Hunting

Hunting is the practice of pursuing or trapping and killing animals for food, sport, or trade (usually fur). Some people consider trapping to be separate from hunting, but the activities are both governed by the same laws. Illegal hunting (such as of species protected by law or not in season, or on grounds where you do not have the legal right to hunt) is called poaching, whether it involves pursuit or trapping. Mammals or birds that are the object of the hunt are called game. Fishing is generally considered a separate activity, though it is also bound by laws and regulated by the Fish & Wildlife or Fish & Game agencies of the local jurisdiction.

Hunting is a controversial activity, whether or not it is done for food. Hunting advocates claim that hunting keeps wildlife populations in check healthily, the way grazing benefits plant life. Opponents claim otherwise or protest regulations that permit what they consider overhunting or the disruption of the natural ecosystem. Vegetarian animal rights groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals oppose hunting—as they oppose all harm done to animals—to an extreme extent; however, hunting opponents include many unrepentant meat-eaters as well, who argue that hunting is cruel and unusual (because of the fear felt by the animal, or because the weaponry used may be overkill and can cause the animal more suffering than death in a slaughterhouse would), that it is poorly regulated with little oversight, and that it is too often wasteful.

There are few requirements as to what hunters must do with their kills, for instance; although there are regulations about what they may sell, and which animals are too young to be killed, hunters are not required to do anything at all with their kills, and a pursuit [Page 248]that originated to defend the village and provide meat for families may legally result in nothing more than a heap of dead animals. It sometimes seems there is little middle ground in the hunting debates, with the extreme positions co-opted by animal rights organizations on the one side and gun rights organizations on the other, neither of which pursue agendas to which hunting is central, and who therefore are not motivated to compromise or to admit the validity of constructive criticism.

Hunting is one of the oldest human activities, and in fact it almost certainly predates Homo sapiens and probably the Homo genus altogether: Australopithecines, the early hominids who appeared about 4 million years ago (1.6 million years before genus Homo), very likely hunted larger mammals. Hunting provided the motivation and “laboratory” for the creation of stone tools and fire and was probably a key reason for the evolution of bipedalism. Agriculture was invented only about 11,000 years ago. If the history of mankind were a map of the United States, agriculture would take up about as much space as Southern California; the rest of the country would be hunter-gatherers. Prehistoric society was strongly defined by those two occupations: the hunters, who provided meat and guided the invention of technology, and the gatherers, who foraged wild fruits and vegetables and tended to the home. Language, culture, religion, the family—all the things that make humans human—somehow developed out of this hunter-gatherer culture, in ways we will likely never piece together because of the lack of a written record. Hunting may also be responsible for the extinction of the giant animals of prehistoric times—the woolly mammoths, terror birds, and other megafauna.

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