I am not an angry hunter. Without entering the debate about the character and motivation of hunters, I do want to ask Eric Zorn and your readers this question:
Where does the food you eat come from? If you eat meat, as I sometimes do, you must realize that it was once a living animal and somebody had to kill it.
Is it morally more acceptable to kill it yourself, or to hide the killing in an industrial system that treats animals as production machines? The often inhumane factory production of meat also has severe long-term environmental consequences that are too easy to ignore when we browse a supermarket to pick a packaged serving of a once living creature.
A hunter at least has an immediate recognition of the life that will grace his table and fill his stomach. I grew up on a farm, where there was never a doubt about where our food came from. My mother raised and killed the chicken for dinner; my father killed and we all helped butcher our own hog that provided Sunday ham or the steer for steak and roasts.
Hunting was a natural extension of that lifestyle.
Very few Americans these days have that opportunity for connection with the living systems that support us. It is only one symptom of the disconnect most of us have from the natural world in general.
As a career interpretive naturalist I have devoted my working life to re-establishing that connection.
I eat much less meat than I used to, mostly because of the environmental and health consequences of its commercial production.
I have not hunted for many years, but given the choice between a meal of commercially produced or legally, conscientiously hunted meat, my choice would be clear.
It’s enough to inspire vegetarianism.
