Hunting Animals for Sport...

Does anyone else feel the way I do about hunting animals for sport?

Before I go any further, I want to clearly define what I mean in this thread: Hunting animals for food is OK (as ordained by God in Genesis) and killing animals for self-defense, defense of others, or defense of your property is OK (as Man was given dominion over animals).

Hunting for Sport, however....

I define "sport hunting" as the killing of animals for pleasure and trophies. I believe that this is a gross disrespect to God's creation. He created those animals for a purpose, and I doubt that purpose was for Man to have fun killing them senselessly to fill some need for pleasure.

My dad watches Outdoor Channel a lot, and I just... I hate it when someone gets a gun, shoots a defenseless deer from 200 yards away and they're all hooting and hollering like they did something great and I'm like "Seriously?" And of course as technology improves, the animals have less and less chances of actually surviving when hunters go out each hunting season.

Again, I understand those who shoot a deer its meat, didn't Esau do the same thing (the Bible spoke loads about Isaac's love for his son's venison)? I understand shooting deer because of crop damage (I would hope they donate the deer and/or give it to relatives if they don't want the meat themselves), but to shoot a deer because of some kind of pride associated with how many horns it had on its head?

That just speaks of disrespect and a lack of care towards the things God created. When I was a kid, I got two deer before I stopped hunting, one doe and one buck... and after shooting them, I felt kinda happy for awhile and then a bit later, I was like... "so... what?" and everybody else was still celebrating. It just... didn't feel like an achievement. I shot it because we wanted deer meat. I didn't care how many horns it had in the case of the buck. And the doe... that was just a ridiculously lucky shot, was the only reason I was happy about it. When I look back on those years (this was ~17 years ago), I don't think I could ever go hunting again unless we really really needed the meat. I'm not sure I could bring myself to shoot an animal unless it posed a threat.

dysert said:

I feel the same way. I could never kill an animal unless, perhaps, it was posing a threat. If I were to go hunting, I'd hunt with a camera. To photograph a deer at 200 yards, getting it in the crosshairs of my camera and clicking the shutter, takes just as much skill as pulling a trigger. You still have your trophy, and the deer lives.

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Well, hunters would argue that you need to make an accurate shot otherwise you just hit its leg or something and the deer will run away and survive. But I do agree that there's no reason to kill the deer unless you want its meat or that it is posing a problem.

We live in rural PA and we've had numerous instances of deer coming onto our property and doing a good bit of damage to the plants in our garden over the years. We've tried fences, we've tried various other things, and they always seem to find ways to still get in and nibble where they can. That was back when we had gardens, we don't do that so much these days. But I imagine other people do. That leads me to...

I've heard the tired tale of, "it's good for the deer in the long run, otherwise they'd overpopulate, run out of food, and starve; hunting is more humane." They may overpopulate, but I say, put yourself in their place. Would you want someone hunting you when your food gets scarce?

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This past year, the PA Game Commission culled some 500 deer because there were just too many deer and they were doing lots of damage to farmers' fields, many of these fields had corn which is used in a number of things, either livestock feed, or corn that you buy in stores, etc.

Deer would normally have a natural predator to keep their numbers down, but since we humans have moved in, things like mountain lions and bears have moved back away from where we settled, which give deer a pretty good safe haven. That, and there's always the danger that if you don't control the deer population, you might invite hungry bears into neighborhoods more than they already go there. Would you want more bears moving into your rural areas and suburbs where they might attack children playing in their backyards?

I can understand the population control of such animals; they can be a real nuisance. I just... I can't stand hunting for sport, though.

LightBearer said:

Yet he enjoyed the hunt and the kill. Contradiction.

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Well, he's a 14 year old kid and doesn't knoW any better yet. I was like 16 myself when I killed my first deer and I was happy that I finally got one (it had taken a couple years).

But then I thought about it... afterwards I was like "so... what, I killed a defenseless animal from 200 yards away?"

And then I kinda forgot about why I was even happy about it in the first place, other than "we got several hundred bucks of free food". We've never been a wealthy family, and that food is very helpful for our budget.

Beloved of God said:

If a hunter doesn't plan to eat it then there should be no reason to kill something.

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Except for self-defense and/or defense of property, but yeah.

An example would be shooting the legal allowance of deer if you own a farm (making sure to either use the meat yourself or donate the meat to someone else who will use it) to prevent crop damage (they had the rules on buck season way too strict during the last 3-5 Years here in PA, and this year, the Game Commission had to go out and cull ~500 deer because of rampant crop damage due to overpopulation, not to mention a rise in auto accidents because of deer which can kill people in some situations).

But just shooting the animal for the "fun" of killing something or for bragging rights (the antlers or what-not)? That's where I draw the line. If that's one's only reason, then they really shouldn't be doing it.