The Citizen Guest / Part Three / Hunting

On the Pros and Cons of Sport Hunting

Animal Rights In An Enlightened Age.

Faunacide includes most forms of fishing, taking of wild game, and trophy kills.

Just as a police force substitutes for the unruly mob, the judicial system for vigilantes, whole industries are devoted to the procurement of food for the masses, thus sparing most average citizens the need to hunt animals and grow crops. Those not engaged in related businesses are free to pursue a wide variety of other endeavors of his or her choice.

Because of our highly developed senses, satisfying hunger is as much entertainment as it is the fulfillment of a basic survival requirement. As much a pleasure industry and the equal to any other. Need has become want, our wants now seen as needs.

Humans are divided in their eating habits between vegetarianism and omnivorousness. Vegetarians are further subdivided into groups whose choices are based either on moral rationales, health concerns, or both. For obvious and more subtle reasons, vegetable matter is immune to debates over moral and ethical apprehensions related to the eating of meat. As mammals, we can neither imagine nor truly accept the notion that lowly plants possess emotions, feel pain or are intelligibly affected by direct abuse, neglect, or harmful deprivations.

Rightly or unfairly, the consumption of animal flesh is reserved exclusively for the purpose of this debate. Even then, the topic is clouded by fuzzy, arbitrary demarcations that separate higher forms of animal life from lower forms. By example, a mammalian porpoise is considered a superior, more sophisticated entity than a lower, less intelligent species of fish, such as a trout or salmon. Or sardine.

Despite being animals in their own right, bugs and insects are categorized at a level little different from that of plant life. Even worse, as little more than inanimate matter itself. A chimpanzee is regarded as resting atop the highest rungs of an evolutionary ladder, while snakes and other reptiles, though ancient and successful, equally evolved species, are placed among the lowest rungs -- and only slightly higher than beetles and bushes.

Cultural considerations come into play and dictate what animals, indeed which parts of animals, are deemed suitable for human sustenance, and which creatures are adopted for adoration as household pets. A situation exists whereby one’s pet may represent another’s highly prized culinary delicacy. The entire affair is chaotic, without rhyme or reason and, were it not for the unfortunate toll taken of animal life in the process, would be insanely comedic by nature.

It is precisely the mentioned toll that deserves our closer attention and keener evaluation. Inconsistencies may arise in our thoughts with reference to ideas that beg to know at what point should we, do we, concern ourselves with how animals are raised, treated, and slaughtered for the common good. Should those persons with particularly compassionate hearts be allowed to disrupt the processing and harvesting of dumb beasts and interfere accordingly?

Plant and insect populations exist in such comparatively huge numbers, they seem like individual cells that, collectively, compose some larger organism. Few tears are shed over the demise of weeds or creatures whose nervous systems more resemble miniature computers, with instinctual responses to a limited array of stimuli, than they do living, sympathetic beings.

A distinct form of chauvinism is evident in humankind’s assessment of those animals regarded as “too advanced” or “too cute” or too something that prevents or inhibits their being killed and eaten. Aside from endangered species, other critters are equally protected and spared by virtue of any number of criteria, usually based on emotional responses to an acculturated aesthetic bias. Favoritism at its most lethal level.

A bit of information not widely known by lots of folks concerns the advantages that carnivores wield over their herbivore neighbors. Vegetable matter when eaten, is a relatively poor source of energy. Large vegetarians must therefore eat often and in quantity so as to sustain their daily, routine activities. Little time is available for anything other than the constant search for, and consumption of food.

Carnivores on the other paw, whose fatty, protein-rich diet offers extended and extensive levels of energy, can afford long, leisurely periods between feedings. One of the great contributions in the advancement of human social evolution was the inclusion of meat, whenever possible, as a dietary supplement, if not a frequent staple. With the advent of farming crops and animal husbandry, large numbers of people could then devote the new luxury of leisure time to the further development of technology, religion, and philosophy.

As an outpouring of philosophical thought, many people looked at animals, empathized and anthropomorphized, and saw kindred, soul-bearing spirits. They visualized entities who, for one reason or another, initiated a reversal, of sorts. A situation whereby a conscious decision was made to intentionally turn from meat and ingest only vegetable products which, by comparison, were viewed as both insignificant and inconsequential.

Other persons, though not vegetarians, but with equal conviction, chose to adopt a lifestyle that, while enjoying the benefits of meat, would inflict the least harm possible on the fewest number and variety of animals. And thus was born the dichotomy in question. The disagreement between those who devour meat conditionally, reservedly, and those who hunt, kill, wound and maim animals in the names of sport and entertainment. And who may or may not actually eat the animals destroyed.

