Why People Hunt

Have you ever owned 10,000 acres of land and tried to take care of your cows, crops, and hay-fields? Then add in all the wild animals on your ground tearing apart your corn fields and killing your baby calves?  Well, maybe you should look at why hunting is a good thing.

Why People Hunt

            There is nothing better to me then getting up at five-thirty in the morning to go drive to my family’s hills, park by a windmill, and walk for fifteen minutes to get to one of our hay stacks before the sun rises, just so I can be as successful at deer hunting as possible.  The frost on the grass, everything is still and I am just waiting for that big buck to walk out in front of me.  There are many reasons why someone would like to hunt but I think there are a few special ones.  For one, hunting helps control animal population.  Also hunting helps with human health.

            Hunting is a controversial topic in the World today but people don’t truly understand how hunting can help the environment.  Hunting isn't just about the killing and the trophies.  Yes, that is part of the sport of hunting, but there are more reasons to kill animals then for food and for the trophy of the animal.  Yes I hunt, and yes I hunt for the trophy bucks, so I can mount them on my wall.  That is just a small portion of hunting though.  I hunt for all animals that can cause a problem to our land.  My family owns a little more than five thousand acres.  We have over five hundred head of cattle and we have to hay and plant corn and soybeans.  My family has to control animal population in more ways then one.  In the last five years we have had three cattle die from mountain lions and each cow approximately makes about seven thousand dollars profit in one life time.  Average one thousand five hundred dollars per-calf, and a cow lives about 10 years average on our farm. Then we send it to slaughter, but when we have mountain lions eating our cows that are loss out of our pockets.  There are a lot of years we barely can make ends meet so it is very cheap for us to shoot a mountain lion.  A bullet is much cheaper than having cows die.  We have to hunt to control mountain lion, bear, coyote, and wolf populations all throughout the United States because without farmers and ranchers, we cannot feed our country.  Hunting keeps the animal populations under control by keeping the population at a healthy number.  

            Along with controlling animals that endanger our livestock and our income my family also needs hunting to prevent disease so the animals don’t die and lose population in our livestock.  Animals get diseases just like humans but the difference is we know how to cure a lot of our diseases, while animals just die.  I use deer as my example a lot because we have a lot of deer in my area and they get hit hard by disease every so many years. I myself as a rancher and a farmer want deer, turkeys, bobcats, squirrels, rabbits, and all sorts of animals on our land.  I am a firm believer in animal’s cycles and it is important to keep it in mind.  When one animal eats another animal and on down the line we need to make sure there are animals to keep the chain alive.  Too many animals in one category can cause other animals to starve and this can mess up the whole food chain.  Society sometimes thinks that we kill animals just to kill or harm them, when in fact we actually help raise them.  We love animals but we shoot deer, turkeys, and many others just so their numbers don’t get out of control.

 It may sound weird, but every year my family leaves about one acre of corn up in our dry land corn and one acre in our corn by the river so the deer, raccoons, pheasants, and turkeys all have corn to eat so they can be healthy and make it through the winter.  We are donating part of our profit of our crops just to help animals survive.  My family loves to look out across the meadow and seeing deer running around, and hearing turkeys gobbling in the canyons. We also do this because we respect the animals and want them to get through the winter and we have a little extra money to do it with.  Yet, not all farmers can afford to leave an extra acre of corn or beans behind.  According to Made Man, hunting can cause terrible crop destruction to farmer's fields in highly populated areas because deer have lack of habit to eat so they just eat on farmers fields and take about big yield numbers from farms.

What we don’t like to see is going out and seeing no deer and no animals on our land because that’s the best part about fixing fence, or cutting hay, or driving a tractor to me is experiencing the nature of all the animals and wildlife.  We shoot the deer because when we see 80 deer in one little area they run out of food.  One deer gets sick and they all drink water out of the same water hole.  The deer drink it and they get disease like Blue Tongue, or Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease or otherwise known as EHD.  According to the “EpizooticHemorrhagic Disease” EHD is an infectious but very fatal viral disease of some wild ruminants.  It is very similar to blue tongue but yet it only occurs in white tail deer.  This disease of blue tongue or EHD can happen anytime.  Yet according to “Epizootic Hemorrhagic” this disease happens on years of drought and years of over population of deer.  When the population is so big and there is little water to drink from they all come to the same water source (Mighigan.gov). According to Scott Koperski, this area get polluted and a bug or a type of gnat which carries the disease EHD bites the deer and gets into the system of the deer and kills it by making it so weak that it slowly stops moving eating and walking and it suffers to death.  They get so sick that they get hot and so they keep drinking water to cool them off.  This ultimately makes the deer drink themselves to death.  There is no cure for this disease yet but research is being done.  Koperski also states that this disease can get into cattle but it just doesn’t happen like it does to deer.  This hurts our cattle population and our deer population and both are harm to our land and our animals.

