Killing...In The Name Of Sport
If there is one thing that I will never understand, it is how hunting can be called a “sport”. Let’s have a look at the dictionary description for Sport: “An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment; I.e Soccer or baseball.” Nowhere in this description does it say “Killing for entertainment” or “seeing who can kill the best”.
The worst part is that if you don’t do your job properly, and miss, you are leaving that animal to suffer in dire pain, feeling every single moment as the arrow pierces it’s flesh, becoming stuck and jolted inside of him. Yet this is sport. This is a game. This is “fun” and “entertaining”.
Kicking a ball around a field is a sport. Shooting a ball into a hoop is a sport. Running around trying to be faster than other people is a sport. Killing, is NOT a sport.
In ancient times, hunting was a means of survival. The only way people could get food was through finding and killing it for themselves. This is different. Modern day hunters are not going to die of hunger if they do not hunt. There is already plenty of food on their tables. Modern day hunters kill for extra luxury food, like biltong and such like, or for clothing, or to purely dismantle the poor animal and decorate your house with it, so that when visitors come over you can boast. Boast about your ability to kill? Wow, congratulations asshole, you can fire a gun.
An animals’ senses are far beyond our human understanding, so if the animal hears a shot coming, it will move out of your original line of aim, meaning you will not hit the heart as you intended, but will just severely injure the thing, leaving it to die. A lot of hunters spend hours tracking blood trails to find the animal that they have shot, and most never find the poor thing. We can assume it dragged itself (in agony) to a lonely corner or comfortable place to accept its fate of death. In England, an estimated 20% of foxes must be shot again in order to complete the kill. (This is specifically bad with bow hunting– where the animal will without a doubt die painfully and slowly from the wounds)
I have seen profile pictures on Facebook of men standing next to wounded animals. Wounded, not dead (A.k.a. feeling every second of pain) smiling with a thumbs-up as the animal suffers. How is this a victory? How is this cause for a happy picture? Purely to compensate for some sort of manliness you only WISH you had. Pathetic. Hunting does not make you a man. It makes you an asshole. End of story. I know so many women who are turned on by men like this, men who are “hardcore” because they hunt. I can’t think of a bigger turn OFF than a heartless animal killer. There are many things that make a man a man – but hunting is NOT one of them. Here’s an idea - we take all the hunters in our country, blindfold them and send them spinning around a game farm with a ten minute head start - then I’m coming after you with my loaded rifle. Or maybe I’ll opt for a bow and arrow. Who knows? Let’s see how you enjoy being hunted down like prey. Maybe your head would look good stuffed and put on my mantle. Fair is fair, right?
All of that aside, hunting can actually increase disease among animals, by killing healthy animals and those with disease immunities. Killing animals can also damage the social structure of animal society. It disrupts migration and hibernation patterns, and destroys families - what if you kill a father or mother of a child animal, and the poor soul is left orphaned to die of starvation owing to its vulnerability as a baby? Wolves, for example, mate for life, and have very strong and close family bonds. Hunting can tear an entire community of wolves to pieces. Irreversibly. And as much as people may disagree, animals do in actual fact experience emotion, trauma and stress, which in a traumatic case like this can leave them uninterested in eating or collecting food for times like Winter, meaning them and their families are unlikely to survive the season. Also, “Sportsmen” who hunt for the thrill of it, bring out large numbers of men, women and youth, who have little (or no) experience with hunting. This makes game farms or other wild lands dangerous to non-hunters (as well as hunters themselves). Every hunting season there are countless news reports of accidental fatal shootings. If people didn’t hunt, people would subsequently not lose their lives.
My point - hunting is just plain bad, emotionally and morally as WELL as structurally and societally. Take a stand against hunting today and see it for the crime that it is (or should be!)
End Rant.
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