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ZeroJunk if I understand your post correctly you are against anyone paying to hunt a trophy in a game preserve\ranch\farm even if the meat is being used but you are ok with people shooting wild animals and not using the meat. That seems a bit backwards to me.
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Those were my thoughts exactly. Eating the meat is paying homage to mother nature, and to the bounty of the great outdoors, and thus, to waste the meat is wrong and disrespectful to mother nature UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE (in my opinion - except for pest/varmint control), even if it's the biggest [deer/moose/Himalayan spider monkey] ever known to man. Period. Nourishing our bodies with the meat sanctifies or purifies the transaction, if you will, at least in my book. To do otherwise is wasteful, unnecessary, selfish, egotistical, and wrong. The REASON for the hunt of big game is the getting back to nature, communing with ourselves, nature, and our friends, and part & parcel of that communion is partaking of the sustenance provided by the prey. The trophy is merely an incidental bonus. If you take a trophy without eating the meat (or giving it to the needy), then you've betrayed the very reason for the hunt in the first place, and thus the trophy is utterly meaningless and devoid of any purity or fulfillment (to me, anyway).
Thank you.
As for shooting on a canned hunt, this is NOT what this thread is about. It's an interesting subject, and one that we've discussed many times in the past and will again in the future. But animals on canned hunts are NOT, by definition (to me), a "trophy", as I define that word. It cannot be a trophy because it didn't involve "real" hunting in pristine fair chase areas. So since those animals are not "trophies", and we're discussing "trophy hunting", as I define it, then that is not part of the discussion. I'm talking about trophies out in nature in fair chase, whether or not it's ethical under any circumstances, to leave the meat for the buzzards and such.
Now, as for canned hunts. Regardless of whether I or anyone else on this board sees any point to them, they are more or less harmless since they are really mostly indistinguishable from FARMING. Nothing wrong with farming, so therefore nothing wrong with shooting an animal in a high-fenced area. Again, provided you use the animal's meat. NOW, if one is shooting for so-called "trophies" (to them) only, wasting the meat, AND doing so IN a canned hunt environment, then oh man, that's a double whammy, and those guys need a good public caning to set them straight.
P.S. Plus, eating the meat is downright delicious!
P.P.S. In the areas where deer overpopulation is a real concern, and thus the argument is that this is pest control, I still have a problem with it, because there are doubtlessly needy people living somewhere in those areas, and nearly doubtless that the state wildlife dept. has some sort of hunters-for-the-hungry program. So take it to the processor, pay the $25, and let them give it to the needy, if you want to hunt. Just my .02 on this....