Post by FWS on Nov 6, 2012 11:25:41 GMT -6
Hunting is a life choice, not a competitive sport
BY JASON HAWKINS
The Herald Sun
November 6, 2012
A reader contacted me recently to encourage that I not shoot the game I hunt.
Over the course of a dozen years of writing this column, I have fielded similar requests. Sometimes the requests are festive and the writer uses Thesaurus-laced words to describe their disdain for hunting.
Like other correspondence I receive, I respond courteously and I express my appreciation for their freedom of opinion.
This reader, however, did not provide a name for me to use when I responded. Subsequent correspondence also failed to identify the writer, and I wondered how an individual could question my own pursuits while namelessly offering an opinion.
For a few weeks, I thought about how synonymous the taking of game is with hunting. While I enjoy the peaceful scenes and I often am filled with great inspiration outdoors even if I do not take aim, harvesting game is as important as the ethics we wear into the field.
This past week, I purchased apples from a local shop. Some were nice apples, and there were a few that were not so nice.
The same could be said for hunting. There are hunters who exemplify high ethics, and there are those that do not.
Actually, the same could be said with all of the crossroads of life — there are right turns and wrong turns.
Hunting, as I recently discussed with my oldest son, is a choice and it is something that boils with passion.
He asked about the sport of hunting. With careful wording, I explained that hunting is not like a sport in which we compete to win.
There are, like the apples that are not so nice, hunters who view hunting like a competition or game where a winner is the one who shoots the biggest or the most or who shoots with the biggest advantage.
This, I explained, is not the type of hunting I choose — and for my son’s sake, neither will he.
For me, harvesting game is not the defining moment of a hunt. Instead, the defining moment is that a hunter gave fair chase and that the game taken was done so with a specific purpose or need, not for backyard bragging or ego-inflation.
Within my circle, I know of hunters taking game to fill their own freezers or to share with families to provide fresh bounty.
Personally, I have delivered fresh venison to a family. Though it is understood that the deer was harvested by my shot, the gratitude for natural, organic, healthy meat was soundly expressed.
I believe that the act of shooting game is one that demands more of me as a person. That I choose to spend my resources and time, then follow through on the tasks of processing game and subsequently stirring fresh meat into a warm bowl of chili brings makes experience an intimate connection between hunter and the land hunted.
To put this in perspective, it is estimated that McDonald’s serves around 20 million customers daily. What astonishes is that while many criticize hunters for their pursuit of harvesting game, by proxy the burger served at McDonald’s was once a cow in a pasture, I hope.
This is not slanted to just one restaurant. Think of all of the food eateries, both franchised and local, that serve meat daily.
There is no judgment here regarding where a person eats; however, the same should be held for the hunter who chooses to ethically pursue game and provides sustenance for the table.
While it seems people are expeditious to criticize a hunter for taking the life of a deer, they do not voice the same emotion to the employees who processes cows, chickens and pigs.
Hunters, in general, take great effort to assure clean harvests, pause to respect the game taken and limit their quests for game to that which is needed instead of what is wanted.
Our society has done a marvelous job of removing much of the intimate connections we humans have with our natural earth.
This writer does not believe that there is a sport to hunting, for there are no winners or losers and competition about harvesting game taints all that is good about good apples.
I am careful to recognize the beliefs of people and equally careful not to boast of my own.
Yet when it comes to hunting, I believe that whether I choose to release an arrow or capture an image through a lens, I do so because I feel there is sustenance through intimate connections between man and game.
While millions might be served at restaurants daily, I am equally proud of the two pounds of venison burger that I include in my November chili recipe.
Enjoy your time outdoors.
BY JASON HAWKINS
The Herald Sun
November 6, 2012
A reader contacted me recently to encourage that I not shoot the game I hunt.
Over the course of a dozen years of writing this column, I have fielded similar requests. Sometimes the requests are festive and the writer uses Thesaurus-laced words to describe their disdain for hunting.
Like other correspondence I receive, I respond courteously and I express my appreciation for their freedom of opinion.
This reader, however, did not provide a name for me to use when I responded. Subsequent correspondence also failed to identify the writer, and I wondered how an individual could question my own pursuits while namelessly offering an opinion.
For a few weeks, I thought about how synonymous the taking of game is with hunting. While I enjoy the peaceful scenes and I often am filled with great inspiration outdoors even if I do not take aim, harvesting game is as important as the ethics we wear into the field.
This past week, I purchased apples from a local shop. Some were nice apples, and there were a few that were not so nice.
The same could be said for hunting. There are hunters who exemplify high ethics, and there are those that do not.
Actually, the same could be said with all of the crossroads of life — there are right turns and wrong turns.
Hunting, as I recently discussed with my oldest son, is a choice and it is something that boils with passion.
He asked about the sport of hunting. With careful wording, I explained that hunting is not like a sport in which we compete to win.
There are, like the apples that are not so nice, hunters who view hunting like a competition or game where a winner is the one who shoots the biggest or the most or who shoots with the biggest advantage.
This, I explained, is not the type of hunting I choose — and for my son’s sake, neither will he.
For me, harvesting game is not the defining moment of a hunt. Instead, the defining moment is that a hunter gave fair chase and that the game taken was done so with a specific purpose or need, not for backyard bragging or ego-inflation.
Within my circle, I know of hunters taking game to fill their own freezers or to share with families to provide fresh bounty.
Personally, I have delivered fresh venison to a family. Though it is understood that the deer was harvested by my shot, the gratitude for natural, organic, healthy meat was soundly expressed.
I believe that the act of shooting game is one that demands more of me as a person. That I choose to spend my resources and time, then follow through on the tasks of processing game and subsequently stirring fresh meat into a warm bowl of chili brings makes experience an intimate connection between hunter and the land hunted.
To put this in perspective, it is estimated that McDonald’s serves around 20 million customers daily. What astonishes is that while many criticize hunters for their pursuit of harvesting game, by proxy the burger served at McDonald’s was once a cow in a pasture, I hope.
This is not slanted to just one restaurant. Think of all of the food eateries, both franchised and local, that serve meat daily.
There is no judgment here regarding where a person eats; however, the same should be held for the hunter who chooses to ethically pursue game and provides sustenance for the table.
While it seems people are expeditious to criticize a hunter for taking the life of a deer, they do not voice the same emotion to the employees who processes cows, chickens and pigs.
Hunters, in general, take great effort to assure clean harvests, pause to respect the game taken and limit their quests for game to that which is needed instead of what is wanted.
Our society has done a marvelous job of removing much of the intimate connections we humans have with our natural earth.
This writer does not believe that there is a sport to hunting, for there are no winners or losers and competition about harvesting game taints all that is good about good apples.
I am careful to recognize the beliefs of people and equally careful not to boast of my own.
Yet when it comes to hunting, I believe that whether I choose to release an arrow or capture an image through a lens, I do so because I feel there is sustenance through intimate connections between man and game.
While millions might be served at restaurants daily, I am equally proud of the two pounds of venison burger that I include in my November chili recipe.
Enjoy your time outdoors.
