There are, as you say, multiple “anti” stances. Lots of people are okay with the concept of hunting (at least for food), but are less comfortable with hunters, either as a result of stories and stereotypes they’ve absorbed or as a result of personal experience.

And it’s true: even hunters have mixed feelings about hunters. My opinion of other hunters depends heavily on their attitudes and behaviors.

Furthermore, the funding structure of our game departments favors hunters. The numbers of people participating in non-lethal wildlife activities far outnumbers hunters. And yet there are no fees levied on binoculars or other products and activities that would allow us as viable, respectable and as strong a voice.

It’s a rare wildlife “refuge” in this state where I don’t share the ground with waterfowl hunters in the winter and have to witness what to me, is very disturbing activity — the rampant and often irresponsible slaying of the birds. I’ve seen far too much of that behavior, unfortunately.

This is why I have tried to state over and over that change will only come from within the hunting community. It’s why I value the topics Tovar and Holly and others here are opening to general discourse, difficult though that self-assessment of hunting may be. I don’t think it’s a slippery slope from internal policing to abolition. On the contrary. It’s the worst practices that tend to bring on the external policing.

The only (ONLY) time the anti-hunters carry ANY favor with the legislators is after a hunting “incident” in which someone was injured, someone poached game, or a harvested animal was not dealt with legally/ethically.

When we lose hunting rights, we – the hunters – are to blame. Nobody’s listening to the anti’s. It’s our responsibility to make these things right.

This has been a great set of comments. I’m glad I read ‘em.

I think we all can go out now and fight the good fight, against the clueless life!

Being unsuccessful early-on raises an excellent discussion point. Being unsuccessful at my first outing for turkey this year seems to have increased my desire to learn more about their habits, habitat, and life cycle. I’ll be back out again first hunting day in May.

I found the same happened to me when I went four years without a deer and as a child, a number of years without catching a trout (lots of other species, but not the one I was after).

I guess after a failure (or several of them) it causes you to either drop the activity or go at it with a renewed (more comprehensive) approach.

Now, I find I do enjoy certain aspects of the hunt. Killing is not one of them.

I decided to hunt because it seemed to me to be a prudent use of resources and a way to ensure that the animal I eat lived a decent, animal-appropriate life. I will kill a deer on principle. I am dreading it.