So don't tell me I am not hunting if I am not doing it your way.
Amen.
Most here won't remember it, but it wasn't that long ago that some people condemned monofilament fishing line -- I think it was Minnesota that wanted to outlaw it -- because they considered it "unsporting" or "unfair" because it supposedly gave anglers too much of an advantage over fish.
As others have pointed out, the whole notion of so-called "fair chase" is a misnomer unless and until
both parties -- the predator
and the prey --
agree on what's "fair." But since no prey species would ever
agree to be hunted, let alone killed, no form of hunting (or fishing) can truly be called "fair." So there's
no such thing as "fair chase," there never was, and there never will be. So let's just dispense with that loaded and bogus term right now.
No matter what anyone says, any and every form of hunting is
predation, end of story. It's one species killing another. And every form of hunting by humans lies somewhere on a spectrum between "sporting" at one end of the spectrum and "humane" at the other end of the spectrum. Or, to flip those terms on their heads, the spectrum would go from "unsporting" on one end, to "inhumane" on the other end.
For maximum "sport," I guess we could climb up into a tree wearing a buckskin loincloth with a hand-flaked clovis point clenched in our teeth, and wait until a deer passed beneath us, then jump from the tree onto the back of the deer where we would cut its throat. Or we could throw rocks down at deer from atop a cliff. Plenty "sporting," because these methods would give the deer the greatest opportunity for escape. Ethical? Not so much, since many deer would surely escape wounded, and many would be crippled or hurt needlessly. Bowhunters like to flex their "sporting" cred, but I wonder what percentage of the animals they arrow end up dying in pain versus what percentage of the deer hit with a 270 don't expire on the spot. And I suspect that a lot of the same people who condemn long-range hunting, or want to dictate to others what range is "acceptable" to shoot at game animals -- are the same people who want to ban bowhunting, if not
all hunting, and for the same reasons.
At the other end of the spectrum would be the most "ethical" or "humane" way of killing animals, with the least likelihood of wounding or hurting them. I guess a slaughterhouse with a guy using a pneumatic bolt gun to the forehead would top that list, but a close runner-up would probably be jacklighting deer over bait at short range with CF rifles. Or catching them in neck-breaking snares or giant conibears. Or shooting them with miniguns from helicopters. Since nearly 100% of the deer killed would never even hear the gun go off, and the % wounded would be darn near zero, this would be a humane method of killing them. But would it be "sporting"? Not so much.
Bottom line: There's no black and white in this debate, just infinitely many shades of gray.
And we all have to decide for ourselves what is and isn't ethical, and what is and isn't "sporting."
But it's always been that way. It's one of the most defining characteristics of the pursuit of hunting.
And the whole thing is full of contradictions.
For example, I'd shoot at coyotes at 750 yards -- but for deer, I'd consider that range unethical.
Why is what's unethical for
one species ethical for
another?
I'd shoot coyotes at night over lights or with a thermal scope -- but for deer, I'd consider that unsporting.
Why is a method "sporting" for one species but "unsporting" for another?
If bait is fine for fishing -- or bear hunting -- why is it so terrible for doves or ducks?
Fish and game authorities define the laws, but I suspect they base those laws a heck of a lot more on "how effective" the method is -- and how many animals they want to see taken -- than on how "ethical" or "sporting" those methods may or may not be.
Not everything legal is necessarily "sporting" or "ethical" ... and vice versa.
In the end it's all predation. In the end it's all killing. The rest is just talk.
A lot of these debates amount to distinctions without a difference, and many are intended to get us fighting among ourselves instead of uniting against the enemies we all share. They do the same with gun control, decade after decade. Result: The Fudds hate the Blackgunners hate the GunGolfers hate the ConcealedCarriers and everybody loses except those who want to take them
all away from
all of us.
As Rodney King once said, "Can't we all just get along?"
jd
