Hunting was once
accepted as an essential part of daily human life. Many a family lived in fear
of shivering through a harsh winter without furs for warmth and a larder
stocked with nature’s mammalian bounty to keep their bellies full.
While a couple of
centuries ago cameras with which to record the outcome of a hunt were yet to be
invented, there can be little doubt that a successful hunt would have been an
event celebrated by the whole family, if not the entire community. Evidence of
this fact can be found in various festivals throughout the world that have been
preserved across the centuries, and also in cave-paintings dating back many thousands
of years.
The hunter was revered
for his skills with the spear, bow or snare and for the pivotal role he played
in the sustainability of both his community and his culture. Today anthropologists
agree that the development of technologies such as the knapped spear-point and the
bow afforded our species the capacity to harvest large quantities of game
reliably, and this in turn afforded our ancestors more leisure time in which to
explore their intellectual development.
In short, while it is
often said that Australia’s early development rode on the sheep’s back, it is
also true to say that for countless thousands of years the development of the
human race rode on the hunter’s back.
With the advent of ‘civilisation’,
the cash economy, butcher-shops and supermarkets the need to hunt – at least in
the developed world – gradually approached redundancy. This is perhaps
understandable in an increasingly busy, largely urban society, but what is
difficult to understand is the hunter’s transition from a once revered figure to
the reviled villain he is often portrayed as today.
I have often heard it
said that many people are incapable of drawing any parallel between a cow on
the hoof and the steak on the styrene in Coles and this is certainly a
contributing factor, though I doubt many are truly ignorant of where their meat
comes from. No, if anything the vast majority of people know – if only in a
plausibly deniable sorta way – that somewhere there are people known as butchers,
whom they like to think of as a kind of religious order that oversees the
spiritual transition of cows into steak, sheep into chops, and pigs
into....whatever it is pigs become in the next ‘life’.
It is the capacity to
rely on someone else to make animals into meat which affords people the
privilege of looking down on those of us who choose to make our own meat. I
call this the “Pontius Privilege”, I wash
my hands of it, and so I’m not really to blame!
But the Pontius
Privilege doesn’t account for why so many seemingly intelligent people who
claim to have a deep reverence and an all abiding respect for nature and its
processes, remain so rabidly opposed to hunting, which is clearly an integral
part of nature.
Many of the world’s
most charismatic animals – lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, panthers, polar
bears, wolves etc – are viscous killers that show no regard whatsoever for the
concept of ‘mercy’. Yet the same people who revile the modern-day hunter will
sit glued to the tele as a pack of wolves pursues, drags-down and disembowels a
reindeer calf while its mother looks on.
My many inquiries of people
who are all for animal-violence but dead against hunters hurting warm fuzzy
things, reveal that we humans are supposed to “know better”. We are of a higher order it seems, capable of
determining right from wrong, good from evil, humane from inhumane, and this is
what sets us apart from animals that kill other animals for food. But whatever
your view on whether or not people should hunt, surely we must all agree that
carnivores in the natural world have no choice but to hunt. In fact the
precarious balance of each and every ecosystem depends on its apex predators,
as diminishing their numbers has proven in any number of environments right
across the globe.
In short, we respect
and seek to preserve the viability of predators and their quarry in every
instance, except when it comes to human predators, which so many members of the
community will readily denounce as wicked, bloodthirsty or even uncivilised despoilers
of nature’s delicate balance.
It seems that when it
comes to humans, many believe that by removing themselves from the hunter-prey
equation they somehow become members of a superior, more enlightened species. I
would have thought it qualified them as a unique species, perhaps even a species
‘alien’ to the natural order of things on this planet, but certainly not
superior.
A little further digging
reveals that aside from the odd vegetarian who, given half a chance, would have
Hyenas on tofu and lentils, it is not our carnivorousness that offends people so
much as the fact that we do not hunt ‘naturally’. That is to say we use guns
and bows and the like, and these tools are considered cruel and unnatural
methods of harvesting meat, so those who use them are condemned.
I can only assume that
were I to strip naked and head into the forest with a group of friends to run a
deer down until it was cornered, that would be OK? Once cornered, of course, I
could drag it down, chew into its neck and throttle it while my buddies in the
pack kicked the life out of it before tucking in, and this would be natural...perhaps
even an Attenborough moment?
It is not that we hunt
that upsets people so, nor that what we do is unnatural, but rather what upsets
them is the fact that what we do is so very natural that we are a constant
reminder that humans are not the ultra-superior god-like beings that some people
like to think they are. They are challenged by the fact that modern-day hunters
are closer to nature’s battle for survival and evolutionary order than they can
ever hope to be, and they lack the integrity, responsibility, courage and
commitment to be a part of the ecosystems they revere.
Having failed miserably
in their bid to be superior beings, they focus their efforts on criticising us
for our gun and bow ownership, as a means of promoting a climate of fear and
loathing of hunters. They do so in the hope that by comparison, their own flawed
philosophies will shine all the brighter.
But that which the chronic hoplophobe calls a weapon, the hunter calls a
tool, and while it is undoubtedly a fact that from time-to-time someone may use
a tool inappropriately, it is also a fact that not everyone who robs a
corner-store armed with a screwdriver is an electrician, and we do not seek to
demonise all electricians each time someone robs a corner store armed with a
screwdriver.
Ordinarily groups with
a social justice bent would say that promoting negative stereotypes is unjust, even
offensive, however when it comes to the vilification of hunters, groups such as
The Greens have declared an open season!
If one member of the
community uses a weapon inappropriately, The Greens waste no time at all in
maligning all hunters and gun-owners, demanding their immediate disarmament for
the good of the whole community. We are frequently accused of the most
malignant intent and the most heinous crimes against man and nature, and our
motives for hunting are misrepresented on a daily basis in order to serve The
Greens’ political and social management ends. Hunters are routinely painted as
untrustworthy, evil people who “kill for fun”, yet I have never met a hunter
who claims that killing for ‘fun’ is part of the hunting equation. This appears to be a
fiction of the green imagination, or perhaps an assumption based on their
understanding of their own drives.
Still, despite the
slings and arrows we are forced to bear, and despite venomous campaigns of lies
and deceit aimed at eroding community respect for hunters, one unassailable
fact remains. Without the activities of hunters throughout thousands of
generations of human development, there would be no symphonies, no Shakespeare,
no art beyond the cave wall, no great pyramids or cathedrals, no science and no civilisation as
we know it.
All these things and
more were made possible by the hunter whose bounty afforded his fellows the
luxury of leisure time in which to ponder the meaning of life and how its
quality might be improved. Even the freedom to denigrate our culture and
beliefs today, was a gift from hunters of the past who have always been among
the first to lay down their lives to protect such freedoms.
Our gifts and our
contributions to society and our fellow human-beings have been many and of
inestimable value. Even if The Greens’ and the anti-hunters’ campaigns of
intolerance, hatred and bigotry prevail in the new millennium resulting in an
end to hunting, its culture and traditions, there is one thing they can never
diminish.
It is to the efforts of
hunters of the past that they owe thanks for their evolution and the rights and
privileges they take for granted and habitually abuse today.
