Is Hunting Ethical

Is Hunting Ethical?

The practicality of hunting has long been a heated debate, each side has very good points. It seems people involved in this debate either think hunting should be left alone if not expanded, and the other side usually seems to think all hunting should be banned. Animal rights activists for the most part are totally against hunting. They bring up points like “hunters have driven many species into or close to extinction.”. They say this happens due to low accountability and laws that regulate hunting. They say that is an unnecessary waste of life and that hunters destroy and kill wildlife for the “fun” of it. Hunters on the other hand say they are just as big if not bigger conservationists and naturalists as the folks protesting

Early man hunted for a millennia of years before discovering how to grow and maintain crops. Over time hunting has been vital to our survival and to the development and maintenance of the food chain and circle of life (Humans hunted for meat 2 million years ago). Even in modern times many people still rely a lot on hunting for food, even in the U.S.! In modern times though many people who hunt still use the animal for food but they are not reliant on the food obtained from hunting. This and things like overhunting in the past before modern regulations have sparked resistance to modern hunting. The one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that we need to conserve wildlife for our children, and their children, and so on. As of now hunters actually take hardcore action to support wildlife conservation while animal rights groups put most of their efforts towards propaganda, teacher education kits, “vegan starter kits”, etc. and almost none actually towards wildlife conservation (Amrhein). This propaganda and many different forms of media, such as movies like “Bambi”, “Open Season”, or “The Fox and the Hound” have put a totally false persona on hunters and created a growing movement of hatred of

Many different items are taxed including, guns, ammunition, and the majority of outdoor gear ("Items Taxed to Support Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration in America."). Annually $746,000,000 dollars is raised through hunting and fishing licences, $300,000,000 is contributed to conservation through hunting advocacy organizations, and since 1937 $4.2 billion have been raised through the Pittman-Robertson Act (Amrhein). Animal rights activist say that hunters will drive animals to extinction and destroy wildlife due to little accountability and rules ("Why Sport Hunting Is Cruel and Unnecessary."). This is irrelevant because there are countless regulations between all 50 states that regulate hunting and fishing causing rebounds in wildlife populations and nothing has been driven to extinction in the U.S. due solely to hunting since the mid 20th century (Hunting Regulations). Many times animal rights activists will use the argument that “Only a tiny portion of the population actually hunts so it wouldn’t affect very many people if it were banned”, if this logic makes sense then we should make smartphones mandatory, cats illegal, and ban ATVs, because more people own smartphones than don’t, more people don’t have cats than do,