is near the parking lot, uncounted walkers have had their pictures taken and collected without their permission and, given the camoflage, their knowledge.
This fact bothers us all. Surrounded by surveillance cameras, we might as well be in a Walmart parking lot in an urban area—except there, on private property, signs are conspicuously posted that tell us we are under surveillance. On public property, the hunter is free to take and collect pictures of us, without any signs telling us we are under surveillance. The hunter is free. We are not. We are trapped in a maze of hidden surveillance cameras. I place an American Beech leaf over the camera lens. The next wind will blow it off. A futile gesture, yes, but one that registers our natural dignity; it has been defiled but not lost. We are not chickens in a factory farm lot. We are not in the middle of a shopping mall parking lot. We are free Americans walking public land to heal the psychic wounds all the newspapers have been reporting, the wounds that multiply into the mass depression and despair our youth, and we, are enduring. > A few days ago I meet the hunter near the parking lot near the surveillance cameras. He is very angry.
"Why did you do it", he asks.
"Put a leaf on your camera?" I respond.
"That's hunter harassment", he says, "I reported you to the OCR. Haven't they contacted you yet?"
I don't know what the OCR is.
"No", I reply; "Sounds like I'm in trouble again, and I'm sorry about that".
"You aren't sorry, Kurt. You teach kids to destroy private property on public land. And it wasn't just a leaf either. You damaged my video camera too."
"No way. Not after what we went through last year." "Dude, I got it on camera. You're supposed to be smart! Didn't you learn I've got cameras on cameras, way up high in trees where you can't see them?"
"Hold on there. You have a recording of me from a few weeks ago destroying a video camera?" "Why are you acting surprised? You know what you did. Haven't you seen the stuff I posted on Facebook? Everybody knows you did it." "I'm not on Facebook anymore, so no I haven't seen what you posted. But I do know exactly what I did. I placed a leaf over the camera lens so it would stop taking pictures of me and my students as we passed by. The next wind would blow it off." "Look you can deny all you want but you are in trouble. You promised you would never attack my cameras again." "Yes I did. To you, the police, and everybody who works at Biocitizen. That's how I know I would never damage your cameras. I made a promise."
"Well your promise is worth nothing and you're gonna pay for it." “Well, if I did it I certainly will. What did I do to your streaming video cam?”
“You ruined it!”
“Yeah but what did I do? The last time I smashed it with big stick—then called you immediately to apologize and to pay for it, using the phone number I found in the dummy camera I removed and returned to you. So—what did I do?”
“You tore the antennae off, and you know it! I had to buy a new one.”
“Actually I don’t know it, because I did not do it. I placed a leaf on one cam. That's it. We’re disagreeing here because I don't think you have a recording of me damaging the vid cam. I know I didn’t do it—unless I have amnesia or something, and I don’t. I was serious when I promised I’d leave your cams alone. Do you have the recording so we can look at it together? If you’ve got me recorded, you’ve got me recorded and I am indeed in trouble.”
Sitting in his pickup, he tried to call it up on his cellphone but there’s no service at Indian Hollow.
“Look, whatever,” I said, “If you’ve got the recording and sent it to the authorities I’ll see it soon anyway. I’m telling you I didn’t wreck your cam, and that’s all I can say now. You don't believe me so we’ll let the process take this where it goes.”
“Yeah we will. You know, I don’t understand you at all. You’ve already gotten in trouble for harassing hunters and you did it again. This time you’re really gonna get screwed. What’s up with you? You’ve got everything. You’re a doctor. You have a school that I like if you didn’t teach kids to harass hunters and destroy private property. You own this cabin here and rent it out on airbnb. You know I’m always cleaning up the garbage your guests leave behind, and your students too. You are destroying this place!”
“I clean up garbage all the time too, and so do my students. That is our common ground—you love this place and I do too. Everybody who comes here does.”
“Then why do you keep on causing trouble?”
“I caused trouble once and learned my lesson. This problem we're having between us is not just between you and me. You’re taking pictures of people without their permission, and I know Fish and Wildlife grants you the right to have the cams there on public land, but they are there to take pictures of deer, not us. I have written permission from parents to take pictures of my students, you don’t.
This problem is not even about hunting. We have nothing against hunters—Aldo Leopold, the conservationist whose ideas Biocitizen teaches, was an expert hunter. You’ve probably heard of him. He was hired after WW1 to manage the Gila National Forest in New Mexico and was ordered to kill all the wolves so hunters would have more deer to hunt. He killed them all and then the deer ate every bit of verdure and when the rains came the topsoils eroded into the river and where forests were there was nothing left but desert. Look, most of my students eat meat and when we talk about hunting, we realize that you are doing it the right way; the meat in the stores comes from factory farms. You’re an archer, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you have my full respect because that is the most difficult kind of deer hunting. You’ve got to stay in place and be quiet for long periods of time so the deer approach you, and you don’t have a rifle that can kill from 100s of yards and take multiple shots. You are a good hunter and we know it because you don’t leave a pile of guts and other parts behind like some of these guys who use this forest. Last year we ran into someone with a 30 odd and he was leaving messes all over the place—he was also hunting illegally. We’ve found moose remains too and it's illegal to hunt them. You abide by the law.”
