by Mick Marten

Created on: November 05, 2008

To many Helium readers this discussion may be a completely new idea to ponder. I fancy this to be the case since most people are not active hunters (like myself), and most are not active anti-hunters (for clarification of what an anti-hunter is, see the "no" side of this debate). I hope that the other ninety or so percent out there reading this debate will consider this topic carefully and conscientiously, and only then make a judgment.

Understandably, not everyone is a hunter. Not everyone is a hockey player, either, nor can everyone perform trigonometric calculations, or pilot a hot-air balloon, for that matter; none of this means that any of these activities are "illegitimate". (I refer here, of course, to the more vitriolic of the 'no' articles on this debate; it never fails to amaze me how some feel that name-calling and mean-heartedness might somehow be a useful debate tactic). People engage in many activities, for many reasons, and hunting is one of them; in fact, it is one of the oldest of our 'sports', if one wishes to call it that, dating back to prehistoric cave paintings, and, probably, a long while prior to that practice, as well. I don't mean to imply that early man hunted for sport; it's quite apparent that early man used hunting to provide for many of his survival needs, but one has to wonder...what made him hunt and kill animals, when his needs could be met in a less aggressive, more botanical way?

And there's the crux. We know that early man used plants as a large part of their diet, as well as using them to provide for many of their needs. In fact, it could be argued that at this early point in history the risks humans surely had to take in order to harvest an animal for food outweighed the benefit reaped in the form of high proteirn food; especially when high protein foods were readily available in the forms of fish, mussels, eggs, bugs, and even some plants....all sources of protein which are more easily collected, and less risky to obtain. Unless, of course, you're really good at harvesting game.

And that is where I have to surmise that early man's reasons for hunting, just like modern man's reasons, have at least as much to do with other, less definable reasons, as they do with food. Reasons like the demonstrating a skill which was the result of years of work, the recognition and appreciation of his peers for the benefits that his skill provided for them all, and just plain old pride.

Think about it: In what culture that has routinely hunted

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