It’s, unfortunately, essential. Our ancestors have eliminated or strongly curtailed most natural predators, and the proliferation of roads, highways, and car use here in the US makes hunting seasons important for public safety. It’s also my understanding that culling herds actually leads to a stronger animal population.

Also, being someone who is fundamentally for strong gun control and who also possesses a hunting license, I have to say I was impressed with the hunter safety course I had to take to get my hunting license. It taught firearm safety, the importance of minimizing cruelty to animals, and overall just the ethics of hunting, which I wasn’t anticipating.

My dad has been bow hunting and black powder rifle hunting for my entire life. he only uses primitive arms because he says “it’s called hunting, not killing” and advanced weapons make it unfair. Most years he gets one or two deer. Some years he gets none. Sometimes he just sits in his tree and watches nature and doesn’t even pick up his bow. Sometimes he gets incredibly emotional when he gets a kill.

A few years ago I learned how to tan the hides because I’ve always wanted to, and because he was becoming more and more passionate about not wasting any part of the animal. You can do it with simple chemicals or you can use the animal’s brain!! (Unrelated fun fact, every mammal except the squirrel and the bison have exactly the right amount of brain matter to tan their own hides!)

I think it’s great if you’re doing it respectfully and consciously, and abiding by local conservation guidelines.

I started hunting deer years ago because I wanted to be a part of the process, like if I couldn’t handle killing and gutting an animal I shouldn’t be eating meat.

Sorry for the extreme parallel, but… “If I can’t handle murdering a defenseless child, I shouldn’t be in the military.”

Have you considered… just not doing that?

Also, I fucking love it.

I guess there’s the answer.

I tried writing my comment as nicely as possible, but the post seriously reads like a billionaire’s diary. I don’t know how else to put it.

I’ve gotten hunter certified, bow hunter certified, and trapper certified through my job (this is a class for 12 year olds). In each class they talk about the ethics of hunting, why there are bag limits, and ask the kids what they would do if someone close to them is not hunting ethically. E.g., what would you do if grandpa really wants your hunt to go well, and sets a bait station up, in a state where salt licks and bait stations are illegal, because of chronic wasting disease? What would you do? Turn grandpa in?

One part i didnt like about the class is we didn’t discuss solutions so i think a lot of kids walked away thinking they should let grandpa slide.

The hunters ed instructors talk about how society has hunters, anti hunters, and neutral people, and that by following ethics, and being considerate (e.g., don’t drive around town with a dead deer visible mounted to your vehicle) you can avoid creating more anti hunters in society.

The hunters ed instructors also described the rush of adrenaline you get when the animal is in your sights, and how that keeps them hooked.

Me personally, i get the conservation reasons why hunters help keep populations of prey animals in check, in environments with lots of resources and where natural predators are removed. I have friends who had food on the table because of hunters in their family, and would have gone hungry otherwise.

But for people doing it just for the love of the game, i don’t think that will ever sit right for me. Imo killing animals is a necessary evil at best, so when people like doing it for fun, that kind of freaks me out.

Hunting for food is fine.

Hunting for trophies is not.

Hunting is fine. All that thinking will get you into trouble though. /s

It’s absolutely necessary around where I live. If people don’t hunt the deer, they get killed by cars and that’s much worse for everybody involved.

I don’t have the spine to do it, but I’m all for people who do. Also, hunting is about the only reason people should have guns imo.

Just like humans have done for millennia and are meant too. Hunt. Cook. Feed. Then shit.

Rinse and repeat.

I’m from Finland, which has a 1340km border with Russia.

When my grandad grew up you’d either hunt or fish if you wantes to eat. My dad hunted. I’m the only one of my siblings with a hunting license. I was raised with a lot of “when the Russians come”-mentality.

I’ve been moving countries, so I’ve had to give up my rifles and I’m not that passionate about it that I’d figure out where to go do it. But I do think it’s a good skill to have, and I keep my license active.

And my two spaniels would love it.

I’m quite neutral about this. I don’t mind hunting and fishing as much, unless it’s on an industrial or wasteful manner.

I grew up in a stand hunting family, but I never got the taste for it. I never thought it was very sporting to setup a feeder that runs throughout the year to train deer to have their meals where you can shoot them from your stand. I have killed and cleaned a deer, but if that was the only way I could consume meat I would be a vegetarian. I understand about conservation and controlling populations, deer are pests for farmers, but I can’t say I’d go hunting with a rifle again.

I did really love hunting with my grandfather, he taught me about the ecosystem and the food chain in real terms and gave me a lifelong love of nature. Most times we’d go out we’d never even load our rifles. He had one deer he’d been tracking for years, a majestic, one-eyed, 13 point buck and had pictures of the deer across several seasons where you could see his rack grow. My grandfather called him rooster after a one-eyed friend of the family.

I have nothing against hunting, especially deer and wild boar. Wild boar are especially dangerous and aggressive so culling their numbers is a public safety good. And I know many poor rural families feed themselves bagging their limits so I wouldn’t begrudge anyone trying to feed their family. Hunting as a sport though is a bit distasteful.

It’s cool and good, but where I live it’s becoming increasingly expensive. Yes to locals/workers hunting their own food on communal land. No to upper class bastards flying in to hunt, getting themselves and their setters airlifted back to a lodge for lunch, etc. And trophy hunting should not be a thing.

It doesn’t seem like a fun hobby and strikes me as unhinged for the most part.

If you take pleasure in killing creatures you’re an irrideemable piece of shit.

What I find interesting is the reasons you listed for why you love it basically describes camping, not hunting.

I would not call it more humane (it’s murder), but I do agree it is less worse than factory farming.

That being said, as a vegan I still do not have an answer to how to deal with population control for ecosystems we’ve destroyed. I do think rebalancing the ecosystem with natural predators should be done, but I do recognize that prey animals suffer more being killed by a predator animal than a hunter. But that is an unfortunate result of evolution, animals that must kill to survive. Humans are not one of those animals though.