Why Is Hunting Good?

It's a great question. What are your answers?

For a time, I served on the board of Orion the Hunter’s Institute, and in one meeting, fellow board member Thomas Baumeister made what I thought was a really important point: We spend far too much time defending hunting, when what we should really be doing is articulating why hunting is good.

Having to defend hunting is not natural. Do you think any of our forebears felt the need to justify feeding themselves to their community? Of course not.

But we live in the late stages of a 10,000-year retreat from our home in nature, and our society is run largely by people who have no idea how food makes it into their mouths. Many view hunters with disdain as people who not only kill willingly, but seem to enjoy it a great deal. (Never mind that there's probably not a single predator on earth that doesn’t enjoy hunting. It’s simply the brain’s reward system making sure we continue to do things that lead to our survival and perpetuation of the species.)

I honestly don’t know if answering Thomas’s question can change critics’ minds, but it certainly can’t hurt. After all, it's human nature to assume that people who act defensive are probably doing something wrong.

Thomas posed his question during a panel discussion at a Backcountry Hunters and Anglers Rendezvous in Montana, and the very best answer I heard - wish I knew the guy’s name - was this: