A Pretty Good Reply to the Anti-Hunter

[Guyon]

Here's the link: http://www.catahoulaleopard.com/anti.htm


> I will not reveal my name, but what I think what you are doing to these
> poor helpless animals is WRONG!!! Because I think every animal should be
> treated like a human being. What if animals hunted humans, what would you
> think about that?


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To you,

I'm glad you wrote me, I've received several emails from people not happy with
the way I live (because I hunt). I respect your decision not to take part in your
duty as a human being to this world, others have taken your share of the
burden from you.

As a God fearing, nature loving person I have a duty to protect all things that
walk. The best way to insure that populations are not stressed to starvation and
animals die miserable deaths is to hunt. I do feel sad when I take an animal’s
life, but I also feel an overwhelming sense of respect for the animal and pride
in myself for taking such a wonderful animal. A person who never hunts cannot
understand or appreciate the love and respect a sportsman has for nature. I
spend 365 days a year outside, and venture into the woods at least once a day.
Do you? I feed wildlife when woods and fields get dry and food is sparse. Do you?
I harvest it to control the population when wild creatures begin to thrive too well.
And I eat or use everything I harvest.

We as humans, you and I, have done something terrible to the environment,
we've encroached on the wilds of this world, removed the trees, built our houses,
driven our cars. We buy our food from huge commercial grocers who in turn buy
it from huge commercial farms that have stripped the land for farming and put
pesticides into our mother earth. I contend that the deaths you cause by living
here on earth are many more than the deaths I cause with a well placed shot.

You see, it's the human race’s encroachment into the wilds of this country that
killed out the grizzly in the lower 48, ran cougars from their homes forcing them
to choose for food humans and domestic animals, and forced wolves to the
farthest reaches of the lower 48. We as a human race have destroyed all but one
predator and that predator is humankind itself. Fortunately for the non-hunting
among us our survival as a race is no longer dependent upon our ability to hunt
and gather. You see we are the first animals to come into the world and not have
to live out-of-doors. We can reason, understand, and build. We can think, build
rockets and travel to the moon and beyond. Nature made us king, it allowed us
the brains to invent weapons, build cars, wreck rain forests. It's a shame Nature
didn't give most of us the ability to care about what those choices really mean.

I ask you this as a non-hunter, what have you done in the last year to improve the
plight of ducks because of loss of breeding grounds, and control the overabundance
and starvation of deer in urban areas? How many parks and preserves have your
sales tax dollars funded? Everytime I go to the store and buy ammo or fishing lures
or any of a number of products for outdoor use I benefit wildlife. What do you do?
When was the last time PETA or ALF or any of the other animal rights groups did
anything but help a bunch of animals starve? Their heart is in the right place, it's
just behind the wrong cause, there is no greater lover of nature and helper of all
things wild than a sportsman.

As to your question about animals hunting me, it happens every time I step in the
woods I take the chance of a snakebite, being charged by and cut by a hog, but
because of the destruction you as a human helped to cause I don't get to feel the
adrenaline pump as I'm hunted by a bear, or followed by wolves, to do that I'm
forced to fly to Alaska. It's time you folks figure out who the real destroyer of nature
is and rally behind us, the sportsmen, to limit the destruction of the land developer,
and other dangerous folks.

Steve


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[Art Eatman]

You might also consider something that I've found effective:

"The history of homo sapiens began with the hunter-gatherer. We've progressed to using domestic livestock and farming in order that we may eat.

Those who hunt or raise a garden are continuing the ancient pathways of the do-it-yourselfers. Those who do not do so are merely hiring others to do their scut-work for them."

And then there are those who interject moral issues into their food, such as the "vegans". (A "vegan" is a self-given name, apparently, for quasi-religious vegetarians.) For them, I've commented:

"If animate life has a higher moral value than inanimate life and therefore should not be used as food, then consistency in one's philosophy demands that a rat be considered of higher moral value than a tree. I have some wonderful recipes for Sequoia-root soup, and redwood-root tea; and they also are useful in poultices."

, Art

[CoyDog]

Here in Wyoming we have a bumper sticker that sums it up for me. It's a picture of a cowboy on a bucking horse with the caption: "Hey PETA, Buck Off!"

CoyDog