Can someone explain the hunter's perspective to me?

Question

I am trying to understand why a person would find enjoyment in finding, shooting, and taking the lives of unarmed animals that are not a danger to anyone. It just seems to me that hunters are big jerks. What am I missing? Thanks.

I shouldn't have said that about hunters being jerks-- so I apologize. I really do want to understand this as I have family members that hunt.

when I ask my family- they are very vague- and just say that it's fun, and tastes good, etc.

Answer 1

Different people hunt for different resons. Here is mine. I eat meat. Meat comes from two sources. Farms where they are fenced in or penned up and then hauled off to be killed and cut up for sell in the store. Meat from this source is ok, but there is the issue of growth hormones in the feed and so on and fat content. The other way to get meat for eatin is by hunting. The meat from here is running wild and free and often times goes without gettin taken by the hunter. The meat is leaner and taste better to me and i know how it was handled afterwards. I know it was kept clean and processed right. I cant know how store bought meat was handled before i buy it.
Some people hunt with their minds toward trohpies or in the case of varmit hunting it is target shooting and maybe population control of a animal that is sometimes desctructive to property and maybe other wild animals. I dont hunt for trophies and i dont use animals for displays of my shootin abilities. I hunt for meat/food. And i will also shoot a coyote from time to time as they play hell with the baby deer in the spring and have really run down the groundhog population here. In some ways coyotes are a non native animal to indiana.
If people didnt hunt deer there would many more deer/car wrecks which might be you or someone you care about being hurt or killed. Ive seen cases where deer have overpopulated and starved themselves in a location. I dont like the hunting shows on TV. They give a bad impression of whats really going on. There are people who hunt who i dont like, and i dont like their wreckless attitude, but hunting in the right way and for the right reasons is not a bad thing. It is just not for everyone i guess.
shane

Answer 2

There are prolly as many perspectives on hunting as there are people. All the comments here are very valid, but here is a new perspective for you. Why not ask mother nature why she would kill off 80% of the population of a species in any given year? That has and can happen in drought years. Quail as a species will loose 80% of their population if they are hunted or not over the winter months. If you had ever seen a deer so covered with ticks that it could not see, you might ask why hunters don't shoot more deer!! The problems with "chronic wasting disease" are magnified because of the high density of deer in some areas. Disease is a common problem when population densities increase. Hope this helps some!!!!

Answer 3

Tuesday, first and foremost keep in mind that animals are NEVER "unarmed." Bear with me, I'll explain:

Man is a hunter. He is 'wired' that way. How do you think we survived as a species when we first crawled out of the caves? How did we survive in a world ruled by fang and claw if not by mastering fire, tool-making and becoming proficient hunters not only to eat but to stop critters that would eat us!

Make no mistake Tuesday, animals ALWAYS have the advantage of brute strength, horn, fang and claw. Old or sick predators still prefer to hunt Man over other animals because we are thin-skinned, relatively weak for our size, fangless, clawless and slow because we are biped.

Do you think it is better to herd animals into slaughter houses so that we are not offended when we buy our meat prepackaged? How do you think the Colonel gets his fried chicken that we buy at the drive-through? Where does Jack get his hamburger patties? Do you wear leather shoes, belts or leather accessories? Do you use perfume? Where do you think all these things come from? In case you didn't realized it, they are all animal products or by-products.

Why do hunters hunt? I don't know, could it be surivival instinct? Could he merely be practicing a skill that we as a species must not lose?

Man came to rule over the animal kingdom although he really is at the bottom of the food chain by use of tools (weapons), mastering fire, skill and wit. Regardless of what you may have seen in the movies, no one is tough enough to drop down from a tree on a boar or deer with a Bowie knife and best the beast. I guess what I'm saying is that hunting is a 'throw back' to a time when Man had a need to hunt in order to survive.

Today with all the steroids, growth hormones and drugs fed to poultry, livestock, etc. I am not so sure that hunting is still not a viable survival option. In fact it is becoming the only option if you wish to eat safe, drug free untainted meat. Ever heard of "mad-cow-disease?"

Animals still have the advantage of strength, stealth and speed. If you don't see the animal you can't shoot it. If you miss it'll be gone before you can follow up with a second shot.

Don't take things so hard.

H

Answer 4

i am a hunter i kill my share of game animals and i am proud of that fact us hunters are the reason there are deer in this country the money we spend insures that they will be around for ever in the early 1900's before we had to buy hunting license there were hardly any deer in this country and now there are millions of deer in every state in this country so if there were no hunters there would be no animals for you to worry about i hunt for food but i will shoot predators and i will take a trophy animal and put its head on the wall that is my way of showing respect for that animal and people that have never hunted will never feel that closeness with nature ...................and i just seen a piece on the news were this man and woman were walking down the road not hunting and a buck attacked them and they were seriously injured they said they didn't no if the man was going to make it all you have to do is get educated on the TRUE facts of hunting I'm not saying there aren't jerk hunters out there but most are some of the best people you could ever know.......... me if i know anyone that is hungry i will give them meat from my kill

