Native people viewed the natural world as directly linked to their well beings, shown through natural occurrences like humans’ mutually dependent exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide with plants. The Native Americans have perpetually upheld wildlife and the environment to the same level as humans – making that belief the ceremonious foundation of their culture, religion, and tradition, especially regarding their use of animals. Hunting has evolved over millions of years, initially being used as means of survival through sustenance and self-protection by ape-like ancestors. It then developed into an optional activity to engage in, thus continuing the tradition of hunting, yet under different pretenses. The United States (prevalently the South)
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Hunting demands to be treated with the same respect as a sport like basketball or soccer, which require talent and acquired skill, even being acknowledged in the Olympics (although never shooting animals). Pigeon shoots, which essentially mean releasing captive doves from a box and seeing who can shoot the most for a reward incentive, date back to around the 1790’s, with the demographic being mostly the wealthy, white, male population. Due to backlash in recent years, they have been outlawed in many places and the most popular one in Hegins, Pennsylvania was put to a halt after drawing national attention from activists like PETA (Bronner 410). Hunting is valued as a sport in the South, so with any sport comes acquired skill, dedication, competition, and rewards. Comedian Paul Rodriguez stated “Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both sides should know they’re in the game”, and his statement was later debated within a post on The Firearms Guide. The Firearms Guide argued that although it is one-sided and not consensual, animals are used to being in a fight for survival every day by being preyed on. A sport is defined as “an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature”, however, there doesn’t seem to be much of a similarity in the natural balance of the food chain compared to the effortless killing by humans with a weapon, depicting neither competition or prowess. This proves an anthropocentric viewpoint, holding human life and pleasure above the living beings a balance in the world is shared
Hunting demands to be treated with the same respect as a sport like basketball or soccer, which require talent and acquired skill, even being acknowledged in the Olympics (although never shooting animals). Pigeon shoots, which essentially mean releasing captive doves from a box and seeing who can shoot the most for a reward incentive, date back to around the 1790’s, with the demographic being mostly the wealthy, white, male population. Due to backlash in recent years, they have been outlawed in many places and the most popular one in Hegins, Pennsylvania was put to a halt after drawing national attention from activists like PETA (Bronner 410). Hunting is valued as a sport in the South, so with any sport comes acquired skill, dedication, competition, and rewards. Comedian Paul Rodriguez stated “Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both sides should know they’re in the game”, and his statement was later debated within a post on The Firearms Guide. The Firearms Guide argued that although it is one-sided and not consensual, animals are used to being in a fight for survival every day by being preyed on. A sport is defined as “an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature”, however, there doesn’t seem to be much of a similarity in the natural balance of the food chain compared to the effortless killing by humans with a weapon, depicting neither competition or prowess. This proves an anthropocentric viewpoint, holding human life and pleasure above the living beings a balance in the world is shared