By Patrick “The Ecosexual” McAuliffe
President Stenger’s “20 by 2020” plan describes more than just his hopes for the even-numbered size of the student body. It will also be the estimated population of the deer that make their nightly trek as far as Vestal Parkway every night, flooding out of the Nature Preserve in beautiful droves. Their culling, which some (including the Binghamton Review fascists) claim as necessary to saving the Preserve, would be an affront to nature and violate both the rights of these innocent animals and the “moral code” that supposedly guides these nature haters.
I am often asked what “ecosexual” means, and I often have to try and abridge just how deep and complete my love for nature is. It encompasses more than what you might think right away (“this guy has sex with nature?”), although I’m no stranger to my Oedipus complex with Mother Earth. You’d be surprised at the amount of uses I have for various types of bark. Even though it pains me to cut fruits in half and copulate with the vagina-shaped innards, true love requires sacrifice from time to time. However, I care more for this beautiful world than hitting it and quitting it. She is my home; I grew from her bowels, and she could return me to them at any moment. I suckle at her teats, but they can just as easily be ripped away from me. Such is the circle of life. Awe-inspiring, terrifying, and just the tiniest bit sexy. Ok, more than the tiniest bit…
Before my redwood grows too tall, let me get back to my one and only goal as an undergrad here at Binghamton. The mighty and graceful North American deer is a proud species, respected highly by indigenous peoples (because Native “American” is a constructed name forced upon indigenous peoples by European colonialist murderers). These hunters would even say prayers to the spirit of the deer before the hunt, and after making the kill, they would thank the Deer Spirit for allowing them to use its mortal form for their own purposes. If any people was truly in tune with the spiritual machinations behind nature, it was the indigenous peoples. (Just to clarify: this isn’t some sort of organized animist religion or anything; I just find the concept of spirits behind every temporal thing to be extremely fascinating.)
The modern-day sport of “hunting” is a disgrace to the once-respectful and reverent practice by which humans were able to survive. The stuffed heads that adorn many a conservative’s wall look with glassy eyes through the past to a time where their brothers and sisters could be at peace in their death. Hunting for sport is barbaric: it leads to the deaths of thousands of species (ask Cecil the Lion or the last white rhino on the planet), and does nobody any good, from noise pollution to hunting accidents to the utter disgrace rendered to nature’s beautiful creatures.
Can such violent and irreverent killing ever be justified? Of course, the answer is no. However, for a while, there has been a movement hovering just below the surface of public discourse to do just this to the wonderful deer of our Nature Preserve. Since 2012, BU administrators have pushed for a cull of these majestic creatures, citing the alleged harm that they do to the ability of the forest to regrow. In December 2017, a Pipe Dream columnist put the estimated number of deer at 226, up from 60 or 70 when the abhorrent culling was blocked by the State Supreme Court in 2012. In just five short years, nature had reclaimed her children and the deer had nearly quadrupled in number. This is excellent news for someone that cares so much about a thriving natural environment.
This Pipe Dream columnist, a Binghamton Review fascist writer from 2015, and a few environmental “experts” all claim that a cull is necessary. It is the opposite of necessary, and in fact should be avoided at all costs. Just because a group of deer is doing better and being more prosperous than the others does not mean that more than 90% of them have to die. When a deer or other commonly hunted animal is murdered in cold blood by a hunter in neon orange and camouflage, a piece of my soul dies with them. Not even fucking a grapefruit can cheer me up. Binghamton, you must let these murderers of Nature know how they will be treated if they continue to allow hunting for sport or horrific culling. Remind them of how important this is to maintaining and growing the population of our precious deer.