I understand why the idea of killing something “for fun"would be disturbing and distressing to you. However, never in my life have I ever killed let alone harmed something for fun.
You’re right, people have been killing animals “forever,” and there’s a reason for that.
We do it for food, we do for community, we do it for clothes, we do it for security, we do it as an ecosystem service. We do it as conservation.
The unfortunate truth is that we have decimated apex predator populations in much of the world. Where there are no top predators left to maintain prey populations, it is of the utmost importance that humans take that role in the ecosystem.
I don’t know if you know the term “carrying capacity,” and what exceeding it means, but what it essentially amounts to is that if there are too many animals in one population, the ecosystem can no longer support them. When that happens, animals die painfully. Be it by disease, or starvation, both are incredibly rampant.
Not to even mention the damage to plant species as they try to support foraging from prey species. Have you seen the damage deer do to forests in areas of overpopulation?
When predators maintain healthy prey populations, the ecosystem can support those populations, and the animals are healthy. They have enough to eat. Disease doesn’t spread as insidiously. Animals don’t wander further distances from their habitats looking for food, reproductive habitat, or shelter, into human populated areaswhere they might be hit by cars, or otherwise injure themselves or humans.
It is tragic what has happened to apex predators in our post industrial, post colonial world. More than many people I know, I would like to see wolves, cougars, and more back in the eastern United States. But until that dream can come true, we have to act as the predators in the name of the health of the land.
We have a responsibility.
Speaking of conservation, did you know that funds from hunting equipment, hunting licenses, and hunting in general fund the majority of wildlife conservation and preservation efforts in the United States?
Did you also know that some of the earliest wildlife protection laws ever passed in the US were being funded and supported by hunters?
One of the earliest animal population protection laws that I personally know of was also about hunting, written in Deuteronomy, ensuring birds weren’t overhunted and driven extinct.
There are many natural places that you might enjoy using if you are a hiker, if you enjoy nature and wildlife. In the US, that’s usually funded by hunting.
Beyond conservation, both economically, and biologically, hunting is culturally important to humans.
I don’t hunt for sport. I hunt as a community effort.
In my region there are many food insecure people. Hunters donate deer every year to food banks that supply families with meat. A deer can feed a family for a winter. It’s a big deal. Imagine what could be done with a moose or an elk.
What I hunt feeds me. If I get extra lucky, it can feed someone else to.
It can clothe me, and clothe someone else.
Hunting is also important spiritually. There is a cycle of life and death in our world. When we hunt, we take our place as a part of it.
The stereotypical image of a trigger-happy, compassionless Hunter, shooting at anything that moves, enjoying causing harm? That is not the common experience. In fact I’ve been in friend groups where a person who acts thusly has been kicked out, because that’s not a normal, healthy, or.acxeptable way to be.
Hunting is a connection to the land. Hunters participate in nature, are out there, are seeing things that need to be protected, and are taking action to protect it.
Hunting is extremely important to many communities, for food, for safety, for the health of the people AND the wildlife living there.
It’s important that people who have qualms with hunting do their research. And I don’t mean just on Google. Ask questions. Look into things. You’ll be surprised. I am studying, and working in, wildlife biology. I’ve done research on hunts and the way they benefit the community, both human and animal.
I’ve seen the results firsthand.
To people who eat meat, I argue that the practice of hunting one’s own meat has the potential to be far more ethical, environmentally conscious, and good for the animal than buying meat from a store. To people who don’t eat meat, I absolutely argue that hunting is far more beneficial to the environment, and wildlife, and to people, than the current state of industrialized agriculture we have under capitalism.
And of course there are those who can’t hunt, even if they wanted to. That’s okay.
And there are those who have had their rights to hunt game taken from them. That’s not okay.
Never on this blog will I promote harming something for fun.
I don’t expect you to change your mind, but I do encourage you to do some more research.
