I live in rural Pennsylvania, some call it Pennsyltucky because it’s the part between Pittsburgh and Phili that is deep red and clings to it’s guns and bible. We are a 99.9999% white community but people still scream about that Mexicans “took our jobs”. Our towns population is about 1,000 and it’s so small you can walk to every part of it and really don’t need a car, that is until hunting season when the population explodes and wives don’t see their husband for days. Our area brings in thousands during hunting season and right outside town is full of hunting camps and camping grounds, Jack Lambert the Steelers Hall of Famer and Arnold Palmer have both frequented the area during that time of year.
I went once when I was young and had a large buck in my scope before shooting over it’s head and putting down the gun for good. I had heard my whole life “hunting is a sport” but at that moment I realized I don’t even eat deer and it is not a sport. The only way hunting is a sport is if you do it by hand with a knife, if you can run down a deer or fight a bear hand to hand with a knife then maybe it’s sport. I don’t begrudge others who actually like venison, they make everything out of it from steaks to smoking it and making Jerky.
When I see photos or stories of rich people doing canned hunts like Donald Trumps children who pay to kill rare or endangered animals it really angers me and we have that going on in our area. We have elk here in Pennsylvania and they even named our area Elk County and our school is the Elkers. They set up viewing stations where you can sit and watch the elk and people come from all around to view the creatures.
A few years ago they decided to thin the heard by offering license, you pay a fee to enter a raffle for a chance to be one of 100 or so people who get an elk license. Every year almost every license is filled because these animals spent their whole lives around humans watching and engaging with them so they have no fear of us. Not only is this not a sport it’s not even hunting, it’s killing an animal that will walk right up to you and take food out of your hand.
People are so proud when they get one of these elk, they get their picture in the paper with the dead animal and celebrate like they accomplished something great. I see it no different than a rich a-hole paying 1,000,000.00 to shoot a tiger that’s been caged it’s whole life. One of the stories of a bull elk killed talks about how the “hunters” wife and child went out the day before and took some great photos of the bull elk then the next day he went out and shot it which to me is just sad not something to brag about.
It might just be because I don’t hunt, I use to fish but I always released everything I caught because I don’t eat fish. Hunting is not a sport but at what point is it no longer even hunting?