Can Someone Explain Hunting to Me?

[nef]

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Re: Andy's OP, I don't know any hunters who don't either eat what they shoot themselves or donate it to charities. I would probably look down on a hunter that just killed animals for sport and then did nothing with the carcass, as would, I think, most hunters.

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This is a legitimate and good point that most hunters do not hunt just for the Kill or the Sport. In fact, this is rather rare in my opinion (except perhaps in some instances of 'Big Game Hunting') but I have no statistics to back up this assertion.

-Zeno

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I don't know anyone who doesn't take the meat from game animals. You can get the trophy and still eat the meat. The common shoulder mount you see, which is the neck to the antlers, doesn't waste much of the meat. The idea of killing game and letting it lay after taking a trophy mainly comes from foreign poachers selling ivory or tiger penis or some such.

There are several reasons why hunters go after trophy bucks. They are rare in the same way a 34D-24-36 female human is rare, they are the best genetic specimens of the breed. A true trophy buck is older, 4-5 years old. They have proven their cunning by surviving mother nature and .30-06 for several years. They are much more careful than the yearling bucks and it takes a lot of preparation in the off season scouting to have a decent chance at a trophy buck.

There are also types of hunting where you don't eat the meat. I guess it would be more like pest control. When you catch a mouse in a mousetrap, or step on a spider, do you eat the meat?

Many people consider shooting groundhogs, raccoons, skunks, coyotes, feral cats, prairie dogs, etc just like catching a mouse in a trap. They are overpopulated nuisance animals and if they come on your property you get rid of them. Its probably more like pest control than hunting, although people do travel and pay $$$ for prairie dog or coyote hunting. There are so many coyotes in the forest preserves here, the foxes are pushed out, I had foxes living in my backyard all last fall. (No, I did not shoot them). Also, on the public land where I hunt they are practically begging for people to hunt coyote in the off season.

Ranchers will sometimes pay to have you shoot coyotes on their land, and you can also get some money for decent pelts. Another thing that gets a bad rap is trapping and most trappers use traps that you can release the animal unharmed. Also the animals don't really chew their paws off, they sometimes even go to sleep. You don't need sharp toothed steel jaws to hold a fox or raccoon.