Death will never be removed from the making of our food. As the biological system cycles it takes energy to move it, with gains and losses, before renewal. The cycle continues non-stop. To stop is to initiate death but even death is not final for it gives life.
I was reading an essay called Restoring The Older Knowledge by Ted Kerasote from the book, A Hunter’s Heart: Honest: Essays on Blood Sport collected by David Petersen. The question posed as stated, “Is hunting worth reforming?”
So many questions, so little elaboration. I jest.
I looked up the word “worth” as it was the defining word glaring at me angrily from the question. I find that most people, when giving crucial energy for a thoughtful meditation on anything, are ready to give the ax or pardon to use this word as a measurement stick. The Romans just used thumbs up or down. I don’t know if there was a sideways or even a high five but that’s for conjecture.
My constant companion, the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus, stated the meaning as ‘the value of something measured by its qualities.’
As I closed my dictionary, I pondered ever so slightly on what one would pluck out of the mind in words on what those qualities were? What were the peculiar and essential characters? The Nature, ironically, of that spoken word? Better yet, what were its negative attributes that pissed people off?
I thought maybe it wasn’t Hunting itself but the metal the person was made of. People are tempered in different ways given time, quality, and one’s humanity even if well hidden.
I was reading an article called Bear Down: A Field & Stream Adventure on Prince of Wales Island by Steven Rinella. I add this because it was the most recent example of exemplary behavior on the part of a friend and hunter to another person as an act of reform; even if it was on past experience or what people would call a bad hunt. After realizing this, Rinella sets out to reform the previous experience in his friend’s mind that could have possibility marred his outlook on certain categories of hunting and dissuade him from branching out toward becoming a well rounded hunting individual.
Facilitating and renewing his friend’s confidence on the Nature of Hunting to me was a noble act even though some people take to being too humble. Credit to hunting, the individual or something else? Whatever that may be, friendship and hunting benefited in a positive light. Couldn’t this be a positive force across the landscape of hunting itself? Can not hunters find their own sense of decorum and act accordingly? If the individual could cast positive qualities to bring out the very best in others, and the endeavor of hunting, could one potentially reform a negative to a positive position for his fellow hunter both publicly and privately? Would this not be such a quality as hunting needs? Where I come from its called, “Doing right by.” I believe it’s a doable possibility. After consideration, I thought of more definitive terms used to describe hunting.
Even the word sport is negative in its description. Here it might be applied to multi-opposing sides engaging in some combat, game, or test to decide who is the better individual. Some would take it as victor versus loser.
When considering the other words that drive the context of hunting we find recreational situated in the adjectives. Recreation-wise, hunting is an endeavor that give an individual a refreshment of strength or spirit after the work done. Recreation is by far a negative term. In the media and social circles, it is flung around with much disdain to prove someone else’s point even given that the word itself is taken out of context for argumentative gains. This doesn’t necessarily mean that one goes out to discriminate or insult the ideals of hunting for selfish reasons.
In reading, I had to argue the point individual hunters do not ignore, question, or deny the character of its members. If it’s a high profile hunter is shaking his tool at the Establishment, of course he should be questioned on his behavior.
Hunters as a group are not omnipotent with the ability to monitor all of its members for transgressions. This is the same with daily life. Humans aren’t monitored 24/7 for wrong doing. It's left to them to decide on a case per case basis how they carry themselves as citizens of a society, in private or public situations. If they get caught that is a different matter but to apply this behavior as a characteristic solely to hunting is a fallacy. It can be applied to different areas of daily life. To state it is a denial sounds cumulative. If you’re looking at the overall landscape this could be considered true. On the individual level it is not. Another point that was brought up was the appropriate behavior towards wildlife.
One should question appropriate behavior towards animals when exercising the right and privilege to hunt. I remember working at a veterinary hospital where we took wildlife in. Most people weren’t aware of appropriate behavior. Well meaning citizens would remove them from their habitat with no forethought of how the animals were going to be fed, how it felt about being ripped up from its surroundings, or even if it thought someone was doing them a good turn. How is this any contradictory to the same behavior? Either way, I have seen perfectly good wild animals die because of this behavior. This is usually a slow gruesome death. They starve, for lack of food, abandoned without learning how to be wild, or domesticated in a refuge.
When laid out in comparison the acts may look different but the outcome will be the same. Something will suffer for it or die.
Again there is life. Should one not look toward the bright star that shines rather than the darkened places? Darkened places eventually see the rays of illumination even if it is briefly.
My personal experiences have over the years brought me to an understanding on that which moves through the body and mind. I like to refer to it as Essence or Soul. There is something significant in the body of an animal when it is alive. It may not have higher mental faculties as defined by man but still something profane lies within the makings of that which we chase. This is realized by awareness, sight, contact, and familiarity.
