Opinion
A4
Thursday, September 1, 2022
OUR VIEW
Polio’s tiny,
but troubling,
return to U.S.
olio, the specter that haunted America
during the fi rst half of the 20th century,
leaving parents frightened that their chil-
dren would be killed or paralyzed for life, can
seem as relevant today as manual typewriters or
black-and-white TV sets.
And for more than three decades, the viral dis-
ease has been relegated to history.
Polio hasn’t spread widely in the U.S. since
1979. And the federal government declared the
disease eradicated from the U.S. in 1994.
The reason is simple — vaccination.
Vaccines have all but eliminated polio, along
with other previously widespread diseases that
mainly affl icted children, such as measles,
mumps, diphtheria and whooping cough.
Yet earlier this month a young adult who is not
vaccinated against polio and lives in Rockland
County, New York, north of New York City, con-
tracted the virus and was paralyzed. More trou-
bling, the virus was found in sewage samples in
a few New York counties, as well as in New York
City.
Vaccination rates remain high in most of the
country, fortunately. The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention reported that about 93%
of 2-year-olds have had at least three doses of
polio vaccine (federal offi cials recommend four
doses, although some states require only three for
students attending school).
But the CDC also notes, in a report on the
recent New York state polio case, that vaccina-
tion rates have dipped during the COVID-19 pan-
demic, largely due to disruptions in some vacci-
nation programs.
There’s another potential concern — that the
politicization of COVID-19 vaccines will con-
vince some people to eschew polio and other vac-
cines whose eff ectiveness and safety are indis-
putable based on voluminous data over many
decades.
According to the New York State Immuniza-
tion Information System, vaccination rates among
children 2 and younger in Rockland County was
60.3% as of August 2022. In some communities,
the rate was as low as 37.3%. That puts a signif-
icant number of children at risk of contracting a
preventable disease.
New York offi cials believe polio arrived in the
state by way of a person infected with a strain of
the virus linked to samples found in wastewater
in Israel and the United Kingdom. That person
either had few or no symptoms — which is the
case with most people who are infected with
the polio virus — and then spread it to others,
including the person who, due to the paralysis,
became the fi rst known confi rmed case in the
state.
The reappearance of polio, even in a very lim-
ited sense as is the case in New York, doesn’t
mean the disease is going to become widespread
again. But the episode should be a valuable
reminder to Americans of how vital vaccination
is, and how much inoculations have done to spare
both children and adults from terrible, and poten-
tially fatal, infections.
Sadly, someone’s life was irrevocably changed
in the process.
P
OTHER VIEWS
As you sow, so shall you reap
BILL
ANEY
THIS LAND IS OUR LAND
he relationship between
hunters and prey is
complicated.
I love stepping into the hunter
role, creeping quietly through the
woods with the dials on all my senses
turned to the max, paying attention to
shadows, air currents, the distant crack
of a twig or a subtle shift in a shape
on the opposite hill. Did that log just
move?
Yes, the hunt makes me feel truly
alive.
But then comes the moment when
hunter and hunted meet. Deciding to
pull the trigger or release the arrow
marks a change in the experience. As
hunters, we say this is where the fun
ends and the work begins, but it is
more than that. True statement: None
of my hunting partners enjoys the
killing part of the hunt, and I wouldn’t
hunt with anyone who did.
A few of my friends have taken to
referring to fi lling a deer or elk tag as
a “harvest.” As in “I hunted hard for
seven days but was not able to har-
vest an elk.” I suspect this is a way
of taking some of the angst out of the
killing, trying to convince themselves
that hunting is simply another way of
gathering food from nature’s bounty,
like a walk through the vegetable
garden.
Personally, I am puzzled by this
choice of words. By choosing the
clean euphemism of “harvest,” the
hunter seems to be trying to make
hunting somehow seems less violent
or dramatic. But to the hunted, it is
still a violent dramatic event.
We usually think of a harvest as
something that completes the cycle
T
of sowing, tending, watering, and
weeding. It implies sweat equity, and
the harvester is invested in the crop.
I remember my mother talking
about how she and her Stanfi eld High
School classmates would make late
summer midnight raids on a water-
melon patch, more than once being
chased away by a farmer with a
shotgun. I doubt the pranksters con-
sidered their purloined melons as a
harvest, having no investment or com-
mitment into the care and feeding of
the crop.
Are hunters any more deserving
to call the result of a successful hunt
a harvest? I am not talking about the
high fence Texas game ranches, where
a “hunter” can pay $20,000 to shoot
any of a long list of exotic game ani-
mals. These herds are cultivated much
like domestic livestock, and use of the
word harvest may indeed apply. But is
this hunting?
I recently had a wonderful dis-
cussion with a new friend and tribal
member about his perspective on
hunting and harvesting. The tradi-
tions around hunting for his culture
do involve investment. Learning to be
a tribal hunter means understanding
the creation stories and the deal struck
long ago between the four-leggeds
and humans. Deer will provide people
with food, clothing, and other raw
materials, and in exchange people are
to take care of the deer.
And there’s more to it. Spiritually,
I have heard hunting referred to as an
act of prayer, and there’s a feeling of
the hunted giving to the hunter.
Every crop has a prime harvest
season. It’s watermelon and wheat
season now, and the huckleberries are
ripe in the Blues. Bow hunters are out
chasing bull elk in a season when the
animals are more concerned about
mating than avoiding hunters. Pur-
suing big game while they are rut-
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Bill Aney is a forester and wildlife biologist living
in Pendleton and loving the Blue Mountains.
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ting can be a lot of fun, but it usually
doesn’t bring the best meat. Similarly,
the largest bull or buck is not the best
eating no matter when it is hunted;
you can’t eat antlers, and I’d much
rather fi ll my freezer with the meat of
a young cow elk or a doe.
There are ways for hunters to
invest time and energy in their
bounty. As public landowners. we can
advocate for intelligent management
of habitat, like a farmer maintains
soil health, and we can invest time,
energy, and sweat in improving the
ground. In our corner of the world, the
Blue Mountains, we have tools like
forest thinning, prescribed burning,
road management and control of inva-
sive species to provide habitat for
thriving herds of deer and elk.
Crops can’t grow well on ground
that is constantly disturbed. Once the
sown seed has germinated, the farmer
stays out of the fi elds. Likewise, wild
animals need secure undisturbed hab-
itat. For some species this means areas
without motor vehicle traffi c and wise
hunters know that bombing around
the forest on ATVs in midsummer
will aff ect the herds they hunt in the
fall.
Those who think of hunting as a
harvest should be willing to put in the
upfront investment of time, energy,
and treasure into the crop. Join and
support hunting and conservation
organizations that work to improve
habitat. Respect, and encourage,
road management on public lands by
keeping motor vehicles where they
belong, thereby providing secure hab-
itat year-round. Get engaged and edu-
cated on public land management
issues and be an advocate for sound
resource management.
As you sow, so shall you reap.
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