The Killing Game by Joy Williams

Interesting read. I think there are certainly the sort of hunters that Williams describes, and they are despicable. But, there are also hunters with different attitudes, practices, and intentions that differ significantly from her account.

On the rare occasion that I went hunting, I wasn’t even allowed to make a shot; it was left to veteran hunters who had perfected their aim, so that one could make an ethical shot. This ethical shot killed the animal almost instantly, so it didn’t suffer. On the rare occasion that the creature was wounded, it was a bad thing, and the rest of the hunt was spent tracking it down. Rarely was the animal left to suffer more than it had to. Williams, on the other hand, appeared to suggest that hunters are generally unskilled, and injure an animal more than they actually killed it. In practice, killing it is likely, whereas extended times in the bush tracking the animal wasn’t, and was actually frowned upon.

For some hunters, the animal was also usually hunted for food, and there were generally unspoken rules about what sort of animals you killed. In fact, when my dad went hunting, it was only for food, and often when money was running low. You would never, for example, kill a baby deer, nor a mother, nor a potential mother. If there was even a remote possibility that a deer was pregnant, you didn’t touch it. So, the story in the article about a young deer being killed in front of their mother seems highly sensationalist.

Now, you might think it’s not a good thing to participate in killing an animal in the wild for food, but a case can be made that it’d better than other forms of consuming animals. For example, the creatures you kill live a good life in the wild, and you aren’t participating in the massive consumptive practices of factory farms. When you hunt, you are also intimately aware of where meat comes from; a point I will return to later.

For native peoples, there is considerable evidence that the health of individuals on reserves has significantly declined, in part, because they no longer participate in their traditional food practices, including hunting for food. Instead, they eat largely overly processed food, much to the detriment of their own health and wallet. Many studies on native health outcomes suggest that going back to traditional food practices could actually improve health outcomes of native peoples on reserves, which is highly needed, since they are several times more unhealthy than non-native peoples.

Many native peoples don’t have the attitude of taking pictures of their kills, because they consider it disrespectful. For them, the animals are to be respected, in part, because they don’t think of themselves on top of the hierarchy of being. Animals are thought to be somewhat equal to us, in the sense that we are all participants in nature. Sometimes they even call certain species their brother. Moreover, they don’t kill animals to boost their own ego.

For native peoples, there’s also consideration toward conservation. Often traditional hunting is done at particular seasons, and if a population was dwindling, you don’t hunt that creature. There isn’t a prize or significance in killing a rare creature, as Williams describes. In fact, the significance is in killing a large and common animal that can feed your family and extended family. Significance can also be attached to the state of its hide and other parts of its body, because they would make good moccasins or blankets. The land the animal lives on is also considered significant, so that native peoples can continue to hunt for their meat, as per tradition. So, there are continual fights with governmental efforts to industrialize certain lands that are traditional hunting grounds (for example fights about the pipeline in Canada). If an animal is particularly rare, it is sacred, and more significance is given to ensuring that it stays alive for as long as possible.

Granted, there are hunters who enjoy doing it, but they also enjoy the fact that they don’t have to pay for their meat, and have a freezer full of it for a winter or a few months. Even this is probably better than being entirely divorced from the killing process and participating in factory farms. If you eat meat, it’s a good idea to feel the feelings that go along with its death. This practice also might turn people into vegetarians, if they find it seriously disturbing. A worse practice is not really being acquainted with the death of the animal, and having no particular feeling when actually consuming the meat of a dead animal. This practice of having some mediation between the consumer of meat and the killing of it just feeds into the mass consumption of meat and killing animals with wanton disregard.

In short, I found the article unsatisfying, mainly because it described the practices of some hunters, as if it was representative, and sensationalizes that representation. In fact, hunting can have different practices, attitudes, and intentions, depending on who does it, where its done, and how its done. Williams also needed to be more intersectional in her approach, lest she demonizes native peoples and their traditional hunting practices.

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