Dungeness Recreation Area is open to pheasant hunting on weekends and holidays from October through January. Before the shooting begins the deer disappear like clockwork, although it is illegal to hunt them there. The area is stocked with pheasant that are raised to be hunted.
I’ve been told by more than one person that the Dungeness Recreation Area originally was a hunting reserve and the hunters deeded it to Clallam County on the condition that they be allowed to continue to hunt. As more housing has surrounded the area they have asked the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife to help them find a more remote area in which to hunt.
The area across the street from the Recreation Area, Blue Ribbon Farms, was once owned by Pabst Blue Ribbon as a hunting reserve. Many local hunters remembering hunting ducks as children where housing now stands.
Hunting is part of the local culture here. If you eat meat is one better than the other: raising, hunting and killing what you eat or having someone raise and slaughter it for you? I’m not sure there’s an easy answer, at least from where I sit.