The Case for Compassionate Hunting (From Someone Who Used to Oppose Hunting)

The question of whether or not hunting is ethical, sustainable, or necessary usually leads to an emotional discussion regarding diet and the love of nature. Vegans, vegetarians or animal rights activists will often argue against hunting, making the point that we shouldn’t hunt when we have such easy access to meat, and that hunting destroys ecosystems and glorifies killing. Hunting advocates will argue that it is ethical if you eat all of the animal, that we have been hunting since the beginning of our species, and that vegetarian food also destroys the ecosystem. The reason this argument is never settled is because both sides are right (in a way).

Easy Access

In most first and second world countries, meat is everywhere. It is in grocery stores, roadside stands, butcher shops, and open-air markets. In the US, where I live, you can go to any grocery store and pick up 20 pounds of beef, chicken, or fish if you want, at any time. So yes, meat is plentiful and it is easy to get. It is when we look at the true cost of the meat that the issue arises.  It is also easier to order from Amazon than to buy from local merchants—easier, a lot of the time, does not mean better or more sustainable. Most likely, the animals were kept in cramped, filthy quarters their whole lives and tortured daily. They were fed pesticide-laden grain grown in huge amounts that grew on clear-cut land that used to be wild. Their manure released tons of methane into the air, accelerating the warming of the atmosphere, and it was flown to your location and then trucked to your store, creating excessive amounts of carbon. Hunting, on the other hand, is what we have been doing for almost the entirety of human existence, and it is part of the natural cycle of life.

The Glory of the Kill

Killing for sport is wrong, no matter the species. Having a deep lack of empathy for other beings and taking their lives for no good reason (even if you eat the meat), is not only morally wrong, it is kind of psychopathic. Even worse is injuring these animals and leaving them to slowly die. There’s no glory in killing. The same can be said for soldiers who enjoy killing their enemies overseas and go as far as raping the local women and killing civilians. Not all soldiers lack empathy, though, and that is the same for hunters.

The True Cost of a Vegan Diet

Vegan diets include fruits and vegetables, but the staples of the diet are often grains, meat substitutes made from soy and/or gluten, and legumes. Combine Harvesters, machines used in grain production, kill thousands of smaller animals during harvest. Large fields of corn, soy, wheat, or single-crop vegetables require land, and that land is created by clear-cutting forests and destroying natural habitats, therefore killing all or most the animals in that area and burning all of the wild and native plants, taking the insects, bees, and medicinal herbs with them. Accepting this fact means accepting that the Circle of Life is also the circle of death, and that is the way it has been throughout our history. The question is, then, how can we return to and ethical, compassionate, and sustainable way of obtaining food?

Because agriculture and large-scale food production only came about as a way to feed a population that was growing at an unsustainable rate, the easy answer is to lower our population. By like, half or more. In a way, mother nature has taken this approach before, with deadly pandemics and 100,000 year-long ice ages. But that’s not something we can do anything about, so what’s next? The more people that stop relying so heavily on the global food production clusterfuck, the more damage we can prevent to our sacred ecosystems. So, shop at local ranches and farms. Learn to forage. Learn to hunt. As someone who previously was completely anti-hunting, I am making a pledge today to not only learn how to hunt and hone my foraging skills, but to buy meat and veggies from local ranches and farms, continue to grow my own food, and to make grains a smaller part of my diet. Compassionate Hunting and gathering is a way to step down from the devastating food production practices destroying the earth and to become one with both our ancestors and the modern indigenous hunters and gatherers of today.