Show A Hole in My Soul I Why Hunting Anti-Hunting Activists are Wrong By Nathan Nelson Editorial Editor For those who dont don't know this week is the middle of the rifle deer hunt in Utah For the next couple of weeks local hunters will be scaring game all over the local mountains Two-hundred Two odd years ago when this country was still in its infancy hunting was part of how one survived It wasn't as simple as swinging by the local supermarket and picking up some ground round But that was then and this is now Any hunter today that claims they need the game to survive is probably stretching the truth a little bit Any responsible hunter will use the meat they gain but generally dont don't live ordie or ordie ordie die by it There are a lot of misconceptions about the sport of hunting The stereotypical deer hunt looks about like this Rufus and his redneck buddies buddies buddies bud bud- dies decide that they want to go out and shoot up the woods in hopes of gettin themselves a deer They load up their pickups with a few cases of Budweiser some tents and a whole bunch of guns then head for the hills Over the next couple of days Rufus and his cohorts crash through the woods chopping down trees and setting forest fires and that's just to find a good camp site Once there they all get ugly drunk and bounce through the woods At the slightest rustling in the underlying brush all of them turn on it with their assault rifles vaporizing whatever may have been there If the hunt is unsuccessful ful they'll stop on their way back to civilization and shoot a cow Now this is all a bit but still pretty accurate right The argument against hunting goes roughly like this Animals are living beings that have as much right to be here as we do There is absolutely no reason to kill another creature just to put food on the table that's what agriculture is for The only problem is that the argument ignores part of our basic nature Its It's like this humans are predators predators predators preda preda- tors and omnivores We cannot create our own life energy we need to get it by taking another organisms Now when you break it all down to the atomic level everything on earth is made from the same stuff Plants and animals are all living organisms that are basically made of energy Why then do we think its it's okay even healthy to slaughter billions of helpless vegetables year after year just so we can have something to eat All living organisms have rights and plants have it worse off than animals Hey carrots and spinach have no forest forest forest for for- est to hide in or den to go to when some farmer comes along to do a little little little lit lit- tle harvesting Killing animals is hardly unique to hunters either Anyone along the Wasatch front who lives within about 5 miles of the foothills is smack in inthe inthe inthe the middle of the deer winter feeding ground Forcing the animals to stay in the mountains for the winter is just justas as deadly as any rifle theres there's no food up there for them to eat Hunting then is also a means of animal population control Suppose for a second that hunting was actually actual actual- ly halted within only a few years they would have too many animals and not enough food Landowners have chased or or killed off most the of-the of o the natural predators Animal activists have not cornered cornered cornered cor cor- cor- cor the market on love for our wooly friends either Most hunters believe it or not really do love animals animals animals ani ani- ani- ani mals and take great concern for them What we need to see in all this is that hunting is still needed but not necessarily for the humans' humans sake Anyway this entire weekend I 1 plan to be hunting as well weIl Ive I've already got the cooler stocked with Keystone and Ive I've got my trusty AK- AK 47 all cleaned and ready to go Youre You're welcome to come and see mein mein me mein in the hills but try not to make any noise Ive I've got a pretty itchy trigger finger |