I do understand the appeal. I mean, like a stealth game or anything of that nature, there's a thrill in pitting yourself against something else and seeing whether or not your abilities will net you the prize. I get that part of it, and I also get the enjoyment people get out of guns and marksmanship. I'm not a hippy in that regard. I am, however, a hippy as far as the respect for life goes. If I were living out in the wilderness and needed to kill an animal to survive, and it would provide me with meat and leather and (if I were knowledgeable enough) other assorted resources, I wouldn't have any qualms about hunting. Hunting for sport? Without necessity? I don't get it at all.
But if someone who hunts actually uses a considerable amount of the animal that's hunted, it doesn't bother me quite so much. What bothers me more is the slaughter of an animal and the subsequent waste of its resources (as long as the animal population isn't in danger, in which case it bothers me outright). I don't respect the fact that many foreign cultures are kind of aware of how endangered some species are yet still kill them regularly for food or some make-believe medicinal purpose (Mexicans around here routinely raid areas which are clearly defined as being off limits and where the removal of animals for food is illegal, but they really don't give a shit since there's nobody patrolling to keep them out), but I do have great respect when one of these cultures uses every single bit of an animal that's been killed, going so far as to grind up the bones to make food, etc. If I had to kill something, I would thank God for the sacrifice that had been made, and I'd do everything in my power to use as much of the animal as I could.
