Looking thru the Kentucky hunting & trapping rule & regulations, I have to scratch my head on some of them. ....For instance if you hunt starlings or sparrows, you have to buy a hunting license. They're an invasive species & not protected by law. In fact the game department encourages killing them. Why require a license to kill them if you want to get rid of them in the first place? Sounds pretty stupid to me. I suppose it's all about money. I'm wondering if they'll require a license to kill tobacco worms next year. ......Years ago deer could only be hunted legally with a .243 caliber or larger with a minimum case length of 1.687 inches. Today the rules say any center fire rifle or handgun is legal but no rimfires. How stupid can it get? This makes the 25 ACP legal with it's 82 foot pounds of energy but not the 22 WRM with 355 foot pounds of energy. Even the 22 LR cartridge has more power than the 25 ACP with 129 FP of energy. Better think about that one. The 25 ACP bullet might bounce back & injure you. It happened to me. ......Elk hunting regulations are just as stupid. Minimum legal caliber is 7mm producing X number of pounds energy. blah, blah, blah. Handguns, compound & crossbows are legal tho. They're nowhere near as powerful as a 7x57 Mauser. ......For years one of my favorite rabbit hunting methods was a slingshot. That was outlawed. Now it's legal again with "manufactured" ammo. Makes one wonder if Whammo had anything to do wit that. Who says lobbying & money under the table doesn't work? ......Unless they changed the laws recently, in Maine you can hunt anything legally with the 22 WRM from mice to moose & bear.  That makes sense to me. I think most serious hunters know what their guns are capable of. Feel free to criticize me if you want. It won't bother me. ......Paul H

QuoteWhy require a license to kill them if you want to get rid of them in the first place? Sounds pretty stupid to me. I suppose it's all about money.

Well... It's not ALL about "money". A LOT of it is about CONTROL.

Paul

The one I like here is about muscrats. Only with a trapping license unless they are living in your water source ( dugout for residential water) then you can get a special permit for free. They explain about all the sickness you can get from drinking the water where muscrats live. At the end of the day I wonder how many permit s are actually picked up before the first muscrats is disposed of.

I don't know if the regs have changed since I trapped muskrats, but here, you used to be able to shoot them, BUT you had to have a TRAPPING license. You couldn't shoot them on a hunting license. I used to shoot a lot of muskrats.

I have eaten muskrat. It's not bad. I don't care for the way they look when they're peeled - rats. I don't particularly care for eating what looks like rats. Same with 'possums. People say they taste great, but I couldn't get past the GIANT rat look of them enough to eat 'em. I s'pose if I was really hungry I could get around that. So far, I haven't been that hungry when 'possums (Didelphis virginiana) were available to me.

There are a lot of things people say you CAN eat. CAN and WANT TO are two entirely different matters!

Paul

I feel that way about sauerkraut. Lol.

Paul

I have eaten many "undesirable" things in my life out of necessity or go hungry. "Looks" didn't enter the matter. I don't  have to do that any  more. I like muskrat, groundhog, coon, fox,  & a few others that most people will not eat. I don't mind trying most any wild game once. These days there is a lot of good eating critters I don't care for. Any more I don't care for elk, deer. buffalo, geese or turkey. I prefer bear over venison. The moose is probably about as homely as they get & even my wife loves moose but won't eat any other wild game. My favorite wild meat is probably wild sheep. I even prefer domestic sheep over beef. ......Paul H

I too have eaten many things other people would never eat. Much, but not most, of those out of necessity. A friend talked me into eating the lynx I trapped. It was good, but I couldn't get the "cat" out of my head, so I wouldn't eat again unless I was hungry. I haven't eaten fox, and unless I was really, REALLY hungry, I would NOT. Neither would I eat wolf or coyote. (Might taste wolf, but again... eating "dog", unh uh:no: . I don't care what the Asians do.) I have eaten 'coon and ground hog and snakes (several kinds), lizards, turtles (yum!), porcupine (YECH!), beaver, arctic ground-squirrel, to name the ones that come to mind. Wouldn't eat a seagull unless I HAD to. Wouldn't eat any bird of prey, although I have HEARD that owl is good tasting. Of course when I was a kid, I ate the little dickey-birds I shot with my BB-gun. And I have eaten some things in the Far East that I didn't even know what they were. (Often call "bar-b-que", I didn't ask what it was. Of course, I was usually drunk when I did that, too.)

Paul

My most exotic eats was a Boar Racoon I shot. The guys at the Maintenance shop at Leavenworth fixed it. I was actually pretty good......but not so good you would make a steady diet of them!

Fox tastes just like coon if cooked  the same way. Black pepper helps the taste. A turtle is about as homely as things can be but it's another one of my favorite wild game foods. One of my uncles cooked & ate  a skunk once & said it was good. I'll just take his word for it. He once took some strychnine & survived. That gives you an idea of what kind of character he was. Had his back broke in the coal mines when the top fell in on him but walked again after a few years. Tough & mean *******. Scared to death of house cats though. That's another story. .....Paul H

I find it interesting that you guys eat bear in the US. Being a omnivore I am not too keen on eating animals that consume meat. No religious reasons but I also don't dig on swine either. Do have bacon now and again but never been a fan of pork. Will eat it if I am a guest at someone's house but I don't buy it. Any wild pigs I have shot i have given the meat away. Bear doesn't ring my bell but I have heard it is suppose to be good eating.