When you have your hands on something that is alive you know it's there and can enjoy the fact that you know it's aware of your presence; see the recognition it perceives through your contact by touching it without harm. It is a wonderful feeling. Whether the wild knows this is a mute issue. At that point it is all about you and your feelings where human contact with wildlife is evident. There is no loss only gain even if psychological on the part of the human.
In that moment, you don’t have the burden of responsibility. The animal even though it may be untrusting could be imprinted with the idea that there is no threat from the human. How this affects the animal later depends on how long the contact goes on and the quality of the contact. Many a wild animal has been spoilt by this, but equally have benefited.
Overall, it’s the connection you made to the animal while alive that lingers. On a different landscape, when hunting the outcome is different.
As you hunt, you may be several feet away and quite disconnected from the energy moving through the body of a living creature where there is death forth coming. Once you initiate the death note of the animal when you walk over, unless it doesn’t die suddenly, as this brings about suffering, there is no more energy left of it to be considered alive; warm and departed. There is a feeling of loss and grief. Even though this is momentary, it exists and is a milestone in reverence for the life because it meant something to you. The burden of responsibility of its death doesn’t become as empty as the body after the Essences leaves it. It's not just a bag of bones. Where does this stand in the way of hunters behaving badly?
Debasing hunter ethics doesn’t take a village. It only takes several well positioned individuals that make bad decisions in situations that could eventuate in a public outcry against the ritual itself. I reiterate the words bad decisions.
If hunters set the image then does it not need an overhaul?
I would say yes. To address others' reasonable outcries, but also to elevate it above the aggressions of non-hunters. More so, as an individual personal sense of pride in what we do. Self reflecting on the act of hunting itself is what motivates hunters to participate in the ritual of hunting. Hunters do not strive to debase the pursuit of food but transverse our inflection of what it means for hunters to be a part of Humanity.
Amongst non-hunters, hunting has become much like the gun shot during hunting season when bears consider it a dinner bell. People that are against the way in which the animal dies as extremists flock to this full of aggression. There is no intention on engaging in a conversation on something they quite frankly care little about. Not that all non-hunters are equal in that respect so this is another commonality that they have with hunters.
I quote Kerasote as saying, “It is often said that hunters hunt to return to a world of origins, simplicity, and honest interaction with nature. But when you look at hunters, especially bow hunters, in the pages of sporting magazines, in the equipment catalogs, and in the woods, they look like a cross between Darth Vader and a commando. If you go to one of the annual trade shows that display new outdoor equipment, a hundred people a day will try to sell you a new hearing aid, a new camouflage pattern, a new scent, cartilages, or bow that will improve your chances of getting game, and too few hunters question the replacement of skill and intuition by gadgets.” (Petersen 288)
After reading this, I thought to myself, the above statement is being confused with capitalism because capitalism is using hunting as another area in which to stick its fingers and make money.
To live man needs money. That is the ugly albatross around our necks and we put it there. Trade shows are capitalist tools to make money for business. Most of the time when you are attending one of these shows, education comes from governmental agencies or non-profits that want to promote Hunting, not merchandise. Merchandise is only a tool or trapping used in hunting, depending on the hunter’s discretion, at using what ever merchandise or new technology he wishes to purchase.
It's not hunting.
A good salesman is only as valuable as his ability to coerce you into believing that what he has is something you can’t live without. Capitalism confuses the Art of Hunting and works as a symbiotic presence that lives off of its host for as long as it can without totally destroying it. Once again, another area that must be clearly defined.
Hunting consists of levels that the individual has to transcend up through to get to the purity of the Art of Hunting, everything else is a trapping.
I personally believe there are activities in hunting that do not make sense. They are no more than games, like one would see at a high school carnival, to get others into participation. By doing this, it is a dishonest means of getting others involved, if it shapes their first impressions of what hunting is.
Shaping a person’s initial impressions should be the top priority in the Art of Hunting itself. Children must take baby steps but you wouldn’t want them to go out and shoot something before their mind can grasp the concept as an adult would. There are ways of handling things and situations; there are ways not to. This should be clearly defined as well. This is mostly left up to the parent, but depending on the adults upbringing, the same bad or good habit, could be passed along quite innocently because that’s how my family has always done it.
I observed hunting never needed reform but the behavior of hunters is worth reforming for the sake of the art and the individual. This essay was probably done around the year 1996, much has changed as some things have stayed the same.
I believe the Art of Hunting can return to the utilitarian, subsistence, and spiritual place that gave it value to start with in cultures, traditions, and society, if not on a group level but more so on an individual level. For hunting to have value, we must reform it back into the specifics of the esteem it was founded on.
Writer credits: Angelia Y. Larrimore
~Couresy of the AOFH~
