I grew up hunting. Our family got a substantial part of our diet from rabbits, squirrels, various fowl, and deer that we killed in the forest. By and large, hunters have an immense respect for nature, and they are very careful to protect the habitat in which they are hunting. Furthermore, bow hunting is much more difficult than shotgun hunting of deer. It requires patience and skill; it is an art. The number of deer that run off bleeding to death from a misplaced slug from a shotgun (or worse, from something much too small to kill a deer, like a .22) is _much_ higher than those that suffer from a misplaced arrow. Non-hunters typically imagine hunting as a careless vicious violent rampage, but the opposite is usually the case. Hunting is as old as humanity, and it _connects_ people to nature, in my opinion. Take a look at how many hunters are conservationists...they recognize the value of wilderness.

In addition, we (as a culture) have destroyed the natural balance of this ecosystem by hunting to extinction the primary predators (among other crimes.) We have a duty to reintroduce those predators, or to manage the populations of prey that were previously managed by those predators. What's more, we _are_ omnivorous predators, so it seems fitting to me that we bear this mantle.

Hunting tends to get a bad rap. I think it tends to get lumped into the "gun-nut" category of wacko behaviors. But most hunters I know have a gun cabinet for rifles and shotguns which carefully store these weapons. From a very early age I learned their danger and how to take care of them. There was never a notion that they would be used on other humans. We never carried them loaded outside of the forest. Many hunters (myself included) are strong advocates of gun control, particularly of handguns and high powered weapons, which have no worthwhile purpose that I can ascertain.

There, I've exposed my bloodlust to my fellow progressives :) I honestly believe that if people were growing their own food or killing it themselves our ecosystem and in particular the other members of the Animal kingdom would be much better off. I certainly won't eat something that lived if I couldn't kill myself.