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Far from fair game: Why hunting must end

Far from fair game: Why hunting must end

When we think about how humans treat their fellow animals, few issues seem to polarise opinion as much as hunting.

From fox hunts in the UK to trophy hunting of Africa’s “big five” (lions, elephants, leopards, rhinos, and buffalo), people tend to sit in one of two camps, either vehemently protesting their right to hunt or viewing it as inexcusable and repugnant.

When we examine the practice through a lens of ethics and compassion, it becomes evident that all forms of hunting are fundamentally wrong, irrespective of cultural or societal justifications.

The three types of hunting

Why do some people choose to hunt? Asking this question can help us to understand the motivations that drive hunters so that we’re better able to challenge them.

Broadly speaking, there are three types of hunting:

  1. Therapeutic/conservation hunting is when humans kill members of a specific species with the intention of conserving another species or ecosystem (this might be framed as managing overpopulation or culling an invasive species, for example).
  2. Subsistence hunting is when humans kill an animal for the purpose of using the carcass for nourishment and material resources.
  3. Sport hunting is when humans kill free-living animals for enjoyment or for a sense of personal satisfaction (trophy hunting is a sub-section of this where the hunter collects one or more body parts from their slaughtered quarry as a token of their “success”).

In some instances, there might be a crossover in motivation. For example, New York State in the US has a deer management programme where the local deer population is mostly regulated through hunting. Hunters may well believe that they are hunting for subsistence and conservation purposes and that any element of sport is incidental.

Fox hunters often claim that the practice of chasing a fox to the point of exhaustion until the animal is caught and ripped apart by many dogs is simply “pest control” (a form of conservation hunting) that just happens to be a sport. Of course, usually, in a sport, everyone involved knows they’re a participant, which certainly can’t be said of a hunted animal. Read More…

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