Answer 5

Hunting is part of the circle of life. Since the beggining of man we have hunted and gathered food in order to survive. My family hunts, fishes, gathers nuts, berries, mushrooms. The food is put on our table. I have a Masters Degree and work as a therapist. I can afford to feed my family, but we enjoy the food we are able to provide for ourselves. I hunt to be outdoors and enjoy nature. (and I do not shoot everything I see, just the animals that I am legally hunting). Yes I could enjoy nature without hunting, but part of the excitement is in the hunt itself. If an animals does not have predators to keep their population down, then disease and famine will. I personally find it much more humane to put a bullet into a deer that will feed my family, than have them overpopulate, run into traffic and hurt someone or starve to death when a hard winter hits. If you have never went hunting, you might want to ask one of your family members who do hunt to take you with them. Then maybe you will see what they see. My daughter, who is 4 y.o. already understands that hunting is not just 'killing an animal'. She understands that it is a means to provide food, and that life itself is to be respected. Instead of "burying your head in the sand", she sees that crops our grown (we garden together too and she enjoys planting corn especially) tended and harvested. Animals, like cows are grown and also harvested (and if you eat a hamburger, the only difference between you as the consumer and a hunter, is that you paid someone else to kill that animal). She has much more of an understanding of how nature operates, that food begins from the earth, plants are eaten and that some of those animals that eat plants are themselves food for other animals. That is life. Hunting done by a human is no different than the hunting a lion does on the plains of Africa. Lions use claws & teeth, humans use tools and their brains.

Answer 6

Alot of folks find hunting a way to spend time with their families.Around Vermont were I live opening day for deer season is nothing short of an unoffical state holiday.Most folks around home work year round just to take off a week for deer season.It's a past time.

Those same people would tell you they'd rather eat something that was killed days ago and grown on natural things from the forest rather than growth hormones and chemically engineered food like the food in the store is.

Have you ever visted a slaughter house?Death by bullet is 1000 times more humane than one of those.

Anyone who has the preconcieved notion that hunting is easy has never hunted.Those 'unarmed' animals have noses,ears and eyes that sense humans LONG before the human sees them.It's a trade off.Animals have their senses,and humans have their brains which allow them to figure out how to out smart the animal.A hunter using a gun or bow is no different than a bear using it's claws.

And animals are a danger to folks.Every year you hear of hungry bears in people's trash,rut crazed deer attacking people,and I've heard of hunters,even hikers being chased by rut crazed moose.Mostly due to our ever encroaching civilization.Animals can also be a danger to them selves.There is only a defined number of animals that an ecosystem in one area can handle.Too many animals,and not enough food creates starvation.Have you ever seen a starving,weak deer?It's definately not a Walt Disney story.I've also known hunters to shoot animals with broken legs or diseases and use up the tags they've paid for for the purpose of ending the animal's pain.It's quite heart breaking to see a a button buck limping around with one leg just hanging,God only knows how he broke it.Would it be more humane to let it get run down by coydogs during the winter in the deep snow when even a normal deer has difficulty running in two feet of snow or shoot it and put it to a quick death?

Hunters are not big jerks.Canadian geese,moose,white tail deer,wild turkey,bears,and water fowl were all brought back from near extinction because hunters stood up and did something about it.Hunters contribute millions of dollars to loacal economies in small towns by loding food,and licensing.

We country folk cannot understand why all you city folk just don't seem to get this?We tell you time and time again but it never sinks in.It's because of bambi movies and people's sheltered,instant,one hour,throw away society that they've lost their primitive skills and understanding of why all of this goes on.

I for one will never stop hunting,and fully intend to introduce my kids(when the day comes) to it,because I don't want then to grow up helpless and reliant on society.

Answer 7

I can only speak for myself, but I live in Montana. My family lives on wild game meat.
Altough I really enjoy hunting, its not as easy as some of you think.
I have been hunting since I was 12 I am now 42, so in hunting elk for thirty years I have killed 13. Out of those 13 the closest to a road a place you could drive was about 2 miles. On average I would say once I kill the elk i takes me 2 days to get it to the truck, that is not fun, but that is what it takes.

Answer 8

The animals would just end up being road-kill or starving to death if they weren't culled. With humans beings it's individuals that count, with animals it's the species as a whole that matters. Whitetail deer, for example, are a well managed species that thrives precisecly because it has enthusiatic human predators. There are probably more whitetail deer in North America now, than when Columbus first turned up.

From that perspective, being hunted is the whitetail's evolutionary role that ensures it thrives as a species, even if it means many individual deer have to take one for the team. Besides, game is always tastier than factory-farmed supermarket meat.

Answer 9

For me, hunting is maintaining the natural balance. I admit it that I enjoy being in the woods, pitting my tracking/stalking skills against a creature that has evolution on it's side, and the game tastes good, but...

There are very few natural predators in nature today (that can take out a full grown deer, for example), and entirely too much human expansion. When humans expand, they eliminate the habitat of the animals. This leads to less possible feeding areas (starvation), more human/animal incidents (traffic accidents, rabid animals, cougars attacking joggers/pets), and disease. Since there are almost no natural predators, someone has to assist nature in keeping the herd populations down. There have been predators re-introduced to nature (wolves), and limited, or no hunting, on other predators (grizzly, cougar) have brought back those populations, but the ratio of predator to prey is still too great. Another thought on predators is, more predators means an increased likelihood of attacks on humans. We have already seen cougar and bear attacks in various places, and this is not something that we want.

I hope this answers your question

Answer 10

Can you explain the basketball player's perspective to me?
Can you explain the gamers perspective to me?
Another example is I don't understand why people enjoy watching other people throw a ball around (professional sports). I've asked them and they are vague and often defensive, more so than hunters.
If you press why people enjoy anything you will eventually come up with nothing. The reason people enjoy things is because they do. Do not pretend to be objective when you word questions the way you do.