First and foremost, for the record, I would like to state that I am a hunter. I grew up in a household that hunted–my father hunts and two of his three children hunt. It has been a part of my life as long as I can remember. I consider everyone in my family to be kind, caring, and loving. We are not evil, mean or cruel.
Therefore, I take great offense at the comments printed in two letters by readers on Dec. 17. Neither I nor my family are “lacking in the genetics,” as Hollie Himmelman states about all hunters. For one thing, no one in my family considers it a sport. We consider it a part of our lives, as well as part of our heritage.
David Shaffer, who says that hunting is “violent” and “cruel,” really needs to call PETA and request some of their videos on the “violent” and “cruel” practices of some slaughterhouses.
Just as some hunters consider it a sport and some hunters are violent and cruel in their activities, a lot of hunters are not like this. It is unfair and unjust to conveniently label us to fit into someone else’s view of an idealized world.
I, too, took great offense at the picture of a smiling father and son who had shot a 200-pound, healthy, female black bear. It wasn’t the dead bear that offended me, but the act of glorifying the act of hunting, and thereby turning it into a sport for those two hunters. I have never taken my picture with any animal I have shot, nor have I ever had any stuffed for display.