  This is why hunting deer is so important to us ranchers; those cattle are our income to feed our families and put a roof over our heads (Disease).  We love the heck out of deer but we also need to have deer season and take out part of the population so we can help prevent such diseases from happening frequently to help save our cattle, and help save our income.  That’s why the states sets out a certain number of permits based on the animal’s population to help prevent disease but yet keep the deer numbers at a healthy number.  If we keep the deer at a healthy number it helps keep the food chain in order.  Keeping the food chain in order means we must not let any numbers get too high or too low in order to keep our animals numbers at a healthy population.

            In addition to keeping the population down on animals, people also hunt because it can be great for humans and their health.  Depending on the animals people are hunting and how people like to hunt they can get some serious exercise done by hunting.  I am going to use elk hunting as my example with this because my uncle owns a ranch in Montana and they have elk up there.  I went on an elk hunting trip and my hunting guide said that on average he walks about 14-18 miles a day tracking elk with hunters.  To get the trophy elk you usually have to go deep into the hills and mountains to find them.  In high school we learned in heath class that we are suppose to get 30 minutes of exercise a day.  Now if we walk 14-18 miles hunters are expanding their lungs, burning calories, and using muscles to walk and carry all their items through the hills and mountains.  You are hunting outside of the city and populated areas so you don’t have as much pollution so you are breathing air that is likely to be cleaner.  You also have to train to even be an elk hunter.  If your body is not used to walking this much or carrying items you have to build up your cardio before you even go elk hunting.  According to “Hoyt Archery”, one of the big name brands in archery, states that one of their elk hunter’s does cardio 4-5 times a week for 45-60 minutes sessions.  Then on the weekend he does a 14-16 mile run to equal the length he usually walks in day elk hunting.  Then he lifts two days a week just to get used to carrying all the equipment (Hanes).   Elk hunting is one of the more difficult skills to master in hunting but it can keep you fit and your keep your health in good condition.  Walking every day to stay healthy is what I hear all the time on the news but to hunt and be more successful you have to walk and walking is healthy.  Heath is important to me because I want to be able to do the things I enjoy and if I want to keep enjoying hunting I need to stay fit. 

There are laws that require permits and only so many permits can be handed out a year for any given weapon.  Depending on the population census of the animals is how many animals will be allowed to be shot.  You also have to pass hunter safety to be allowed to buy a permit.  There are regulations and harsh fines for breaking the laws.  I don't think the hunting laws need to change other than the fact that I think you should have your hunting licences taking away or suspended for breaking on of the laws.  It can happen but you have to do a federal offense with a gun first.  

            I think hunting is a pretty special sport that honestly helps me respect nature even more.  I feel society thinks hunters hunt to just kill and harm animals.  When in reality the hunters I know of only want to help the animals and try and provide a nice place to live for them.  We sacrifice things so we can have animals but sometimes we have to sacrifice them to keep them to keep our livestock alive.   I will hunt until I cannot physically go outside.  You could consider hunting my passion.  I make food plots for deer and pheasants every year so they can stay healthy.  I put out mineral blocks out for deer so they can get vitamins to help them live longer and help prevent diseases.  I feel hunters get a bad rap because of what a few bad eggs do to some animals.  In reality my family and the people I talk to about hunting with in my area care for the land because that is family pride and the animals are a big part of our pride so this is the reason I hunt.  



Work Cited Page

“Emerging Disease Issues.” Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD) in White-Tailed Deer. Michigan.gov.  Web. 20 February 2013. https://michigan.gov/emergingdiseases/0,4579,7-186--26647--,00.html

This article comes from the Michigan department of natural resources.  It talks about how this terrible disease called Epizootic Hemorrhagic disease is killing the white-tailed deer population and it could have been stopped if we were better at controlling the population.  It explained statistics that the animals are going through and their chances of surviving.  There is no author of this because it is written by the Michigan department of natural resources who should be trusted because they are a government agencies paid to find out statistics like these.  This is a neutral article and it does not talk about hunting being good or bad.  It just talks about the disease and explains it. 

