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Why do you hunt?

doublerack

doublerack

Active Member
First off I want to say that I was hesitant to post this. Not in fear of what people will think of me, but rather that I would allow some replies influence my own ethics.
Assuming most members on IW have a great respect for deer hunting and others opinions, here goes nothing...
I have this dilemma and I'm sure I'll get over it as I mature as hunter. I've been hunting for 7 years now... deer for 5 years. I've killed over 20 deer so I'm not sure why this is bothering me. The last 6 deer I have killed, 2 shotgun bucks from last season, and the 4 from this bow season have left me feeling guilty. Guilty for taking a "life" I never thought I would say that. But a couple of things really get me. 1st, watching them die. I feel like I can feel the life draining away. Last shot gun season I had to put a 2nd shot into both the bucks I shot because the 1st ones would have taken them a while to expire and I felt it neccessary to put them out of their misery. Both times, I had to turn my head after the shot. Then, this year with 2 of the does I have shot, they have only went 10 yards before they got the wobble in their legs and fell right there. Both times I felt evil. Even hours after the hunt and all night all I could see in my head was the look in their eyes right before I shot. Then just watching them fall, lay down and die. You can call me a wuss if you want, but something makes me feel bad. It's funny, when I shoot a deer and they run into the timber and expire, I don't feel this way. I have no problem walking up on a deer I know I shot, but did not watch expire nor do I have a problem with gutting or processing the deer. I'm not sure why I feel this way. Sometimes I'll be watching a hunting video at home, look over at my dogs and just think to myself why? Why do you hunt? How can you take an animals life? Also, Why do I feel the way I do when watching a deer expire? I think I feel the way I do when watching a deer expire is because I have such a respect, admiration, passion and love for nature. In this case namely, the Whitetail. So why do I hunt? God gave us free will. He knowingly put man on earth with an instinct to hunt and gather. It's my belief that that is why fish, fowl, and other game are here as well. One good serves a greater good. When introducing my nephew into hunting this last year, he had very similar feelings that I did. As I explained to him if it weren't for hunters, deer would become over populated, there would be more car v.s. deer accidents, they would inbreed, start to carry more diseases, devastate our agriculture, and eventually die of starvation (because they can no longer eat because they have no teeth) I re-learned the purpose that hunters serve. My final conclusion, is that as competitive as I am, and as passionate as I have become for hunting I have realized that I don't hunt because the game or the sport. (If that were the case, I wouldn't worry so much about taking an ethical vital shot. I would simply sling and arrow out to 70 yards or throw a slug out at 200 yards. Instead of 25year broadside shots) I hunt because of the purpose. If I harvest enough deer to fill my freezer and donate to friends or to HUSH, I have filled my purpose. In return if god blesses me with a big buck, that is fine, each harvest is a trophy regardless of size. The bottom line is that hunting allows me to enjoy the beauty god has given us.
 
NICELY SAID! YOU A HAVE A BIG HEART. I CAN RELATE IN SOME WAYS. NOTHING WRONG WITH EXPRESSING YOUR FEELINGS!
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Double Rack,
There is nothing wrong with the way you feel. I have made some poor shots in the past and have learned from each one of them. It is our responsibility as hunters to make an ethical shot. We owe the animal that.
 
If I ever stopped feeling the way you do I would quit hunting, just out of peer admiration for the animal and nature I always feel a little guilty when I harvest an animal, I think it is only human nature.
 
Sounds to me like you are a true sportsman. Don't know of anyone that would think you were a wuss for having respect for the animal that you were allowed to harvest. Death is never uplifting.
 
Enjoying hunting does not mean you enjoy killing. Anyone who does not feel some remorse for the animal should check themselvs...
 
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If I ever stopped feeling the way you do I would quit hunting

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Prior to this season, I thought that "feeling" was the buck fever. How naive could I have possibly been?!
 
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Enjoying hunting does not mean you enjoy killing. Anyone who does not feel some remorse for the animal should check themselvs...

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I strongly disagree. There is a huge difference between "enjoying killing" and feeling remorse when something is killed. I feel no remorse when I kill a deer, even when it is not pretty. because I know what I am doing is right. It is good for people, it is good for the deer poulation as a whole and it is good for the environment. If I was not certain that is is right I would not do it. Period. So I feel no remorse and I do not think I need to "check myself". Sometimes killing is not pretty or fun. There is a huge difference between someone who thinks killing is enjoyable, and I do not know anyone like that, by the way, and someone who feels no remorse over killing.

Am I a little jaded, after having killed thousands of animals in my life, from mink to salmon to mosquitos to whitetails? Maybe, but I doubt it.

I think it is good to evaluate why you do things and think about how it makes you feel. I think it will make you a better hunter. But I get a little perturbed when I hear people say there should be some remorse felt when I kill something. I think it plays right into the hands of the antis. I kill animals. I am not ashamed of that because it is right.
 
When you stop feeling sad when you take a deer's life, I think you have lost respect.

It's not only natural to feel that way, but in my opinion, it is respectful to the animal.



A hunter’s imagination has no choice but to become deeply engaged, for it is never the hunter who is in control, but always the hunted, in that the prey directs the predator’s movements.

All I know is that hunting--beyond being a thing I like to do--helps keep my imagination vital. I would hope never to be so blind as to offer it as prescription; I offer it only as testimony to my love of the landscape where I live--a place that is still, against all odds, its own place, quite unlike any other. I don’t think I would be able to sustain myself as a dreamer in this strange landscape if I did not take off three weeks each year to wander the timber in search of game; to hunt, stretching and exercising not just my imagination, but my spirit. And to wander the timber, too, in all the other seasons. And to be nourished by the river of spirit that flows, shifting and winding, between me and the land.
 
