by Malcolm Louis Kantzler

Created on: March 10, 2009   Last Updated: April 10, 2009

Is Hunting A Sport?

The word "sport" applied to hunting is as abused as the word "hero" when applied to athletes, except in the context of a Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinals player who earned the honor of that title because of his priorities for national service over fame and fortune, no matter that he would have lived or died. Tillman's priorities for life decisions, rooted in ethical standards rather than self or monetary, were also at work when he declined a St. Louis Rams, $9 million contract to jump from his draft and only NFL team. It is even inappropriate to refer to an athlete who works back from illness or injury to reclaim his or her place in a sport as a hero, unless you also include anyone, from any walk of life, who daily does the same thing, without the benefit of attention or acclaim. Real heroes are to be found far more broadly placed and closer to home than those who sweat on the playing fields of stadiums and coliseums. Look to the dinner table, where there is a parent who works and sacrifices amid financial hardship or constraints to responsibly raise a family that builds community and society, or less than a few miles distant, to the police or fire station, or to your local VA hospital or memorial cemetery, those wards and rows filled with true heroes.

With hunting, unless one goes out into the wilderness, like an Australian Aborigine, on foot with a spear, prepared to match cunning, strength, agility, and endurance against the designated supper and/or new winter coat, where there can be heroes facing a toothed and clawed, or hoofed opponent that could disastrously turn the tables, the answer is that hunting, today, is no more sport than is professional wrestling or the machine-dependent racing meets with cars, boats, or airplanes.

Are horses included?

Yes, there is ancient history, there, and in any circumstance where a person mounts a horse, or a bull, to achieve competitive victory against another or the stopwatch, that person must become as one with the animal, and to do that requires great strength, endurance, and agility, though, in the case of the bull or bronco, possibly questionable intellect, because there, a bone-crushing fall is accepted as a likely, best-possible outcome.

Bull fighting, then?

Yes, of course, sport, and perhaps, also the most ritualized form of hunting in the history of the world, in those cases where the bull meets the sword and ends up carved up, pale red and flowing upon the dinner table. The toreador with

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