Hunting

Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife or feral animals, by humans for food, recreation, or trade. Animals may also hunt other animal species but this is usually called predation. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law. The species which are hunted are referred to as game and are usually mammals and migratory or non-migratory gamebirds.

Naru: You think that I'm not a hunter like you. That I'm not a threat. That's what makes me dangerous.
- Naru as interpreted by Amber Midthunder in Prey, screenplay by Patrick Aison, story by Patrick Aison, Dan Trachtenberg, (2022)

If travel is searching
And home what's been found
I'm not stopping

I'm going hunting
I'm the hunter
I'll bring back the goods
But I don't know when
- Björk, Hunter, Homogenic (1997)

The mischief [the wolf] causes by his hunting might be borne, though it is considerable, if he were not impelled by his wild hunting zeal and indomitable thirst for blood to slay more than he needs for his sustenance. This renders him a curse to the flock-owner and sportsman, and makes him everybody's cordially hated enemy.
- Alfred Brehm, Brehm's Life of Animals (1895).

For she maketh my hunting very certain and speedy. She hath never failed me, for almost every day this week but brought me in the right way to a deer. And this last week she brought me to a stag which myself had stricken with my bow, being forced to the soil where, with the help of a greater water spaniel that forced him out of the water, your good brach helped to pluck him down.
- William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, letter to the Earl of Leicester on a hunting dog he had given Burghley, c. 1580-81; reported in Conyers Read, Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth (London: Jonathan Cape, 1960), p. 257.

You may seek it with thimbles — and seek it with care;
You may hunt it with forks and hope;
You may threaten its life with a railway-share;
You may charm it with smiles and soap.
- Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark (An Agony, in Eight Fits) (1874), Fit the Third : The Baker's Tale.

Detested sport,
That owes its pleasures to another's pain.
- William Cowper, The Task (1785), Book III, The Garden, line 326; of fox-hunting.

The dusky night rides down the sky,
And ushers in the morn;
The hounds all join in glorious cry,
The huntsman winds his horn,
And a-hunting we will go.
- Henry Fielding, A-Hunting We Will Go (1734), st. 1.

A shot in the dark
A past lost in space
Where do I start?
The past and the chase
You hunted me down
Like a wolf, a predator
I felt like a deer in the lights
- David Guetta, Chris Braide, Sia Furler and Giorgio Tuinfort, She Wolf (Falling to Pieces), Nothing But the Beat 2.0 (2012)

It does not in the least matter, so far as the question of animals' rights is concerned, whether you run your victim to death with a pack of yelping hounds, or shoot him with a gun, or drag him from his native waters by a hook; the point at issue is simply whether man is justified in inflicting any form of death or suffering on the lower races for his mere amusement and caprice.
- Salt, Henry (1894). Animals' Rights Considered in Relation to Social Progress. Macmillan & Company..

The karma of cruelty is the most terrible of all. The fate of the cruel must fall also upon all who go out intentionally to kill God's creatures, and call it "sport".
- Jiddu Krishnamurti, At the Feet of the Master (1911)

Green wind from the green-gold branches, what is the song you bring?
What are all songs for me, now, who no more care to sing?
Deep in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still,
But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.
- Fiona MacLeod, Poem The Lonely Hunter.

There were three jovial Welshmen,
As I have heard them say,
And they would go a-hunting
Upon St. David's day.
- Nursery rhyme, Three Jovial Welshmen.

Understanding how hunter-gatherers thrived for so long may help us identify the broad principles necessary to ensure a more sustainable future. Dealing with systemic inequality – not least, their own – would be a good place to start.
- James Suzman, “Why Bushman Banter Was Crucial To Hunter Gatherers Evolutionary Success”, The Guardian, (10/29/2017).

Though I am an old horse, and have seen and heard a great deal, I never yet could make out why men are so fond of this sport; they often hurt themselves, often spoil good horses, and tear up the fields, and all for a hare or a fox, or a stag, that they could get more easily some other way; but we are only horses, and don't know.
- Anna Sewell, Black Beauty (1877), Ch. 2

The English country gentleman galloping after a fox — the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.
- Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance (1893), Act I.

The game laws are already sufficiently oppressive, and therefore ought not to be extended by implication.
- J. Willes, Jones v. Smart (1785), 1 T. R. 49; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 99.

When a man wants to murder a tiger, he calls it sport: when the tiger wants to murder him, he calls it ferocity.
- George Bernard Shaw, Nine plays, page 735, published by Dodd, Mead & Company, 1935 (1147 pages)

Though large herds of deer do much damage to the neighbourhood, yet the injury to the morals of the people is of more moment than the loss of their crops. The temptation is irresistible; for most men are sportsmen by constitution; and there is such an inherent spirit for hunting in human nature, as scarce any inhibitions can restrain.
- Gilbert White, The Natural History of Selborne. 1st of 2 volumes. London. 1813. p. 32. (1st edition 1789)

“How Neolithic farming sowed the seeds of modern inequality 10,000 years ago” (5 Dec, 2017)

James Suzman, “How Neolithic farming sowed the seeds of modern inequality 10,000 years ago”, The Guardian, (5 Dec, 2017)

While hunter-gatherers accepted that people had different skills, abilities and attributes, they aggressively rejected efforts to institutionalise them into any form of hierarchy.
Hunting and gathering was a low-risk way of making a living. Ju/’hoansi hunter-gatherers in Namibia traditionally made use of 125 different edible plant species, each of which had a slightly different seasonal cycle, varied in its response to different weather conditions, and occupied a specific environmental niche. When the weather proved unsuitable for one set of species it was likely to benefit another, vastly reducing the risk of famine.
As a result, hunter-gatherers considered their environments to be eternally provident, and only ever worked to meet their immediate needs. They never sought to create surpluses nor over-exploited any key resources. Confidence in the sustainability of their environments was unyielding.

NRA: NRA freedom hotline…

Huey: Yeah, I have a hunting question.

NRA: Well, that’s part of the reason we’re here – shoot! Ha! Get it? Shoot … heh-heh-heh…

Huey: Funny. Anyways, what’s with the deer?! I mean, it’s not like they’re threatening. Why kill them? They’re cute and harmless! Where’s the manly accomplishment in that?!

NRA: Well, I’ll tell ya, used to be a time when a man could go shoot himself a buffalo, an Indian or even a runaway slave! But the liberals in D.C. say that’s not politically correct!!
I blame Hillary Clinton and Jesse Jackson, myself…