Hunting

Hi everyone!

In middle school, I was horrified to find someone say, “I’m going hunting with my family this weekend!” For me, that was equal to committing a sin.  I impulsively retorted angrily that I can’t believe that they would do something so horrible.  No one commented and I felt like maybe everyone else was thinking that I should keep my personal opinions in my head.  Later on, I heard that numerous others had told her similar things as an attempt to convince her to stop hunting.  I felt bad, and while there normally wasn’t any excuse for hunting, I was willing to apologize and hear from her what perhaps I’d missed.

I learned that she hunted a species that aren’t endangered which I felt some relief about. I still felt uncomfortable, but I didn’t continue to pry, and I let it go.

I wouldn’t ever hunt, but I think there may be a few exceptions for it to be okay, not good but okay.  Hunting for survival is fine; that’s what any predatory species would do naturally.  As long as the killed animal is treated with care, all its parts are used as clothes/food (practical reasons), it is not an endangered species, and it has not been killed simply for the fun of hunting or for money.

But unfortunately, in our society, there’s a pretty strong view that hunting and killing animals is fun.  Hunting games in arcades and on phones reinforce and perpetuate this view.  Until we agree as a society that killing any type of animal (without considering what it truly means to take the life of another) is wrong this type of “fun” will go on.

I am optimistic that society will ultimately agree that killing any animal for our personal, selfish, materialistic benefits is wrong.  We can all agree that killing a human (scientifically classified also as an animal) is wrong.  And luckily, we recently saw society rise up against killing elephants.  I think we are close to an agreement that hunting other animals like deer or birds for “fun” is wrong too.