Remember this: Animals are elevated on
the wall. Humans can be buried up to three coffins deep.
My thoughts have been on the different
ways hunters perceive trophy animals and their treatment. Trophy animals are
elevated to a status of enshrinement in a hunter’s home. What could this mean?
A hunter will stalk the landscape to
find a young or old specimen and kill it. I say kill, because it is what it
is. You are not saving its life. You are
taking it. This landscape is a location with legal parameters that dictates how
the animal will be disposed after hunted.
American states don’t allow transport
of animal parts from other states due to disease. Countries don’t allow
transport of meat, but will allow pelts or other taxidermied parts to be
transported to the hunter. This varies from place to place, depending on
legalities.
Let us consider the treatment of
trophy animals.
There are views that trophy animals
are patriarchal or matriarchal animals that live to old age. The quarry has reached a pre-death stage where
a hunter quests to enact euthanasia. The
argument here is: it saves the animal from dying a natural death to its end, no
matter how unattractive. The hunter
processes the animal in some pre-determined way. After finalizing the hunt, the
animal is taxidermied then showcased in a home, museum, etc.
I thought about a quote I read on a public
social media wall. I am not knocking the person it made birth from. I challenged the content as true or false. I
could have copy and pasted the quote, but it seemed irrelevant. Why? I wasn’t
arguing the definition of a trophy hunter or the goals they pursue. To sum up
the quote: trophy hunter perfectionist acts as euthanasia man to prevent animal
from dying under a bush; places on wall.
Is this what a perfectionist would
strive to do in reality? How is this considered perfection when it is a
severely flawed delusion of the true reality? I also asked the question was the
intention of seeking perfection in this trophy acquisition really ending a
perfectly lived life to old age in a less than natural way? By natural, I mean
without human mechanical means.
I felt if a true perfectionist
considered this scenario, it would be beneath them. It would never be perfect
enough. Perfectionists tend to start, stop, and repeat without carrying through
a percentage of the time because all conditions are not perfect.
I do reread my own writing and
question the content because it is easy to fall into the trap of readable
appearances. What read as a common sense quote or statement could turn into a
questionable contradiction.
Here is where my thoughts began. It is
the way in which we treat perceived special animals and human counterparts. There
are several types to consider; humans, trophy, non-trophy, nuisance,
laboratory, and domesticated animals or pets.
The trophy represents some experience
in the hunter’s life that must be remembered. The animal is held in esteem by
prolonging its existence in the form of a taxidermied shell. What is left after processing is showcased in
the home, office, museum, etc.
How loved the processed trophy is
treated depends on the hunter’s attachment to the memory. Some hunters love
their trophies others move on to the next. Taxidermied trophies tend to be
eventually overlooked throughout the day as unconscious home décor. It is
always there and passed by so many times in a day. If there is no one to tell
the tale to, it gets overlooked often. Dust bunnies start to build up, moisture
breeds mold, the fleshy shell begins to crack in weak places, and the animal
face no longer holds its fresh appearance. What once was a majestic beast in
need of enshrinement now becomes an unsightly eyesore. I will not even go into
the aftermath of divorces. There is no telling where the trophy will end up.
What about the other types? Attachment
sways the dictation of treatment. How attached is the person to the animal or
person? Does this attachment generate from competition and value over the
animal? Is it coveted that much as a trophy animal?
I wanted to touch briefly on each type
as they were valued and disposed.
For domesticated animals, the intended
could be tossed in a dumpster, a place in the woods, or left to lay and
decompose. Special pets could be buried in a grave, cremated, or be
taxidermied. These beloved pets are elevated above animals people have no
attachment to. If it is a cow beyond veterinary help, then a trip to the
slaughter house may be prescribed if the meat hasn’t been tainted by medicines
and chemicals.
For wild, non-trophy animals, the fate
of being gut shot and left to wonder off and die could happen. This could
happen with farmers and their crops, nuisance animals where the shooter doesn’t
want to deal with the body or cruelty cases where no emotional attachment is
exhibited. Hit-by-car wildlife could lie there several days before the road
crew cleans the body up. Wildlife can be viewed without interference while
onlookers watch animals kill, eat each other, and video tape events.
Laboratory animals are left in
containment over a period of time, yet receiving adequate care without
emotional attachment. Treatment depends on the experiment they are entered
into.
When you consider people, you never
see taxidermied humans. I think there are laws against this. There are bodies
that have been plasticized for art and donated for scientific study. There are
also those deceased peoples, who have supposedly put their bodies in
deep-freeze to be re-animated to cure their diseases or live again. For people
considered important by society, they are elevated in pop or historical
culture.
With human beings, we tend to entomb
in a mausoleum, be cremated, or buried up to three coffins deep. Given these
three options, the body is initially on display before burial, if possible.
Once the funeral is over and the coffin is buried, the only thing left are
pictures and a headstone. Where a
beloved trophy is hanging on the wall, Grandma Moses is out of sight, ten miles
away and well under the ground. Most people do not even go to the cemetery,
once the body is buried to refresh the flowers. To be fair, this is not true of
all people. There are families that tend their dead vigilantly, depending on
the culture and country. They elevate their ancestors above the animals they hunt.
Others see the animals as their ancestors in another form. Other cultures see
dead human bodies as empty shells that can be possessed by the damned.
With hunting quarry, there are views
that the animal shouldn’t be left to die an unsightly death at the pickings of
vultures. Yet for humans and unloved animals ,we bury them well out of sight or
discard them with little care to the treatment of the remains. Animal and human alike are shoved in a trashbag without prejudice.
When you look at the relationship
between the trophy hunter and the trophy, the pivot seems to be the level of
attachment the hunter projects onto the animal, circumstances and memory. Culture
could play a part where applied. There exists in equal parts the action of the
hunter to the hunted. After learning
about cultures and their treatment of the dead and animals, it is not difficult
to believe the why or because of trophy hunting. It is still incredible to me, the way in which
humanity categorizes creatures of value versus creatures perceived to be less
or no value.
Written by: W Harley Bloodworth
~Courtesy of the AOFH~
