I think it is bad medicine for hunters to slam other hunters in public. This just gives the anti's grist for their mills. Personally I think a hunter ought to eat what he kills. I do not understand why one would hunt an animal having no intentions to eat the meat. But I also know that hunting bear and not consuming the meat is legal, and I know that I do not understand everything, that my ethics are not necessarily the last word in ethics. So I am tolerant of trophy hunters and have no intention of bashing them in a public forum or even a private forum for that matter. Who knows, in some time my thinking may change.

One thing that comes to my mind is that while we hunters look at our hunting as a way to commune with nature and to take excellent meat for the table, I think the view of state fish and game officials of hunters is quite different. I think hunters and hunting regulationsare viewed by state authorities as means of efficiently regulating game populations. It may be that hunters killing trophy animals figure into the management plans of the state fish and game officials. If it were not permitted, for example and speculatively speaking, to hunt and kill grizzly bears in Alaska, the population of grizzly bears may grow out of proportion. I don't know, I'm only suggesting this may be an element of this subject that should be considered.