Hunters MUST condemn those that don't eat what they kill because it tarnishes all of us and the actions of a small minority could ultimately put all of our hunting privileges at risk.

Let's face it, hunting suffers a serious image problem among a large percentage of the public. Hunting isn't a god-given right and our legislators are capable of passing some incredibly stupid laws on the basis of Disney inspired sentiments - the recent passage of a bill banning the slaughter of horses for foreign markets is just one prime example. The probability of our privileges being curtailed are only increased as the number of hunters decreases. We have to care what about what non-hunters think.

Hunting doesn't have to have the image problem it has. I live in NYC, where I encounter about 10 vegetarians/vegans for every hunter. Whenever I find out that someone is a vegetarian, I tell them I hunt and engage them in a discussion about the ethics of killing and eating an animal that has spent its life living according to its own free will as a part of a natural ecosystem, and contrast that against how meat is now raised in the U.S. IN EVERY SINGLE CASE I've managed to convince them that eating animals that I have killed in the wild is more ethical than buying it in the grocery store, and most of the time they say that if they started eating meat again, they'd only eat wild game.

We need to start addressing our image problem, and it starts by condemning those that don't eat what they kill, participate in canned hunts, etc. Hunting isn't a god-given right, it is a privilege granted to us by the public and we mustn't forget this.