New methods of hunting are unfair and unnatural. Picture credit: CC0 Public Domain
Thousands of years ago, before the Neolithic agrarian revolution, humans survived on skills of hunting, gathering and making the tools to do so. Their automatic weapons were bows and arrows, their tracking devices only smell and sound.
Today what people call hunting is a merciless massacre. There’s no chance for the animal to escape or survive (let along fight back) and almost not a shred of ability in a hunter’s hands.
Technology has changed the way people hunt. More profoundly, it has changed the need for us to hunt, but the most experienced among long-time hunters would disagree.
There’s no chance for the animal to escape or survive (let along fight back) and almost not a shred of ability in a hunter’s hands
The weapons we’ve created are a product of our intelligence, so we’re entitled to use them to gain an advantage over the animal, they would say.
We can still just use old weapons to enjoy the hunt, I can hear someone else saying.
And in fact, there has been a lot of talking about ethical hunting, recently. When you can get meat straight from the supermarket, why would you invest tons of money on a sniper rifle and hunting equipment to get an easy kill from two miles away?
It’s about being in touch with nature, I’ve read hunters saying. About all life on earth being sustained by the death of other life forms. In a world where animals are not a threat to us almost anywhere anymore, it’s more about killing nature I’d argue, and most of the times in a non-human way.
It’s all about the humane dispatch nowadays. I mean, dying quickly is preferable than dying slowly I presume, but why can’t we just admit that hunting for pleasure is today a pointless activity?
Whatever your stance on killing animals for our dietary needs may be, there are certain practices that I believe should be forgotten. Intensive animal farming, for once, is terrible enough. Instead of spending money on hunting equipment to kill more animals for pleasure, couldn’t we invest it in a better way for the sustenance of planet Earth and its inhabitants?
Alessandro Mascellino