Why kill for pleasure?

 

-By Jim Culp

 

I have now walked the Earth for 48+ years. In my lifetime, I have killed for food, war, and when I was very young, ignorant pleasure.

I have been a hunter and fisherman since I was 11. Granted, I’ve never been a great hunter of fisherman. I have friends in Idaho and Kansas that make my hunting seem insignificant, and my brothers have caught more fish in one summer than I have caught in my entire life.

When I was 11, I saved up money and bought my first BB gun. You can compare me to Ralphie on “A Christmas Story” in those days. Many small creatures from grasshoppers to beautiful songbirds fell prey to my astounding prowess with the Daisy lever action rifle I had taken as my companion. I wandered the edges of the Gila wilderness imagining that I was Clint Eastwood or John Wayne, and many times I saved the planet from invading aliens in those days. I was walking tall with a pure childhood fantasy and an air rifle full of little steel balls. When I was 14, I received my first real rifle. It was a Glenfield Model 60, semi-automatic, and held 17 rounds of .22 rimfire ammunition.

As I said a moment ago, the Gila Wilderness was less than a mile Northeast of my back door, so it was nothing to grab the rifle and a canteen and walk 5-6 miles out into a wide open area where you could maybe see three houses.

I wasn’t Ralphie anymore; I had a real gun that was capable of killing anything in my world, and at distant ranges. I remember the first time I shot a cottontail rabbit. It sat motionless as I walked to within about ten feet of him, and a bullet left my muzzle and travelled at over 1,000 feet per second to the waiting rabbit, who rolled over in the rocks and twitched for a few seconds (which seemed like hours to me), and died.

I had no intention of eating the rabbit, I hadn’t learned cleaning or skinning, and just for a while I stood there and watched the body of a helpless animal whose life I had taken for no reason but selfish pride.

As I grew up, I hunted deer and turkey in Kansas, and fished for catfish, bass, and frogs in the hills and valleys of Morris and Geary County.

Over time I developed a respect for the animals I hunted and fished, and never took an animal’s life unless I was going to eat it, or if the animal was a pest of some sort.

I told you that long story to make a point.

Killing animals is ok with me for the reasons I just stated. I have no problem with farmers shooting crows that are destroying their crops. I have no problem with people (like I did) hunting deer, elk, and other game for putting extra meat in their freezers.

I do, however, take grave issue with a person that kills any animal for the simple pleasure of placing that animal’s head in a trophy room, or killing an animal and leaving it lay. Yes, I did this when I was a kid. I didn’t know better and nature had to test my heart and see who and what I was going to be.

But the people who take pleasure in shooting majestic creatures like lions, elephants, and eagles belong in a very special hell. Why would a mature adult kill an animal for pleasure? Do you need to satisfy some sick craving?

Again, I’ve no issue with harvesting game animals to be consumed. A person that hunts legally and takes game for meat is ok in my book. A fucking asshole that flies to Africa and kills a lion because he thinks it is cool is most assuredly not.