General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: So, tell me again why I should hunt with a rock, a long bow ...or a spear. [View all]Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)and check-mating it (killing) for the purposes of eating it (this is challenging enough to put me on auto pilot, so to speak). Though I am old enough to get exhausted field dressing a deer, the activity is enjoyable as well, challenging you to remove non-edibles without spilling fecal matter and urine into the body cavity (I am prepared for that eventuality as well). There is pride in a clean, dressed carcass, all the way through the skinning, separation of lower leg joints, the head and the tail, then washing the animal, quartering, and packing it in ice as meat for the trip home. I have not purchased beef under celophane for over 10 years.
Sport is a debatable term, whose derivation is unclear. It has been laden with many meanings, often negative ones. Currently, it is used to separate modern hunting from "market" hunting (outlawed) and straight "subsistence" hunting (even here, hunters celebrate and enjoy the activity as well). Our culture has a long history of aligning enjoyment, sport, pleasure, etc., with a vulgar puritanism and thereby immorality. But we ALL kill to eat: Directly (hunting/fishing), indirectly (feedlot & factory slaughter), or by abstraction (agriculture, which displaces vast ecosystems which disrupt massive numbers of flora and fauna, most non-game). Which is your means?