I think Fred is close to summing it up.chieftain said:
I've always loved animals of all sorts and have always been something of an amateur naturalist. Growing up on a farm, I've had all kinds of pets, wild and domestic, terrariums and aquariums and animal husbandry projects. Life without a couple dogs around would be odd to me, and we always keep a few laying hens that are as much pets as they are anything else. Animal behavior and the way nature works are some of the most interesting and fascinating things there are to me.
I've worked for local wildlife rescue services and given quite a bit to helping preserve wildlife, including buying and using a hunting license every year. I also work to improve habitat and support wildlife on my own property. In the winter, we feed wild birds that would normally live on the weed seeds found in the fallow fields and brushy tracts of "wasteland" that disappear with housing developments daily. I'll stop the car to move a confused snake or turtle off the road, and yet I hunt. Oddly enough, some folks can't make sense of this seemingly contradictory behavior - to deeply care about wildlife and still be capable of killing.
As with farming and any other sort of animal husbandry, wildlife management has numerous facets. One ultimately recognizes that death is always a part of life. Livestock is bred to be harvested, and butchering steers, rabbits and chickens, however distasteful, is a necessary part of farm life. So is picking vegetables and cutting hay. Wildlife populations often need control, and hunting is one very humane way to accomplish this.
To my way of looking at hunting, the overall experience is the reward, and harvesting a game animal is really not the most important point, simply a necessary part of it. Without my love and appreciation of nature, I would not have the patience to walk the woods or sit and wait, and much of the enjoyment of hunting comes with the intensity of observation of the natural world that is only possible when one becomes a part of it.
Like Fred, I too believe that most '"animal lovers" that oppose hunting and farming simply do not put forth the efforts that most hunter/conservationists do. They usually fail to understand the world around them, living in some kind of idealistic Walt Disney illusion, and fail to understand what life, and death, really is.
Without truly understanding the effects of their actions, they throw a token check in the mail to support misguided organizations, so they can congratulate themselves on doing "something". This check is a fraction of what portion of my license fees go toward scientific management, a fraction of the revenue generated by the Pittman-Robertson fund (11% tax of our equipment and supplies) does for habitat, and they proclaim themselves "supporters" that "protect" wildlife from those who would hunt and/or scientifically manage wildlife.
The outfits they encourage with their individually small, but collectively large, donations spend the money on generous (staggering) corporate salaries (http://www.worldtwitch.com/animal_charities_2001.htm ), flattering publicity, membership drives, impeding logical management efforts and fostering harassment programs on all levels. They would prefer overpopulations of animals to starve and die of disease in a weakened state than to allow humane harvest and sensible control of the prey animal populations that, in the absence of predators, will not remain in check. They increase animal suffering, live in a cartoon fantasy world and call themselves "animal lovers".
So, yes, I hunt AND love nature/animals.
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