Alsatian

Your uncle asked what the purpose of hunting was to some typical hunters. I'll get to that.

I have hunted for a long time, but as an adult found myself wanting to counter several arguments against hunting. I want to share these with you. 1. "You shouldn't hunt because it is immoral to take life." I choose to eat meat. There is no moral superiority to eating beef killed by a third party to eating game which I kill myself. If you are not a vegetarian, argument #1 has no weight. 2. "You are eradicating a species." No game animal species is threatened with endangerment by sport hunting. If numbers get low, licenses are limited or prohibited. This is not an issue. There are more Elk, Turkey, Whitetail deer, pronghorn antelope and other species of game animals as a result of modern sport hunting than there would have been without sport hunting (money is collected from sales of guns and ammunition which goes to supporting habitat, and there are advocacy groups such as Ducks Unlimited, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and others that promote specific species). 3. "Shooting an animal causes pain and suffering to the animal." This argument cannot be walked around. What I have realized, however, is that every wild animal must die -- just as every human being must die. The chances are extremely high that the death that I as a hunter will deal to the game I hunt will be less painful and horrible than the death the game animal will suffer in natural death. Natural death for deer includes slow starvation in wintery conditions (usually during a colder than average winter), being run down by a pack of coyotes and eaten alive, slow death resulting from an accident of some sort which disadvantages the game animal. This reflection came to me when I was disturbed by the knowledge that however much I practice at the rifle range, it is by no means guaranteed that my shot on a game animal will put it down quickly and cleanly. This is certainly my objective, but it doesn't always happen that way. For me, my answers to these three moral questions satisfy my conscience.

Why do I hunt instead of sitting in by the fire reading a good book or sleeping in or watching a football game? Why do I set my alarm and get up at 4 AM and prepare to go out into the cold and labor to bag a deer? The answer is complex. I will mention a number of things that appear to be independent, but they intermix and cooperate in my mind. I like the outdoors and more particularly the wilds. I take pleasure in being self-reliant in the wilds -- being able to build a fire, being able to find my way through the wilds, being able to pitch a camp, etc. I like doing things for myself, including gutting my deer, skinning my deer, quartering my deer, cutting my deer into serving pieces, packaging my deer. I also like to cook a lot and am a very good cook, and I am motivated to hunt at least partially to obtain excellent game for lucullan feasts, but this is sort of a peripheral, extra-curricular component of my motivation to hunt. I like hunting because I did it as a child, I did it with my father. I like hunting now because my father did it. I like hunting because I like to imagine my deceased father knowing about my hunting and sharing in my successes, somehow. I like the connection between my hunting and what people did during frontier days in our country and far before this when all people's depended upon hunting for a substantial part of their sustenance. When I look up at Orion, the constellation of the hunter, while waiting for shooting light to come I enjoy the connection with hunters that goes back through time immemorial. And be advised this connection is real. We have advanced technology relative to these earlier hunters, but it is by no means an automatic function that you are going to bag game when you are afield. The game is wiley and the hunter often is disappointed. I have to haul my body around and suffer various pains to bag my deer.