I had a similiar experience last year. I was walking along a fence row with my two boys (ages 8/11) when a doe stood up from the grass and tried to jump the fence. It took her two tries to get over the fence then she went a few yards and layed down again. We could tell she had a broken back leg. My older boy walked ahead with his bow while my other son stayed with me. The doe stood again, and walked back towards me and just stood there looking at us. She was in obvious distress, and my 8 yr. old said "what are you going to do?" I looked at my older boy, then drew my bow and took her out. We walked up to her and watched her die. As the three of stood together and watched her breathe her last breaths, the younger one said "At least she isn't suffering anymore." I told him he was right, and I knew that it was the right thing to do, but it was a wierd feeling. We tagged her and loaded her in the truck and none of us said a word. We drove back to the farm in silence, each reflecting on what just happened.
 
I think most people in the woods have a passion for hunting and respect for the game they hunt. I feel awful when I don't make a fatal shot on an animal because I don't want that animal to suffer. I even thought about not hunting anymore after I made a bad shot on a deer a couple of years ago. I agree with Ghost (I think he is the wise man of this site) when you stop feeling sad when you take a deers life you have lost respect for the deer and hunting in general. Thats just my opinion. Hope you come to a good conclusion.
 
Iowa1- I understand your point of view and you're surly entitled to it. Perhaps remorse was not the best choice of words maybe sobering would be better...not so much that the animal lost it's life but, that "I" took it
The only thing you said that, I can't agree with is that someone admitting they didn't enjoy killing an animal plays into the hands of the anti's. I think seeing the idiots on TV celebrating over a dead animal is far more easilly used by the anti's.
Just my opinion.
 
I think most hunters go through a progression over time and the reason(s) we hunt changes.

Many new hunters are all about keeping score -- filling a limit, shooting the most or the biggest. Sometimes to the point where ethics become a little "flexible."

The next stage is where the experience and challenge are important, but so is the end result. The quest for big antlers is a good example.

Finally, you get to the point where just the experience of being outdoors and sharing the adventure with family and friends is the most important aspect. Actually bagging something is secondary. When that pressure -- either self-imposed or peer-- to make a harvest is gone, you can take the time to really appreciate and respect the animals more. You take only the best shots and strive to make all kills quick and clean out of that respect for the animal.

Things can and do go wrong and not every kill is as quick as we would like. And we can and should feel when guilty that happens.

But as hunters we fill an important role in the management of game animals. Also, our license fees, taxes on equipment, and charitable contributions help pay for habitat that is vital to these animals being around in the first place.

So if you respect the animal, strive for clean kills, and give thanks for the harvest, you have nothing to feel guilty about.
 
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So if you respect the animal, strive for clean kills, and give thanks for the harvest, you have nothing to feel guilty about.

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Let me clarify my point about the anti's. First of all, the anti's thrive on the thought that hunters might be feeling sad over the death of an animal. After all, that's what they are all about. Without anthropomorphism, there would be no antis. Why do you think movies like Bambi and others that portray animals with human feelings and senses are so popular. Think about it. I believe there is a very distinct line between human life and animal life. That line has been blurred in the last half century. Things like abortion and assisted suicide have devalued human life while the value of animal life has been raised to new heights. People think nothing of spending hundreds on keeping their pet healthy while humans die in the streets of neglect. People will take a bird with a broken wing to an animal "rescue" center while their fellow humans starve to death. I'm not getting off the subject here, bear with me.
Do you feel sad when you swat a mosquito? Do you feel sad when you filet a fish? Have you ever felt sad for a bug that was crushed by your windsheild. Who is to say that a deer's life has intrinsically more value than that of a mosquito?
There also seems to be this prevailing myth that it's good to feel sad when an animal dies because that's what the indians did. Are you kidding me? When a hungry community of native americans downed a buffalo I gurantee you they were shouting and jumping with happiness just like those guys you see on TV when they arrow a monster buck.
I see a lot of writing these days by writers trying to generate an emotional response by playing on this somberness when an animal dies, and frankly I do not think it is good for hunting.
You can respect an animal without feeling sad when it dies. You can respect the value of human life more if you understand that it has value far above that utilitarian value of a deer.
You see, this is all about worldview. If you feel sad when a deer dies, yet you watch murders on TV without that sad feeling, it is you my friends who need to take a look at yourselves.
 
I have found myself with the same questions recently. And have felt the same with the animals I have harvested. You have kinda put it into perspective. I feel that those words in that paragraph were written by a true hunter.
 
The older I get, the less I like the killing part of hunting.If I didn't like the meat so much, I'd probably just film wildlife. I love to watch them. I believe GOD gave us animals for food, but we have slaughter factories for that now. People are cut off from the reality of life and death in nature. We pay someone else to do it.God put the desire to feed ourselves in our genes. But death was not HIS original plan. The remorse I feel, I believe is HIM telling me, some day there will be no more death. There has beeen so much since man was created. Still it is an honorable practice done with reverence and respect, that only GOD can give life. I was watching the video that came with the Primos call. They show a buck being shot. The camera guy laughs. My wife broke out in tears. Now she understands why we hunt and loves venison, and helps me with the butchering. I asked her why she was crying? She said they were laughing when that beautiful creature was hit. I agree the business hunting has become ,with hunting "stars" smacking buck after buck, has made what was once an honorable effort, seem sleezy, like many things.
 
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