Hunting Vs Anti-Hunting Essay, Research Paper

We, the people of America, are facing a moral dilemma – right now, this very minute, this day, and everyother day. We are faced with the dilemma of whether the people of this free country will be able tocontinue hunting. As with anything debatable, their are two sides. In this case, we have the Hunters, andthe Antis. Over the past decade or so, they have been at war with one another with people formingorganizations and plotting to destroy the others point of view. Even the Government has gotten into theact by passing laws. Perhaps under the pressure of hunting or anti-hunting organizations, or possibly theirown point-of-views, but nonetheless, they have passed laws. One of the first arguments that the antis use is that hunting is a ruthless sport, in which the animalhas no defense or offense. If you have hunted, or even simply watched wild game, you would notice thekeen senses that all game animals have. All the hunter has to his advantage is the gun, which is useless ifyou don’t know how to properly shoot it. The animals know the outdoors better, move faster, and theyhave extraordinary senses. The outdoors is the animals home, not a comfortable 2-story house with afire going in the middle of winter. There home is the outdoors, the wind, the rain, the heat. They adapt tothe outdoors and they know when something is awry. Another argument the Antis use, is that by shooting the animals, their numbers will decrease untilextinction. This is false for several reasons as well. When a hunter harvests an animal, he is not lookingfor just a trophy, he is looking for a mature animal that may well be past the point of breeding. Byharvesting that animal, younger animals will have a chance to thrive, be healthy, and provide to thepopulation by breeding. Another reason hunting has made the animal population thrive even more is thefact that hunters harvest cull animals. A cull animal is one that is inferior to others, usually a geneticdefect. When a cull animal is harvested, the general population of the animal will benefit because theanimal cannot pass its’ genetic defects along through the offspring. Anti-hunters also claim that many animals are wounded and run off to die, for no reasonwhatsoever. These same anti-hunters claim wounding loss rates as high as 1 to 1, which means for everyone animal harvested, there is 1 that is wounded and escapes, possibly to die. Recently, a study was doneby a graduate student by the name of Wendy Krueger. Her study took place at Camp Ripley, Minnesota,which is a military reservation located near Brainerd. A permit-only whitetail bow hunt is held annuallyon the base. Almost 7,300 bowhunters took part in the 1992-93 hunts, which were the focus of the study. After the season was over, an aerial survey using infrared video technology was conducted to helpdetermine the number of deer wounded by hunters, and eventually deer that died. The numbers of deerretrieved compared to not retrieved determined the efficiency of the Camp Riley bowhunters. Out of the6,000 deer harvested, 87% of the animals were recovered, with 13% wounded and not retrieved. Thismeans that 4,980 out of a possible 6,000 animals were recovered. Game managers say that wounding

loss rates for firearms users, also runs between the 10 and 15 percentile range, according to Dr. DavidSamuel, professor of wildlife biology at the University of West Virginia, who helped along with theMinnesota Department of Natural resources, in Krueger’s study. In another study, a graduate student,Richard Morton of South Carolina’s Medway Plantation, tracked 25 experienced archers hunting whitetaildeer from what are called tree stands. The hunters shot 61 deer, within 4 hours, 60 of these deer wererecovered. His conclusion for the study is “Careful shot selection and shooting skill — not draw weight,shaft size, or broadhead type — are the keys to such a high rate of harvest.” Not only are the Antis trying to stop hunting of game animals, they are trying to stop the hunting oflife-threatening predators. An example of this is in California, where the mountain lion situation hasbecome horrendous. Long ago, starting in 1907 and proceeding to 1963, the State of California paid abounty for every mountain lion killed. In 1971 the program was stopped. In 1990, the mountain lions hadanother change coming to them, it was now illegal to kill one without a permit directly from the state. Even though the population of these wild cats has increased greatly, and even became a danger to thegeneral public of California, they still remain protected. One woman, a California jogger, found thereason why these animals should be allowed to be hunted when she ran across one, was attacked andfatally injured. She was mauled to death by a mountain lion, one which may have showed aggressivebehavior before, and could have been eliminated. On March 13, 1990: Hal Slemmer, one of three hunters, had a bison in the scope of his .308Savage. As he starts to squeeze the trigger, a man named John Lilburn jumps in front of the shooter andwaves his arms frantically and yells “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” A state wildlife officer that accompaniedSlemmer on the excursion shoves Lilburn into a tree. Slemmer proceeds to harvest the 1,400-poundanimal. Another protester, unnamed, dips her fingers into the animals still warm blood and stripesSlemmers’ face with it. “The spirit of this buffalo will always be with you,” she states. Incidents such asthis one, and many others have persuaded the states to pass a law stating that it is illegal to “disturb ahunter with intent to dissuade him or her from the lawful harvesting of an animal.” All 50 states have game laws, in which they describe the seasons. They control the kind andnumber of animals that may be killed, and hunting methods to be used. In the United States, the stateagencies that enforce these laws are funded almost completely upon funds provided by hunters. Whenhunters purchase a hunting license, it goes to the state agencies. When hunters buy hunting equipment, afederal tax is divided upon the state agencies. The fact is, that the hunting industry is a $12.3 billionindustry, and because of that fact most people believe that hunting is staying around for a while. Americacannot afford to throw away 12.3 billion dollars, in the economic state it is in. The next time that you hear one of the anti-hunters, bad-mouthing the great sport of hunting, stopand think about what they are saying logically. Most likely you will be able to disprove them, and showthat they are just babbling.