Hunting


 * Is Hunting Ethical?**

Although many people in the world see hunting as a very destructive and cruel form of recreation and of obtaining food, hunting is a very ethical and humane way of maintaining game populations both big and small, and as a means of getting food in a more humane and cost effective manner. The issue that is present is that animal rights activists are attacking hunting and hunters for the simple fact that they see animals being killed and that's all they think about. Hunting is actually a very humane and ethical means of managing wildlife as well as the habitats of animals. Further, hunting is a very trustworthy and honest means of obtaining meat as opposed to getting if from the grocery store. Animal rights activists seem to have a few good points for their arguments against the bloodshed that occurs as a part of hunting, but the actual treatment of the animals and the environment by hunters is better than what they say and think it is.

The first thing that anti-hunters argue is the relevance of hunting as a sport. They see it as mindless of killing everything in sight and this is where they are wrong. Hunting is an actual sport not unlike baseball and football. The only difference between professional sports and hunting is the skill sets, and the mind sets used. Hunting requires patience, endurance, strength, a know how to survive if things go wrong and a generally positive attitude for your hunt to end up successfully similarly to other sports to win a game. Other sports lack a use of patience in a way, moreover the skill of stalking and pursuing prey up and down hills and mountains and the instinct of survival that numerous hunters in the past have passed on to us in this generation. This seems to be actually an unnecessary assault at hunting as the animal rights people are trying to find every little thing that is wrong with the sport.

Another aspect of hunting that makes it a very beneficial part to society is the use of the sport as a form of conservation and wildlife management. Many animal rights groups claim that if animal populations did get out of control then nature would step in and stop the sex drive of the male animals and they would stop reproducing until the population balanced itself out (Muller). This is somewhat true, but to what extent would the overpopulation be considered overpopulated? In the 90s in Canada there was a massive overpopulation of snow geese, and their entire habitat was being overgrazed due in part to the fact that so many geese were eating in the plains and it turned into a very barren landscape because of the overgrazing (Williamsen). Overgrazing is the result of too many animals in a certain habitat and animals start to die due to lack of nutrition. This is why the threat of overpopulation present in some species of animal kingdom are regulated as a result of hunting to keep things such as the goose overpopulation from occurring again except with larger animals with a larger die off due to malnutrition.

Farmers and other people also rely on the use of hunting not as a sport but as a way of defense. Farmers hunt deer and other animals that will get into their crops as a way of protecting their way of life. Same goes for ranchers who rely on hunting to protect their livestock from predatory creatures such as coyotes and other carnivores (Rolston). Even your average everyday commuter benefits from the glories of hunting. Every year in the country there are thousands of car collisions involving wildlife, that result in millions of dollars of damages and if hunting were to be abolished then these numbers would skyrocket out of control causing twice as much cost in both damages and in human life than before (Williamsen).

Economically, hunting is a very virtuous thing to have in the country because every year millions of dollars are spent at outdoor retail stores and to ranches and game management companies in the country for tags and gear in our attempt to keep the economy afloat in the nation. Think about it, in 2006 there were approximately 87.5 million people participating in outdoor related activities which totaled around 122.3 billion dollars in money spent to ensure that they could keep doing what they love. Of those 87.5 million people 12.5 million people were hunters and they alone spent in upwards of 22.9 billion dollars on tags and gear to hunt around the country and the world (Evans) the mere thought of abolishing the sport would cause a huge loss in revenue and incomes in our already poor economy with the lack of spending on things to keep hunters hunting.

Anti hunting sentiment is present everywhere in forms that you may not even recognize, and because of its presence everywhere true and sportsmanlike hunters a bad name. One of these forms in America is that of media such as movies and television shows that are shown in theaters and on television. The most infamous of these movies is that of Bambi which although it is one of the most loved children’s movies of all time, it injects children and older audiences with the image of psychotic hunters running through the forest blasting everything that moves. This association with actual hunters is quite an insult to the outdoorsmen community. (Hastings) This similar idea is that of the newer movies called "Open Season" in which the hunters have a season to kill anything and the animals fight back keeping the forest safe. This is also a lie, most state wildlife departments do not allow an open season and one has to go through a hunter’s safety course and then they have to draw a tag and obtain a weapon. What Bambi is portraying is not just slob hunters but poachers. Poachers give hunters a bad name not only in movies but in reality as well. Poachers are those who unethically and unfairly take a game animal when it is out of season for their own particular interest. Some poachers are even raking in thousands of dollars by selling organs used in medicine or for fine luxury items such as ivory and fur from the animals killed in the process(Rehkopf) Even more recently some poachers are simply running around killing animals for the simple pleasure of seeing something die and speeding off without a trace. But wildlife law enforcement officials are fighting back all the time to try to outsmart the scourge of the woods to protect animals and people.

It seems that this topic has been under a lot of fire in the past couple of years and it would be good to see that animal rights activists begin to see that hunters are not just horrible beings bent on killing all the wildlife in the world, but we are ethical hunters who not only care for the environment but also revere and respect both our prey and our surroundings.

Works Cited

Evans, Kim Masters. "Wildlife." //Animal Rights//. 2009 ed. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Information Plus Reference Series. //Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context//. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.

Hastings, A. Waller. "Bambi and the hunting ethos." __Journal of Popular Film and Television__ 24.n2 (Summer 1996): 53(7). __Student Resource Center - Gold__. Gale. MOUNTAIN RANGE HIGH SCHOOL- WESTMINSTER. 18 Feb. 2011 < http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS >.

Rehkopf, Linda. **"Poaching."** __Environmental Encyclopedia__. Marci Bortman, Peter Brimblecombe, and Mary Ann Cunningham. 3rd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003. __Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center__. Gale. MOUNTAIN RANGE HIGH SCHOOL- WESTMINSTER. 22 Feb. 2011 < http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS >.

Rolston, Holmes, III. "Animal Welfare and Rights: III. Wildlife Conservation and Management." __Encyclopedia of Bioethics__. Ed. Stephen Post. Vol. 1. 3rd ed. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004. 4 pp. 5 vols. __Gale Virtual Reference Library__. Gale. MOUNTAIN RANGE HIGH SCHOOL- WESTMINSTER. 22 Feb. 2011 < http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS >.

Williamsen, Kurt. "Stalking the truth in the hunting debate: in the Politically Incorrect Guide to Hunting, we learn that 'no hunting' means unnecessary, wholesale suffering." __The New American__ 24.1 (Jan 7, 2008): 29(2). __Student Resource Center - Gold__. Gale. MOUNTAIN RANGE HIGH SCHOOL- WESTMINSTER. 18 Feb. 2011 < http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS >.