This Page About Hunting as Sport: A Deep Ecology Perspective

Hunting as Sport: A Deep Ecology Perspective

In the restaurant you asked me whether I had had any contact with hunting. It reminded me that once in Montreal, when I was growing up and still living with my parents, we were in a restaurant eating some steaks. On the walls, there were some hunting trophies 每 moose heads. I remember that they really bothered me. It must've been a strong reaction, because my parents called over the Maitre'd and told him that this was really bothering their daughter. The Maitre'd smiled and was very polite about it. I was about seven at the time living in a suburb of Montreal.

Later in my life when I was in my 30s, I lived on the east coast of Maine. There's a lot of deer hunting there. We were living next to the forest and one could hear the sounds of hunting going on in there. It was easy to observe the startled deer, (We even started to see them in our backyard.) because there were more and more houses going up in the area, and the deer's territory was rapidly shrinking. Human civilisation had begun to make inroads. In fact, the deer that I came across there were part of the reason I gave up what I was doing at the time and took up ecology activism.

One time, I was walking in some nearby woods, wearing a striped shirt. I met two hunters, who said: "Be careful. You should dress in brighter colours; you look too much like an animal, and somebody might shoot you." At the time I thought that if they could confuse me with a deer that meant that they were not really looking at what they were shooting at. So, I began to be afraid of going into the woods during the hunting season. I was distinctly aware of the fact that while I was in the forest, I wasn't really afraid of coming across a bear or a snake. What I was most afraid of was meeting men with guns. They carry the most violence with them. During Deep Ecology workshops, we ask people to go into the forest and find some kind of ally at the gathering. One time in Hawaii, when I was in the forest and heard some sort of noise, my first reaction was: "Oh oh, is that a man coming?" It didn't enter my head that it might be a wild animal, or some danger connected with it, only that it might be a man. And this, particularly as a woman, frightened me.

The time came when I started to seriously think about giving up what I was then doing and becoming involved with work for the environment. I left two jobs and volunteer work that I was involved with and entered into a time of prayer and introspection for about 6 months while I waited to find a way to be more of service to the planet.

I was facing an important life decision and thinking about how I might best be of service to the Earth. I remember at the time worrying about the deer in the forest next to which I lived. They couldn't run away from there - there was nowhere for them to go. You could see them during the hunting season, somewhere by the road, or in the garden behind the house. Now I'll tell you about an incident that was directly responsible for my coming to the conclusion that this was a sign, that God was telling me to stop my current way of life and start working for the environment.

In the days when I still hunted, I also used to go fishing, mainly for trout and perch. One morning, while on my way to fishing, I hit a stag. I couldn't have avoided the collision. It lay in the ditch, breathing. I took out a knife and finished it off. Then I and my friend skinned it and divided the meat between us.

If one comes across an animal, lying on the ground, dying, I can't see that it would be wrong to eat it. But if it's a deer that's alive and wants to live, that seems quite different. I don't think you hung the trophy on your wall, like that man wanted to do.

Now, I think that that deer, knocked down by my slow-moving car, might have regained consciousness. I didn't give it the chance to. Your deer sprang to its feet; maybe my stag would have done the same. Killing an unconscious animal is terrible. I carry that realisation around inside me. On the subject of the person in your story, I think he was simply scared to death by the fact that his health and life had been threatened in that accident, and hence his rage 每 out of terror, out of fear.

The same thing came to my mind. My father behaves like that. If he gets terrified of something, then at once, to cover over the terror, anger appears. Just as if he were indignant and outraged, as if to say: "how dare you cause me to feel afraid!" 每 it's a reflex.

I have another personal recollection. At Deep Ecology workshops, people are asked to bring to mind some incident to do with nature, from their childhood. I remember that, as a child, I loved observing ants. I accorded them great respect when I was quite small. One day, while I was lying on the ground beside the driveway to the house watching some ants, my brother 每 who is two years older than me, he must have been about seven 每 came up to me and started stamping on the ants. I was devastated to see them die so swiftly. Maybe it's to do with male instincts or early-life conditioning. I've known barely any girls who would pull the legs and wings off some living thing, but many boys have done it. Some gender theorists say that women are into relationships, while men are more into hierarchy, status and the domination of others and of nature 每 in a manner either inborn or learnt. If this is true, it would only apply in general to the sexes. Obviously, there are many women who buy into the male approach and vice versa. But in any case it was an early experience for me of feeling the devastation caused by senseless killing.

Hunters have several basic arguments which in their opinion support their killing of free-living forest and field animals. One of these arguments is that, once upon a time, mankind learnt to hunt, with the effect that it was able to survive and continues to do so, and that what we are doing is simply the modern form of hunting. I reply that, in former times, people were acquiring food in order to survive; nowadays, the situation is completely different.

That reminds me of what cosmologist and mathematician Brian Swimme has to say on the subject. He differentiates between two approaches: macrophasic and microphasic. According to him, the latter involves caring for one's family, one's tribe, holding a micro-scale perspective, for the sake of survival. Swimme goes on to say that nowadays, it's very important that we move to a macrophasic perception, one from which we look at things more globally and understand that, for survival, looking after one's immediate surroundings and family, one's own social group, is not enough. One needs to look at things more globally. This is now very important to our survival. Some former behaviours, even though they had their justification at the time, are now unnecessary, obsolete. Certain behaviours work well in communities of apes. Maybe, when we were once organised along similar lines, these worked for us as well, but they are not necessarily useful now as modern day people. One could say the same for behaviours that we developed as children - that various behaviours worked for us as children, but stop working in a functional manner once we grow up. Continue to learn more about hunting, please visit Rain Forest Info.

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