[QUOTE=Hampshire]
I’m with you on this one.
I grew up hunting in Wisconsin and shot my first buck with a bow & arrow when I was 14. I didn’t feel remorse or sadness when I killed the deer but I remember thinking I don’t really get why this is supposed to be enjoyable. In fact it’s kind of creepy having people congratulate me on killing an animal. It’s like finding an exterminator or guy who works at a slaughterhouse not out of necessity but because of the thrill. Kind of sick.
I haven’t been hunting in over 20 years but still have relatives that do and still have to wonder what kind of mentality it takes to take pleasure from it.
They opened a huge Cabela’s here a few years back and I went to check it out just for fun. While there it just kind of struck me as eerie that everything in this massive store was dedicated to the destruction of wildlife. And not just tools to get the job done, but thousands of items to make it easier for you. If the fun of it is the challenge then why seek out accessories to make it easier?
Again, I don’t condemn killing wildlife and in a lot of cases it is a necessity to control population and it’s probably a good solution to the problem,
however I just don’t understand the mentality of the hunter and find it morbid that they find it pleasurable and something to pat eachother on the back for.
[/QUOTE]
Hunter here.
I can derive pleasure from hunting, but not the morbid kind. I’m not avidly proud that I have killed something and it’s certainly not a power thrill, for me. Some people get the power thrill, and those people disgust me. I (feel like) have nothing in common with the people who drive up to a hunting spot, park their cars outside the woods and leave the storm-lights on to attract or frighten prey into their zones. Those people are just out there for the kill, not the hunt.
For me it’s an emotional and physical feeling of accomplishment. I’ve been to all kinds of hunts - the ones where you stroll out early in the night, settle down at a scouted spot (with all the skill and experience that requires) and wait for the prey I’ve been quotaed. Or the ones where six or seven of us pack our rucksacks and disappear into the mountains for a week or tenday, hunting small game and bird. Having spent four days walking in rough terrain, with a 20kg backpack and a shotgun, you feel like it’s a culminating experience to manage to sneak up on a bird (we call them “rype”, I’m not sure of the English term) hiding from you, scare it up into the air at perhaps only three or four metres, then shoot it. It requires a whole lot of practice, skill and discipline.
For the record, I bring my camera to all my hunting trips and have brought home more trophies of the photographic kind than the meat kind, on an order of magnitude.
I’m not good with words, but I think the prevalence of hunting even in our “civilized” society is still with us because it takes far more time, effort, skill, training, preparation and discipline than a number of other hobbies. It’s not instant gratification, it’s not easy and you’ll fail far more times than you will succeed. The payoff is there, of course, but it’s more because of the investment that you feel good about it.
And you’re out there with some of your best friends, spending time doing something physical and out in nature. The only thing that seperates it from a hike is the constant alertness, tension and excitement. I imagine serious mountain hikers or off-peak snowboarders who spend months preparing get a similiar payoff when they’re done.
