What Would Papa Do?
So I was polishing my old Beretta A390 shotgun today in preperation for a hunting trip and I started thinking about life and death and nature. Pretty philosophical stuff, maybe it was the powder solvent I was using! I grew up in the rural South and I grew up hunting, especially ducks and geese, and fishing, it was something my dad and I did to bond over. As I got older and went off to college, I stopped going and I started to look upon killing animals as not something that I wanted to do. Perhaps it was my series of vegetarian girlfriends but thats another post altogether. As a grew older I began to realize that it was rather hypocritical for me to buy chicken at the grocery that was raised in cages and killed by some poor immigrant worker. I was paying someone else to do my killing. I am now once again an avid hunter as well as a Sierra Club and Nature Conservancy member. The animals I kill have had a much better life than some poor chicken thats been pumped full of hormones and antibiotics and forced to live in a cage. I somehow feel better eating the goose or duck or venison that I killed and butchered myself, maybe its my carnivore inner Neanderthal coming out, but I have to say that my appreciation and respect for nature has been a direct result of spending long periods in the woods and waters of Virginia. I am at peace with my place on the foodchain.
posted by Elvez73 at 7:49 PM
4 Comments:
I am a longtime member of Peta and I respect your post. That is saying a lot.
Thanks, I'm an animal lover, I have adopted several dogs and my current canine pal is the best Jack Russell ever. I try to be an ethical carnivore, (if such a thing exists) I am against factory farming, and I try to always buy free range meat if at all possible. I guess I just had a realization that if I was going to remain a meat eater I had to be willing to do the deed, too many people think that meat comes shrink wrapped from the nearest grocery.
I agree - factory farming is the absolute worst.
You are an ethical carnivore. I wish there were more like you.
Personally, I don't hunt and it is because I hate the thought of killing animals. About the only things I can kill are flies, mosquitoes and hornets. Your comment about someone else doing the killing for you when you eat something like chicken hits home here, as I have been agonizing about this for the last few years. I'm not sure how easy it would be to become a vegetarian, and I'm not sure it's in my makeup. I love meat, but I catch myself thinking "This was a living, breathing creature."
I live in an area where hunting and gun ownership are cherished, and I even own a rifle (a .22). I understand hunting in that I believe good hunters respect the animal they kill, they give it a sporting chance and they eat it when all is said and done. And a great part of hunting is being outdoors, communing with nature and recognizing one's own part in it. As such, I don't view hunting as slaughter as much as I view it as a part of being human.
Thanks for your post!
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