“Yes I do and that’s why I am pressing charges against you.”
“You are within your rights to file a complaint about me and I don’t dispute that. But I did not destroy your vid cam again. All I can think is that when we moved on a student might have hung back and done it. If that is the case, then I am accountable and I will accept justice. But I do not teach students to attack cams, even though they are traumatized by them. In this case, I told them about the trouble I got into last year, and warned them that if they got destructive they would get into trouble. This is a political issue because this public land is a designated multiple use area. You have a right to hunt here. We have a right to walk here. You have a right to have a trail com, but we have a right to the private property which is our identities. You take pictures and videos of us without our consent, and post them on social media without our permission. Somehow you have taken over a portion of the public land for your own use, and made it your private property.”
“I’ve been hunting on that land for over 30 years, and you know that.”
“Yes I do. I learned that the first time we went through this.”
“So why don’t you leave me alone?”
“That's what I'm trying to say. I have nothing against you at all. I have never attacked your person, and never will. It’s the machine that is the problem, not you or the hunting. You’ve been coming here for 30 years because this is the one place you are free to hunt and get meat. We come here to be free too. We have that in common. But you are the only one who gets the freedom. We get total surveillance. You get our personal property to do with whatever you want. What do we get? The depressing awareness that even here we are trapped by the machine, the same machine that is destroying the world. The kids know that. That’s why we hate the cameras. The entire mental health benefit of walking here is gone.”
“Surveillance cams are everywhere now,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do about it. I’m gonna have my cams up year round.”
“All right. This is exactly the problem. When I got in trouble last year I called Fish and Wildlife to find out what the law was about the cams. I was told hunters are allowed to use them for hunting purposes only, and that once the hunter gets their bag limit they take them down. I told them I didn’t see that part about taking them down was in the regulations, and they said it’s not. Hunters know they’re supposed to take them down.”
“I am within my rights.”
“Recreationists have rights too, so that's what we're going to have to figure out. We're in conflict because the rules are not specifically laid out. This issue has not been settled. It is outside of the law at the moment, in an extralegal territory. In other words, this is a political issue.
Let me ask you a question—you’ve been hunting here for 30 years but it’s only been in the last 2 years, during COVID basically, that you set up the maze of surveillance cams. For 28 years you didn’t do that. We protest because we have never seen them before, and there are way too many of them. What makes it necessary for you to have them up year round now? What has happened that you need them now, and so many of them—to hunt what you've always been hunting without them?”
“I hear what you’re saying. But I know my rights.”
“Both of us go to this wild place to get away from the doomed and damned world, and you have imported that same doom and damnation into it. I don’t mean to be offensive, but that is what we experience when we are surrounded by surveillance cams on public land that are stealing our identities and posting us on Facebook to cyber-assassinate. I had a hundred death threats leveled against me during our last go round because you said Biocitizen is a radical anti-hunting group that teaches kids to vandalize and destroy property and harass hunters. The threats came from all over the country. So let me say it again—I never attacked your person. But you definitely attacked mine.
It’s the machine and how it’s being used that I have a problem with. Not you. Not with hunting.”
“Yeah, well we’ll see about this.”
“You filed a complaint.”
“Yes I did."
"You know where I’m coming from now anyway.”
“I do.”
“Please understand that I respect you. Our differences are real, but they are rational. We are dealing with a problem that is bigger than both of us. I think it’s time to bring it to those who can solve it—our legislators and DCR.
What I want is ... when I enter a portion of the public forest with surveillance cams I want to be notified. Deer and bear and turkeys don’t read signs so putting them up and then taking them down won’t affect your hunting. The cams should be dayglo, the same color you are wearing right now, so they are easily spotted and avoided. They should have DCR-generated IDs on them with contact information, to prove that they are permitted, and so the authorities and innocent passerbys can contact the owner if something is weird, or if the pics are used for private use such as posting them on social media to cyber-assassinate. The cams should be used only for hunting, and only until the bag limit is reached. Then they must be removed.”
There was a silence.
I said, “Thank you for having this discussion with me. If we communicate we can work out the solution. I'm not against you. I put a leaf on your cam because I am against dehumanization. In the war of humans against machines, I have every intention of being on your side.”
“Well, we’ll see.”
“Yes we will.”
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