An interesting observation, Jorge, about "us" generally not eating carnivores, but eating bear. I LOVE black bear, BUT, there are some caveats that go with that.
1) They can't have been eating fish. Makes them taste worse than 'fishy'.
2) Since they are trichinae vectors, ALL black bear meat I eat has been pressure cooked at 30 PSI for 30 minutes. Nothing biological survives that.

A black bear that has been eating fall berries is tough to beat for taste. I think I would place it second behind wild sheep for deliciousness. They're a little spooky to field dress as they look A LOT like a human when you get them peeled.

Can't gag brown bear down. Even interior grizzlies that don't have access to fish are terrible. They taste like they smell, which is BAD! Here's an interesting note that most Alaskans used to know before 1972: Polar bear liver is so high in vitamin A that it is poisonous to eat. People have died from eating polar bear livers! I've never eaten polar bear, (white people aren't allowed to shoot them ), but I'd bet dollars to donuts that it tastes REALLY bad since most of a polar bear's diet is seal. Seal is NOT my "cup 'of tea". In fact, while I have eaten most of the marine mammals found in AK - walrus, several types of seals, several types of porpoises, beluga and bowhead whales, - "you" can pretty much have them. (Walrus stew isn't too bad, but it really has to be prepared RIGHT.)

All marine mammals have an oxygen-bearing molecule in their muscle fibers similar to hemoglobin. It's called myoglobin. "Myo" for muscle, (like "hemo" for blood). Hemoglobin is the oxygen carrying molecule (globin = "ball") in the blood, which marine mammals of course also have, but in addition to hemoglobin, they also have myoglobin in their muscles. This allows them to stay under water longer.

There is a physiological response when a mammal's face goes under water. It's called the "dive response". Even humans display it. Essentially, the body says

QuoteYikes! I could drown. Conserve oxygen by rerouting blood (with oxygen-carrying hemoglobin) to exclude the extremeties (arms and legs), and make sure the vital organs have the blood they need to stay alive.

This happens in all mammals, including marine mammals that dive 'for a living'. Of course, that physiological response to diving would mean that the muscles in your extremities would be oxygen-starved, and they would quit working PDQ. That in turn would mean that you 1) couldn't avoid predation if your locomotor apparatus wasn't working, and 2) you couldn't BE a predator for the same reasons. By having a separate oxygen-bearing molecule in the muscle tissue, the muscles of the extremities can continue to function properly even when the blood supply is shunted to the vital organs and no oxygen-laden blood is available to the muscles of the extremities.

THE REASON I MENTIONED ALL OF THAT... is because myoglobin has a nasty taste - TO ME. Natives don't MIND it, (they grew up with it), but, with rare exception, they choose land mammal or fish protein whenever there is a choice. Myoglobin is also what makes dead marine mammals smell so EXCEEDINGLY foul when they are rotting on the beach. No rotting animal smells "good" (unless you're a bear), but marine mammals smell particularly nauseating! It's the myoglobin.

While I don't really care for seal meat, (VERY fishy), there is one seal 'product' that I REALLY like. Dried pink salmon dipped in seal OIL. BUT... the seal oil has to be rendered properly. Seal oil rendered by the natives in Bristol Bay would gag a maggot. On the other hand, seal oil rendered by the natives that live in the panhandle is great! Speaking of the panhandle, another delicacy - to me - is roe-on-kelp dipped in seal oil. Herring deposit their eggs on intertidal vegetation - like "seaweed". At low tide one can collect roe-on-kelp. It's trivial to get a 5-gal bucket-full in 15 minutes. Take it home, wash it off, cut into strips about 3" long by an inch wide, dip in seal oil and YUM! De-vine!

While I'm thinking of it, there's one more indigenous delicacy that I REALLY like that few white men do - "Eskimo ice-cream". If you google Eskimo ice-cream, you'll get A LOT of ****. One of the most common lies is that it is a "recent" (since white-man arrived) "invention" that is prepared using Crisco and wild berries. BULLWASH! That's what the idiots have 'decided'. REAL "Eskimo ice-cream' is the marrow of the long bones of moose or caribou (usually caribou because they are more abundant), mixed with wild berries. MAN! I REALLY like that stuff! While I've never had Crisco and berries, it doesn't sound good to me. Furthermore, Crisco is "hydrogenated" fat. Hydrogenated fat will kill you. Not quickly, but most certainly.

Paul

Very interesting insight Paul. I like hearing the scientific side of things.

You are definitely in a perfect location to be able to experience and try different types of meats. I ate whale meat when I was very young but don't remember the taste. I also smelled a seal rotting and nearly gagged. Now I know why they smell worse than a dead land mammal.

The only marrow i have eaten has been in osso bucco and it is really nice. The kids and Maya always give it to me as they won't touch it.

QuoteThe kids and Maya always give it to me as they won't touch it.

YUP!

When possible, I save the long bones of moose and caribou and either make Eskimo ice-cream or soup. The marrow is the treat in the soup.

Paul

Really interesting, Paul. Some stuff I never knew. Guess we're never too old to learn something. Something I always liked was squirrel brains. Most people I know that kill & eat squirrels don't bother with the head. I like bone marrow too. A couple years ago we had a squirrel that sat in the bird feeder & grabbed any bird that got too close. Oddly it ate the bird's brains & dropped the rest. I have pictures of it eating a bird's brains. ......Paul H