Posted By: Dimitri
The enemy within - 01/30/21 12:44 PM
I believe that human beings are increasingly becoming detached from nature and the realities of how raw nature works. A friend of my son's asked my son why we had trophies on our wall. My son answered that we enjoy the outdoors, enjoy hunting, enjoy getting our own meat and enjoy how healthy the meat is. The trophy is a memento of the hunt - like a photograph only much better and lifelike. The friend said he felt sorry for the animals and wanted to know why we didn't just buy meat from the supermarket!!
As people become more detached from nature I think they find it more difficult to understand our need to hunt and to remain neutral or to passively support it. I think people are increasingly becoming easier targets for animal rights movements to sway over to their side. So, I think we hunters have to do things by the book. We don't want to feed the animal rightists with stuff that they can use against us. All indiscretions by a minority of idiots in the hunting community are leveraged for all they are worth and little seeds are planted in people's minds that all hunters are irresponsible, bloodthirsty killers with no regard for the law and no respect for nature.
It irritates me to no end, therefore, when I see photos such as the one below. In SA, it is not legal to discharge a firearm, air-rifle or any other dangerous weapon (incl bow) in an urban area unless there are compelling, legitimate reasons e.g. self defence. Furthermore, it is not legal to shoot any birds or animals in urban areas. Yet, every year we have some idiots who will shoot birds/animals in their yards with a bow / air-rifle. Newspapers and television will carry the stories and social media will go mad. Bottom line is a lot of bad press for the hunting/bow community, hunters in general being seen as bad guys by more and more people and the AR groups getting a lot of mileage out of it all.
Or am I overreacting?
As people become more detached from nature I think they find it more difficult to understand our need to hunt and to remain neutral or to passively support it. I think people are increasingly becoming easier targets for animal rights movements to sway over to their side. So, I think we hunters have to do things by the book. We don't want to feed the animal rightists with stuff that they can use against us. All indiscretions by a minority of idiots in the hunting community are leveraged for all they are worth and little seeds are planted in people's minds that all hunters are irresponsible, bloodthirsty killers with no regard for the law and no respect for nature.
It irritates me to no end, therefore, when I see photos such as the one below. In SA, it is not legal to discharge a firearm, air-rifle or any other dangerous weapon (incl bow) in an urban area unless there are compelling, legitimate reasons e.g. self defence. Furthermore, it is not legal to shoot any birds or animals in urban areas. Yet, every year we have some idiots who will shoot birds/animals in their yards with a bow / air-rifle. Newspapers and television will carry the stories and social media will go mad. Bottom line is a lot of bad press for the hunting/bow community, hunters in general being seen as bad guys by more and more people and the AR groups getting a lot of mileage out of it all.
Or am I overreacting?