Hunting (Essay Sample)

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Illegal Hunting
Hunting was the primary source of food about 100,000 years ago (Freyfogle and Goble 147). Families immensely relied on going out in the wild to trap and kill animals for food. This trend has, however, reduced with modernity, since human beings have come up with other better ways of getting food. In the recent years, various lobby groups have come out strongly to oppose hunting and coerce the government to declare it illegal. This force has not been without opposition as many supporters of hunting have resisted any attempts by the government to stop them from hunting. Several arguments have been brought up about whether hunting is right or not. There is one group that strongly feels that just like humans, animals have the right to live and enjoy life without any interference. On the other hand are the antagonists, who are in every way convinced that hunting is not harmful. On taking a critical look at the heated debate about hunting, this essay concludes that hunting should be halted.
Case for Hunting
The supporters of the motion for hunting argue that it is their source of food, and banning it will be denying them the right to food. Solomon, Conteh and Gavin explain in their research that there are more than 2 billion people in the world that suffer from protein deficiencies (16). In this argument, therefore, putting a permanent halt to hunting will simply increase the number of lives that face protein deficiency syndromes. It has also been argued that a vast number of US residents in the countryside still depend on hunted food. These are people who lack farms or big ranches, but rather go out every morning with the hope of killing an animal, a bird, or catching fish for their family to eat. Failure to do so will force them to join over 1.3 billion lives that sleep on hungry stomachs across the universe daily (Freyfogle and Goble 159). The implication here is that wealthy and able human beings who throw away food every day should not assume that every other person on the face of the earth has an adequate food supply.
Another major argument that has been raised by sections of people that support hunting is that the activity is simply a sport. This group goes ahead to explain how people bond and make friendships through hunting (Solomon, Conteh and Gavin 19). Many people from different parts of the country always converge in designated grounds to have fun while hunting down different animals. Such activities promote national unity and increase the strength of relationships among the society. In fact, as Anderson and Leal row, outlawing hunting will be similar to illegalizing fishing, yet it is just a way of relieving stress and relaxing after a heavy week of work (122). Sport-hunting has become very popular because many people not only enjoy learning the tricks of killing animals but also intermingling with the community and meeting up with new friends.
Lastly, hunting is being supported by some groups who argue that it is a method of balancing the ecosystem. As Laurence discusses, some people argue that leaving animals and even birds to uncontrolled could result in a dangerous situation where the number of animals could be so high that they will start competing for resources with humanity. Furthermore, there are already enough animals preserved in parks and zoos, and that hunting for animals from their original habitats will not impact on the existence of any of them. This group hence dismisses all antagonists that view hunting as a possible cause for extinction by saying that extinct species were not hunted down but rather died and disappeared for failure to cope with environmental changes.
Case against Hunting
Hunting is responsible for the extinction of many animal species from different parts of the word. This is the argument that has been raised by various lobby groups that are against the activity. While the supporters of hunting believe that extinction happens when animals fail to cope up with the environment, it should not be forgotten that even the unfavorable changes that happen to the environment are a consequence of irresponsible human activities CITATION Bor15 \p 76 \l 1033 (Borgerson 76). Hunting interferes with the natural habitats of diverse species and introduces environmental changes that could affect their survival rates. Besides, it is without doubt that hunting kills animals and that life lost cannot be recovered. There are many animal species whose lives have been evidently taken by humans sending them to extinction. The China Tiger, which was once a very strong breed in the wild has lost its popularity to illegal hunters, as Anderson and Leal explain (202). This kind has not been seen anywhere in China for over ten years and is believed to be functionally extinct. It is among the many species that have been aggressively killed for medicinal purposes in China.
It is also argued that hunting is cruelty to animals. According to Borgerson, people who say that hunting is a sport are only looking for a way to cover up the cruel and painful treatment that animals go through (91). It is a known fact that some animals usually manage to escape from hunters. However, they usually sustain heavy bleeding and a lot of injuries that force them to endure prolonged and very painful deaths in the wild. A study by Solomon, Conteh and Gavin indicates that at least 3 out of every seven animal being hunted usually escape with injuries (20). This means that hunting is an activity that continues to injure many animals and leave them for the dead. It is cruel and inhuman to cause such pain and suffering to animals, in the name of having fun. Jut like human freedom, sporting activities should not affect the peace of other humans, and even animals.
Hunting for food has also been dismissed by animal right activists, citing that it is an old-age practice that is not necessary in the modern world. Early human beings lived on hunting because it was the only way of getting food CITATION Bor15 \p 80 \l 1033 (Borgerson 80). However, technology and human intelligence has come up with several techniques of producing food without having to interfere with the wild. There are big animal farms that have been set aside for meat production. The government and sever...