“Hoyt Archery.” The Hanes Exercise Regimen for Elk Hunting. Web. 20 February 2013.

This was an article I found in one of my Hoyt Archery magazines and it talks about how much exercise elk hunting is.  People don’t realize how hard hunting elk in the high elevations really is.  This article talks about how much the people train just to go elk hunting and how many calories a day you have to put in your body just to be able to keep the energy needed to be a successful hunter.   There is no official author in this article but I know Hoyt can be trusted because they are arguably the number one brand name for archery hunting.  I would say this is a slightly conservative article because it is explaining how hunting is exercise and it helps you and is trying to get you to go out and hunt.

Koperski, Scott. “Disease threatens deer population.” Beatrice Daily News. 21 Sep 2012. Web 20 February 2013.

This article I found in a newspaper talks about how the Disease of EHD is threatening the deer population and in some areas, you can’t even find a deer because of disease.  It talks about the number deer that are normally hit by vehicles in regular years and then the number killed during 2013.  Now that isn’t necessarily a bad thing that cars are not hitting deer the article says but in a way it is showing us that deer population go down that much more because of this disease.  This is a article written by Scott Koperski and he is just an newsreporter for Beatrice but I think he can be trusted because he is just reporting statistics sent to him in his area.  I would say this article is neutral as well because it is just reporting statics about deer getting hit rather than trying to make an argument. 

Davis, B. (2014, November 10). Does Hunting Help or Hurt the enviornment. Retrieved February 27, 2015, from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-talks-hunting/

This article talks about serial killers and how people that harm animals are more likely to become them as well as how hunters can hurt the environment.  This article talks about poaching and all the reasons why people do it.  It also talks about hunters breaking the rules to help bring down big game.  However, it also talks about how most hunters do not break the rules and it is a part of the rule American society.  This article is written by Ben Davis and he works for the New York times which is a trusted newspaper.  I would say that this article is very liberal because he is from the city and he talks about negative things that people from the city just don’t understand

Gibbons, W. (2014, November 17). Why is hunting good for the environment. In Savannah Laboratory . Retrieved February 27, 2015, from http://srel.uga.edu/outreach/ecoviews/ecoview031117.htm

This article talks about the Savannah Laboratory that explains how farmers and ranchers do not like to kill a lot of the animals on their land.  Yet they do so because they need to save their cattle.  It talks about how hunters are entering partnerships with research ecologist, wildlife recreation, and organizations to protect habitat because they want the animal populations to be healthy so they can hunt them.  Hunters say if the population is not healthy, it just isn’t right to hunt them.  This article is written by the Savannah Laboratory and is a good source because a bunch of ecologist who study this topic every day are the ones who wrote it.  I think it is slightly conservative because it talks about farming and hunter more as a good thing than a bad thing.

In Defense of Animals (n.d.). In Anti-Hunting. Retrieved February 27, 2015, from http://www.idausa.org/campaigns/wild-free2/habitats-campaign/anti-hunting/

This article is about anti-hunting.  It talks about how animals don’t have a fair fight against hunters.  How hunting hurts animal populations.  How hunters can cause pain and suffering to the animals.  How hunting is not a sport.  How hunting is a poor excuse for conservation.  This is written by the in defense for animals and is a good source because it helps me see what a lot of other people’s views on this topic are.  This is a very liberal article because it talks about how hunting and guns are terrible and that every animal should be free. 

 Why Hunting is good for the Environment (2014, April 21). In Made Man. Retrieved February 27, 2015, from http://www.mademan.com/mm/why-hunting-good-environment.html

This is an article I found that goes over animal destruction to cropland and fields.  It explains how many yields deer can go through and how it can hurt the farmer’s income.  It also goes over disease prevention of animals by controlling populations, as well as helping stimulate the economy by all the hunting sales that go on in America.  It talks about how we can trade all our furs to countries like Russia and make a bunch of money.  I think the author which is the website is a great resources because I have been reading the same exact points that these guys have been making for years.  I would say this is a very conservative article because it talks about hunting and why people should do it.