I got my (first ever) Wyoming antelope tag in the mail today. Although there was little doubt about the draw results, this symbolically marks the official beginning of the hunt. From this point on, expectation gives way to preparation; and in many respects, I find the shift in mind set comforting. This psychological affect of getting my tag brings a few related thoughts to mind.
A staple claim of the anti-hunting stance is that modern sport hunting doesn't sufficiently resemble primitive subsistence hunting to justify serious comparisons between the two. And one of the prime examples of the dissimilarity between the two is the fact that the modern sport hunter is required to hunt during very restricted periods of the year and is often forced to apply for a license many months in advance. This is the "you-can't-just-walk-out-and-start-hunting-whenever-you-damn-well-please" dissimilarity. But how dissimilar is my present mind set from that of my forbearers? Here are a couple of considerations that suggest the differences aren't as great as the anti's make them out to be:
(1) Many subsistence hunters have relied heavily on seasonally available species. Consider, for instance, the importance of seals and whales to the Inuit. Preparation for the hunting of these species was often highly anticipated months in advance and success in these hunts was a major determining factor of overall success for the entire season. In the case of the modern sport hunter, although deer, elk, and antelope are physically available all year, they are not legally available. But, as my present mind set attests, this difference in reasons for the lack of availability of a given game species doesn't necessarily make for a substantial difference in the psychological consequences of seasonality.
(2) On the flip side, even though few species are legally huntable year round (most fish species being the main exception), a large number of hunters nevertheless hunt all year. [I count fishing as hunting, but the claim would hold pretty well even if I didn't.] In this sense, it is an exagerration to characterize all modern sport hunters as having their hunting activity confined to a very few days during a very small part of the year. The truth is that many modern sport hunters spend substantial parts of the year hunting (and most of the rest of us wish we did!).Now I am not going to pretend that these similarities are greater than they are. But it is worth noting that what might strike us as glaring dissimilarities on the surface, might nevertheless be more similar than one might expect on reflection.
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