ORIGINAL: quiksilver

The end isn't real pretty for most scavengers, whether or not they wind up in the jaws of a double-springed Duke. They're either brutally maimed in auto collisions, infected with horrible disease, suffer horrific orthopedic injuries that leads to their starvation, or killed by something a little higher on the food chain.

I think a lot of hunters find ease in what they do, by hiding behind the rifle/bow, and convincing themselves that the animal is enjoying a quick, painless death. Newsflash - drowning in your own blood is probably not painless, and I'm sure the animal is stricken with complete terror. It's just easy because you're 100 yards away, instead of 3 feet. Trapping, like any other form of hunting, terrorizes animals. It's an undeniable fact. Another undeniable fact is that any animal will eventually die for some reason or another, even if not at the hands of a hunter/trapper, and it will not be a pretty scene. Death isn't pretty, but it's real.

You can hide behind your deer rifle, and usually once the smoke clears, the agony and dying is all-but-over. If you're a trapper, you're seeing every last flick of the tail. I think trapping gives a stark realization about what you're doing out there, but I'd argue that if you can't stomach watching an animal die up close and personal, you're probably only fooling yourself by trotting out the shooting iron in deer season. It's very much the same thing. There's no shame in being bothered by that stuff. Most people can't watch a raccoon flop around after having a .22 round buried in the skull. Most people couldn't work at a slaughterhouse, watching cattle be bled out, skun and butchered. Most people couldn't watch a paraplegic whitetail bawling and crawling with a broadhead buried in its spinal column. They would have nightmares for the next 10 years.

The moral of the story here is that if you think trapping is cruel or heartless, while bowhunting or rifle hunting is not, you're only fooling yourself.

If you spend enough time outside, you'll see that mother nature is cruel. Death is never fun. It's never pretty, no matter if it's at the hands of a hunter, trapper, predator, disease, weather, starvation, vehicle, injury or any combination of those factors.