Hunters Should Speak The Truth

Hunters are no different than people who don’t hunt. We all have our opinions on issues that involve our sport of hunting. Opinions are one thing but when we resort to telling lies in an attempt to support our own opinions, no good is being served. One of the biggest mistakes we all make is by lumping large quantities of a group together qualifying them as all being the same.

Here are some examples of what I mean. “All hunters are cowards who hide behind a gun”. We have all heard that one many times. How about this one? “Hunters who use a scope on their rifles are cheaters” or better yet, “Hunting behind fences is not hunting. It’s unethical, animal abuse and anyone who would do it is sick”.

This last comment is one I have heard endlessly over the last several months and I sure wish we would all do a better job at clarifying our statements. We have used a couple of terms to describe what it is that we are opposed to but how we have used them isn’t right.

The two terms I’m talking about are “canned hunts” and “high-fence hunting”. We use these descriptions to lump together any and all game preserves and ranches as unethical hunting. This is an unfair characterization and it’s not truthful as well.

In our passions to protect a good image of hunting, we can’t resort to an approach of two wrongs making something right. We can all easily agree about the obvious when it comes to hunting in enclosures. Tactics such as drugging and tying game up for hunters to shoot is pretty much a no-brainer.

Not all game ranches are the same. Each has to be taken on an individual basis for the quality of ranching they employ. To lump all preserves as canned hunting destroys aspects of our sport that many of us are fighting to protect.

For an individual to make a blank statement that hunting within any fenced in preserve is unethical, is ignorant and more than likely hypocritical. Ethics is a touchy subject and many of us feel very compassionate about certain issues surrounding it.

In all fairness to hunters, the businessmen and ourselves, we all as one big group should think a little harder before we make generalized statements about our fellow sportsmen.

Tom Remington