Sport hunters would surely accuse their meat-eating opponents of hypocrisy and cowardice. Anti-hunting advocates condemn the practice as cruel, barbaric and, above all else, unnecessary. Meanwhile hunters claim a right similar to “eminent domain” by which the superior, God-fearing human being is lord and master over all other life forms; he or she is thus free, is somehow entitled to cull from whatever herd the law permits. Indeed it is almost an obligation to do so, a thinning-out that benefits both animals and people alike.

It is acknowledged that circumstances do exist where natural predators have been reduced in number, usually by human intervention, such that prey animals experience overpopulation problems. The opposite situation is, at times, also a complication. Dilemmas of these kinds should not, however, be left for amateur hunters to solve, but rather by organized, humane professionals.

Two thoughtful arguments are possible which, hopefully, might convince one who possesses a hunter mentality that their recreational pursuits are fraught with philosophical/ethical problems. For many if not most hunters, they will choose simply not to care, however, or not allow themselves to be emotionally moved by sentimental debates, regardless the weakness of their personal convictions.

The first commentary points directly to the “Involuntary Guest” argument and attempts to demonstrate how the act of hunting, when the primary intent is for the purposes of sport and entertainment, violates several, if not all of the parameters described.

Secondly, suggestion is made that sport hunting promulgates and reinforces the lesser, more debased aspects of being human. That it is not so much what the activity does to its animal victims, but more how the act victimizes the doer. How, by rationalizing the brutality of the hunt, sport enthusiasts perpetuate humankind as citizen killers. Instead of macho frontiersmen, hunters are also viewed as hot-blooded fanatics who at times, may see little difference between their fellow humans and those animals seen as prey.

When killing is the primary aim, pun intended, the boundaries between video games, actual warfare, and vicarious, mercenary victories may become blurred and made subtle indeed. It is the difference between the infantryman, and the bomber pilot who flies unseen above the clouds.

An important clarification bears repeating. To wit an important distinction exists between hunting for food and hunting for sport (hunting purely for the adrenaline rush derived). This is despite the fact that afterwards an animal may indeed be eaten, its fur used, the creature’s sacrifice lauded, respected, and even appreciated.

Animal products found in the retail marketplace are there not because fun-loving, thrill-seeking weekend warriors gallivant about supplying us with fresh meat, but rather due to the hard labor of those for whom the killing of animals represents a serious livelihood -- no more enjoyable nor less, than the more routine jobs performed by the vast majority of ordinary workers.

It is the sport hunter who shuns the food already prepared and available, who willfully and for pleasure alone, succumbs to the darker angels of their soul and snuffs the life from creatures who bear malice to no one, and who belong to none but themselves. Entities who, by the very nature of their vulnerability and innocence, should never be slain or abused simply because they can be. Because no obvious negative consequences result, because their suffering is deemed unimportant, not truly felt, and therefore irrelevant.

Woe unto the souls of those,
Be they mistaken,
Who steal what is not theirs to take,
Who oppress the weak,
Who murder what would struggle to live,
And who, in their blind arrogance,
Presume to know the will of God.

Ultimately matters of ego gratification are ones of conscience and minds open to epiphanies. Many people indulge in certain activities solely because opposing viewpoints have not been presented or made clear to them. And once understood, those same behaviors, though not necessarily positive or negative, are never repeated.

As with almost all conflicts of conscience, where one must choose between two different courses of action, a helpful guideline exists that attempts to ascertain the potential benefits of one choice, compared and weighed against the degree of possible loss via an opposite selection.

Whenever the loss suffered is greater than any amount of good gained, a proper response seems axiomatic, accompanied respectively by decisive action which withdraws, ceases and desists from all further contention.

Learned and taught from otherwise decent people, passed from father to son, mother to daughter, sport hunting in the modern age -- at a time when matters of life and death are not at stake -- is motivated at its core by attitudes based on myth, tradition, and arrogant self-gratification.

If seriously contemplated, one cannot help but ponder whose loss is greater, whose life is more changed for the worse, whose personal domain was invaded, imposed upon by unwelcome guests, and for whom the luxury of choice was never an option.

As a simple update that risks over-sentimentalizing a relative non-issue, I once came across the largest fish I'd ever seen caught at the lake where I used to live. Probably two feet long or so, it’s body was thick with colorful, iridescent scales. The part that caught me was seeing the animal, intact, draped over a trash bin, smothered by flies. Someone, probably kids, obviously had no interest in the creature except for the brief joy they derived from catching it.

I don't pretend to know what real value is placed upon these less-than-human creatures with whom we share existence, but it must surely exceed the miniscule consideration paid in this instance. No suggestion is made, however, that my observation proves anything one way or the other; it was simply noteworthy.