[slickpoppa]

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Well, many sport hunters are aware that they are doing the animal population some good by helping keep the herds down to healthy levels.

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Again this is probably because I'm a wimpy non-gun-owning city guy...

but there's a big difference to me between "helping the animal population" and "shooting a defenseless deer".

My assumption is that the act of shooting the defenseless animal involves SOME sort of enjoyment on the part of the hunter. It's not like he wakes up on a Saturday morning and says, "damn I hate shooting deer but I've got a moral duty to help their overpopulation problem."

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True, but I don't think the enjoyment necessarily comes from killing a living creature. It comes from the challenge of the hunt. Let me put it this way: if someone invented mechanical deer that behaved and looked exactly like real deer, I bet most hunters would have no problems hunting the mechanical deer.