Remember this: It takes more than a plane
ticket and two weeks in the bush to form a connection to an animal, unless it
is all in your head.
Two days ago, I attended a one-on-one
workshop. The facilitator gave me some worksheets with questions to answer. As
I sat reading over the questions, I was trying to determine a short answer for
them. My mind drew a blank. It was things I knew. Over the course of the
workshop, I finally just looked at the facilitator and say, “I am going to be
honest with you. I should know the answers to these questions, but I am having
a problem articulating how I should reply.”
Here it is: When replying to debate and
reactionary commentary, the person making the statement really needs to stop,
drop, and roll before answering to avoid the back and forth of confused
rebuttals and remarks.
I reread my pieces to make sure I might not
make sense. Rethinking your position will not hurt you, especially when you have
several sources of influence bearing down on you. Lead yourself.
In the commentaries of Big Game hunters
defending their stance on hunting exotic animals, you will hear the hunter make
a reply about the true connection or intimacy they have with the downed beast.
This is from that particular hunter’s mentality.
Is this a true connection (mutual sharing of
self through intimacy), a rapport (trust and respect), or is it propaganda
hogwash to excuse their behavior and endeavors as relevant? Is the hunter
convincing self, what they are doing is okay, in such a short time frame?
I zoomed in. This might be the possible
reason this doesn’t fly when trying to explain hunter-hunted mentality. If you received funny looks and rude comments, this might be why.
If you live in America, get on a plan to
Africa, then spend two weeks in the bush, and finally shoot an animal, does
this constitute a long enough period to form a true connection?
I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. You
are more likely to build a connection with the people you are being guided by
or hunting with. When it comes to the animal, it is not aware of you. This
causes a one-sided event on the part of the hunter’s perspective. The hunter believes there is a
concrete connection between hunter-hunted. This is not real.
Consider the short period of time and zero
interaction between hunter-hunted. One can consider this a delusion on the part
of the hunter. The only time you will get intimate with the hunted animal is
after it is dead, and you are field dressing it.
Pseudo-rivalry that exists in the mind of
the hunter could fuel this erroneous belief there is a connection, but there is
not. This pseudo-rivalry is not known to the beast. The animal may instinctual
realize something is stalking it. Evolution has hardwired this instinct.
Where intimacy is concerned, when you are
yards away from the hunted, there can be no sense of it. That is what people
tell themselves to make it alright. The hunter is not forming a friendship with
the hunted. As far as a close familiarity, that is weak tea compared to a
hunter that has been studying and questing after an animal for ten years, to the
point the hunter decides chasing the animal is enough, then lets it go. That is
forming mutual respect for your quarry. If the quarry is crafty enough to out maneuver
you, you let it go. Someone else might take the animal down, but not at the
expense of your ethics and mores.
There is some romanticizing of the idea of big
game hunting on the African continent. There are people who will sale this idea
to those willing to buy into a dream. It is pretentious.
A long term, true connection would exist
where a human cares for an animal in such a way, that trust is built between
the behavior of animal and human. You will find such a thing with abused or
untrained animals undergoing long or short-term interaction with their human.
These connections evolve into human-animal relationships and bonds. The animal possibly
could have a prolonged life under the care of the human. The animal will even
come to accept the human into the pack or group, and protect or defend the
human. There will be attempts at communication or the human will just know what
is going on based on the animal’s behavior.
You will not find this in the hunting
experience. There is no relationship, no trust; no connection because the
animal is short lived due to its eventual death at the hands of the hunter.
Sometimes you will hear a hunter say, “I
love that animal more than you will ever know.” It is not the individual animal
but the concept of the breed in particular. The concept of the deer represents
food, sustenance, primal desire to stalk and hunt to be as a participating
member of an ecosystem. You are already a part of the cycle but the
animal draws you further in.
This might be the intimacy spoken of; being
more in the life cycle and a part of it, but not to a destructive degree to the
overall system or the creatures that share space with you.
Humans are viewed as separate, like an
interloping deity; are outside the system, disconnected to its parts.
We form true connections with people because
we share camaraderie in the hunt, learn about their way of life and form
long-term relationships with those we come to know.
True connections are formed with immediate
pets and animals we come to know over a period of time, where our emotional attachment takes precedence.
It is hard to believe that a person can form
a true connection or intimacy with an animal as an individual, in less than two
weeks without learning any of the long term nuances of the hunted.
It is the equivalent of hunting and terminating a stranger. The animal does not know you, and you really knew nothing about it.
Be honest. Honesty does work.
Written by: W Harley Bloodworth
