Analyzing Bernstein's Criticism Of Ethical Hunting

On the first page of The Moral Equality of Humans and Animals Mark Bernstein states: “Several hundred million animals are annually hunted in the US; no humans are similarly exploited” (Bernstein 1). This phrase indicates Bernstein’s opposition to hunting. Hunting can certainly be destructive and exploitive; it has caused unjustified ecological destruction and has driven species to total extinction. I wouldn’t call hunting at large an act of exploitation though. I grew up in the backwoods of Northern Indiana; I have killed and eaten thousands of animals in my lifetime. All my life I have been surrounded with the phrase “ethical hunting.” The principles of “Ethical hunting” can be reduced to maintaining the utmost respect for the life you have taken. This includes insuring the kill is as quick and pain-free as possible, using every part of any harvested animal, and protecting the future existence of both species and ecological communities. Under some conditions hunting is an ecological necessity. The question is if Bernstein’s criticism of hunting is mindful of the ecological goals of ethical hunting?
In …show more content…
One of the chief goals of ethical hunting is ensuring a humane death and when an animal does not die quickly it is a tragedy. Additional training would certainly be welcome, as it would only improve a hunter’s ability to carry out ethical hunting. In one way hunting is more humane than natural predation. When large predators, such as wolves, capture prey the death may not be quick. Prey species are often chased before capture and suffer greatly before death. (Also there is already an extremely powerful, though selfish, motive for insuring a quick and precise death: retrieving wounded animals requires miles of