Raw Nature

[Zen Badger]

If you're going to eat what you kill I have no problem. But to kill for mere fun is barbarity.

[Aegrus]

I judge value based on intelligence. Thus, I care very much when a chimp or dolphin is killed. Even more when a person is killed. Not at all when something like a deer or squirrel is killed.

However, there's no point in hunting without eating the meat. That's just wasteful and pointless. Most of my family hunts, btw, but they always eat what they kill.

[The Grand Nudger]

Pro sports? Collecting baseball cards? Music? -Wasteful and pointless-

I actually don't know too many hunters that go out in the woods, find suitable game, shoot it, and then walk out without collecting their kill (excepting tree rats, I'm pretty much a squirrel apocalypse anywhere people will let me shoot). Do you? The "point" would be to hone the skill called "keeping your shit together when you pull the trigger", harder than it sounds. I can put a three round burst into a 6 inch circle at 800m on a paper target, but I miss deer at 40 feet pretty reliably. Most of the things we might characterize as straight sport-hunting fall in this category. Staring down an apex predator, for example. Nerves. Hunting a walking breathing tank, nerves again. I wouldn't mind taking one trip to a big game preserve in my lifetime. Can't say that I feel the need to do it on a daily basis.