Make it Simple?

After an afternoon bout of clearing heavy, wet, deep snow from around M’s car and little M’s car, I planned to sit down and work on a comment for the ethics thread. I almost made it—until sleep took over. I spent the entire next day recovering and then today was spent putting the finishing touches on the next issue of “The Pines Review.” It is now off to the final proofreading and now I can focus.

The Problem….. As I see it.

The more time I have spent reading about hunting ethics and the debate surrounding it, the more I am convinced we are all determined to create such a complicated issue that we’re doing more damage than good. Let’s return to something I offered at the start of this thread--early civilization. As Man moved from the hunter/gatherer to animal husbandry and agriculture the need to hunt for survival was replaced with sport hunting. Without drifting into the discussion of spiritual need being in our genes let’s try another approach and that is focusing only on the sport aspect of the hunt. In developing the sport of hunting it became essential for the hunter to have rules of conduct. You can return to the other post to review this evolution but the key is this statement:

Ethics = Skill U Nature

Simply stated: Ethics EQUALS The Sum of the hunter’s skills AND The Animal’s nature to survive.

Here is what I am advocating. (And, I think, Phillip, you and I are on the same page thought not saying it exactly the same way.) We need to stop trying to complicate the issue with complex definitions and limitations. If we agree that the key to being an ethical hunter is full use of skills and allowing the game to fully use their natural ability to survive then the outcome is ethical hunting. If we can accept that premise does this become a functional foundation to build on?

Is it a starting point?

Glg