Why Do You Hunt? How Would You Answer?

“Why do you hunt?”  Now there’s a question that can red-line a man’s heart rate and tie his tongue in knots.

The question is usually posed by some humorless, holier-than-thou woman with wads of cat hair stuck to her skirt who truly believes she’s on the moral high ground and sees you as a cave-dwelling Neanderthal. 

As she taps her manicured fingernail on your chest and accuses you of being a cold-blooded killer, your first impulse is to pummel her with an expletive-laced tirade that would make George Carlin flinch and dump what’s left of your beer over her head.  And you probably would, except your wife is clearing her throat as if to say, “Go ahead, and you’ll be sleeping on the couch until you’re old enough to collect social security.”

If you have trouble putting your passion for hunting into words, you’re not alone.    Explaining hunting to the uninitiated is like trying to describe lutefisk to a valley girl.  But now, more than ever, it’s critical that hunters to learn express their feelings for the outdoor experience confidently, articulately and eloquently. 

That’s because someday — 10, maybe 15 years from now, but possibly much sooner — the right to hunt is going to be challenged.  The battle could be waged a court of law or it could unfold in voting booths, but it is coming. The important thing to remember is this: When the day of reckoning arrives, everything we hunters do and say between now and then is going to be used against us.

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) understands, and has put its membership on notice.  In a recent interview, HSUS’ Chief Executive Officer Wayne Pacelle said of activists who practice violence, “A lot of people don’t like animal activists because they think they’re too strident and hypocritical.  I think it’s important for us, as the ambassadors for animals, to be ethically consistent and to embrace mainstream values.  I think that (flaunting the law) hurts our credibility.”

Likewise, it’s important for hunters to stay on the high road.  This isn’t about us vs. the antis, this battle is for the hearts and minds of the 90 percent of the population that doesn’t hunt but doesn’t oppose hunting, and the trash talking that has become so fashionable in today’s in-your-face world isn’t going to win the allies we need. 

Fortunately, we hunters don’t have to overplay our hand, because in this game, we’re holding all the cards.  All we have to do is point out to our critics that:

— Sportsmen are the continent’s first-team conservationists.  Wildlife needs habitat, and through our contributions to conservation organizations, the licenses we purchase and the taxes we pay on equipment, hunters have protected infinitely more habitat than all the animal-rights organizations combined.  And we’re not just talking about game species; countless non-game birds and animals benefit from the conservation efforts of hunters as well.

— Today, more than ever, wildlife populations need to be managed.  It’s no secret that whitetail deer, Canada geese and snow geese have grown to dangerously high population levels in many areas of the continent, and hunting is by far the most realistic and efficient option for keeping those populations in balance.  The hair-brained schemes offered by anti-hunters—contraception of deer and sending Boy Scouts to the arctic to make goose-egg omelets—simply aren’t realistic.

— For wildlife to thrive in our rapidly changing world will require scientific research to inform management decisions, and no one conducts more research than the agencies and organizations representing — and funded by — hunters.  Delta students alone have published over 700 peer-reviewed papers.  How many studies do you think HSUS has produced? 

— The economic impact of hunting, fishing and wildlife-related activities is a nifty $108 billion annually by the most recent estimate, and those dollars would be threatened if it weren’t for hunters.

But, alas, when the conservation-, science-, management- and economic-based arguments have been exhausted, there will doubtless be few fence-sitters who will say, “That’s all fine, but what I don’t understand is how you could possibly shoot anything as beautiful as a deer.”

Hopefully this issue’s feature article Why We Hunt will help you answer that question.  It contains four essays devoted to the subject of hunting, and mostly they deal with the spirituality of the hunt and the philosophical reasons why men — and a growing number of women — hunt.

I encourage you to read these articles.  And if you haven’t already done so, pick up Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, Jose Ortega y Gasset’s Meditations on Hunting and David Petersen’s Heartsblood and read them too.   Those gentlemen are the most eloquent of hunting’s spokesmen, and their words are worth committing to memory.

Do it, because sooner or later, someone will be poking a finger in your chest and asking, “Why do you hunt?”