Aerial Hunting: Caught in the Crosshairs

by Outdoor Urbanite

Although I love spending time outdoors, I have never been a big fan of hunting. I like archery and even can see the fun in shooting at targets, but I really don’t think I would enjoy killing an animal. However, I grew up in a state that has a school holiday for the first day of deer hunting season, so I have heard many arguments on both sides of the debate, and in general, I can respect hunters who eat what they kill and comply with regulations regarding how much they can kill per season.

In some areas where natural predators were long ago decimated by encroaching human settlement, deer overpopulate very quickly and many would starve in winter because their habitats can’t support increased populations. At least hunting in this kind of controlled manner provides an offset like the one provided by natural predators, and the population as a whole stays at a sustainable size. Plus, the people who hunt and eat the meat are spared the expense of purchasing the meat, and they have less reason to be concerned about chemicals, hormones or pollutants in their meat. Everyone I know who hunts is pretty respectful of the process, stalking their prey on foot as a natural predator would, and aiming to make their kill as quick and painless for the deer as possible.

But there are many people who view hunting as a sport to be enjoyed simply for the joy of killing something, and that’s what I have a major problem with. I think it’s unconscionable to hunt animals from helicopters or other moving vehicles for fun, and it is wasteful and immoral to kill animals you don’t intend to eat, unless they are somehow a legitimate threat. The issue of aerial hunting has really caught the public attention this year, and this video shows what a horrible practice it is: