My 3 year old daughter has always been exposed to my hunting and fishing and I thought that she enjoyed it as well.

I take her fishing and I also drive around the cornfields with her and show her deer, which she loves. She has eaten deer, pheasant, and dove on several occassions and (I believe) she understands what she is eating because we have talked about it and it was her choice to try it or not.

Out of the blue this weekend she looked at me with a very serious look and told me that it is not right to hurt the birds (pheasants) because it makes them bleed and they die. Man I about started crying right there on the spot. I tried to soothe her by explaining the cylce of life and how "the birds don't feel it" but stopped because I couldn't lie to her any longer. Of course the animals I kill feel it and yes they do bleed then die. In a child's eyes how can that ever be a good thing?

I guess I'm having a moral dilemma because I want my daughter to be able to enjoy the outdoors as much as I do, yet I don't want to scar her for life with nightmares of dying animals.

Have any of you experienced this with your children? And how did you proceed? My father did not hunt or fish so I was not exposed to this as a child.

Maybe this post doesn't belong in the bowhunting forum, but I wanted opinions from you guys, my bowhunting family.