Saving today’s youth from Nature-Deficit Disorder

By: 
Ross Bielema
Columnist

I once took a birding class when I was an English major at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. On the first day, my jaw sank when the professor explained that this class would not be a field course as I had hoped. Instead, we would study the skins of dead birds for a semester.

You’ll never see a Cassin’s auklet or an Antarctic petrel in Shawano County, but I held their preserved skins in my hand. I needed a certain number of science credits and it served a purpose, but it was probably one of the dumber classes I ever took.

We were given a 10-bird quiz on the first day to test our knowledge. I think I got them all right. At the end, we were given the same quiz.

One girl from Chicago (Carbondale attracts many Chicago-area students because of its natural beauty and a direct train line there) confided on our last day of class: “I still can’t identify birds that are flying around.”

Such is the nature of our young people today. Their faces are buried in $1,200 iPhones, watching 10-second videos on TikTok of girls preening in front of a mirror, kittens climbing screen doors and camels spitting out their tongues. The days of kids going outside to play tag, sandlot baseball or anything else seem as unlikely as them asking for seconds on broccoli. A walk through the woods to look for animal tracks, shed antlers or birds seems even more remote.

Author Richard Louv has even come up with a term for those kids and adults who don’t get outdoors much or experience the wonders of nature: He calls it “Nature-Deficit Disorder.” His book, “Last Child in the Woods” is a great read. The cure is as simple as an occasional hike or hunt.

Introducing kids to nature seems natural for those of us who appreciate the natural world around us. At the same time, introducing youngsters to hunting is the next step. It’s no secret that hunter numbers have been dwindling for the past few decades.

In 1980, there were about 17 million hunting licenses sold nationwide, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. By 2016, that number had fallen to 11.5 million. An aging population, more single-parent families (many who have not been exposed to hunting), more private lands being closed to hunting for a variety of reasons, and the dozens of electronic and indoor distractions competing for our children’s diminished attention span are just a few reasons that fewer people are hunting.

Did I mention the lack of hunter recruitment? Many of us hunters tend to be loners, or at least we enjoy alone time in a tree stand or ground blind.

My opportunity to recruit a new hunter came last fall, when a neighbor boy stopped by our rural New London home to see if he could rake leaves for us.

I’ve learned that raking leaves on a 2-acre parcel surrounded by trees is an exercise in futility and only serves to encourage the grass to grow faster, which requires more mowing. Few ever see our yard anyway, but I admired his willingness to work, so I said sure. Soon Andy Beals was busily raking leaves and loading them into the dump bed of my 6x6 Polaris Sportsman, then driving them the 100 feet to a pile in another section of the yard. He smiled broadly when I offered the ATV for him to use. That’s when he explained all the mishaps he had with ATVs, dirt bikes, knives and even a roll of Saran Wrap.

The stocky lad seems content with the world, always smiling and speaking in a slow, deliberate fashion as he offers his views on any topic.

Beals, 17, loves firearms and plans to one day enter the military. Our discussions on firearms led toward hunting, and soon I was inviting him on a deer hunt. This spring, the topic turned to turkeys and he was happy to share a blind with me, just to observe and learn more about the sport.

I loaned him a camouflage jacket, cap and mask, but since we were in a large permanent ground blind built of scrap wood, he didn’t need camo pants. After putting out three decoys, we settled in. I sent out a few notes with my trusty box call, but as I had experienced on several days earlier, not a single tom answered.

Two hens appeared, briefly walked past our decoys and then moved off to a nearby cornfield to look for breakfast.

“I see one. There’s a turkey,” Beals whispered, pointing toward a nearby woods. It was still a bit dark, but I could clearly see the butt-up walk of a small raccoon.

“That’s a ‘coon,” I said.

“I’m not very good at this,” he answered.

We watched sandhill cranes picking around in the same cornfield. Ducks and geese were plentiful in the marsh area, with the whistle of wood ducks overhead a couple times.

Later, a coyote started to come to my calls, but the wind gave us away and he trotted off, never coming in range of my 12-gauge Remington 870 Super Magnum, loaded with 3-1/2-inch No. 5 shot.

Then it was time for breakfast at a nearby café.

Sharing our knowledge of and love for the outdoors seems both simple and profound. Reaching out to a neighbor kid is easy to do, but easier not to do. Take the time to reach out and save a generation from Nature-Deficit Disorder. You’ll benefit as much as they will.


Ross Bielema is a freelance writer from New London and owner of Wolf River Concealed Carry LLC. Contact him at Ross@wolfriverccw.com.

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