Hunting is still a relatively new sport to me as I am only on my 8th year doing so. When I moved to Colorado, fresh out of the Navy, I had tried elk meat for the first time and was instantly hooked. Relying on friends is only sustainable to get a few pounds of elk per year so something had to change. The change was me learning to hunt. My first hunt (bull elk pictured above) was not really hunting by any means but the outcome was very successful. That one elk held me over for meat for 2 years as the family didn’t really take to it at first.
Fast forward eight years and what has happened and how do I view hunting? Well, I sometimes get bashed for being a hunter. I get told things like “how can you kill innocent animals?” and comments around how cruel it is. I find it funny or sad depending on how you look at that people will say this while eating a steak in front of me. If you eat meat, you are just as much a so called “killer” than anyone who hunts. Just as the dictator that orders the killing of people is a murderer the same goes for all people that eat meat. Maybe that is a little harsh but people often bucket everyone in the same class of people and make them guilty by association which brings me to my next point.
There are some horrible hunters out in the world. People that hunt for fur, the large trophy, and do nothing to honor the animal. There are some that take only the choice cuts of meat such as the backstrap or the tenderloin out of the elk and leave the rest to rot. The same goes for hunters of waterfowl and birds who breast out the ducks and geese or worse yet, hunt them and just throw the whole carcass in the trash. As a hunter those types of practices infuriate me.
So, now back to me. I can’t control the practices of other hunters and I can’t change the way some view hunting so hunting has and will always be about me. I enjoy the hunt and love my time in the wilderness harvesting animals. It is hard work but the the hunting gods often reward hard work put in. Hunting to me is about knowing what I am eating, where my meat came from, and cooking it in an amazing way helps me honor the animal. I have learned to butcher and process game, make sausage and jerky, and have become a student of haute cuisine.
Which brings me to my last point; what do I consider “honoring the animal” to be? A good hunt and making use of all the parts that you can. Ideally, I want to use every part of the animal that I can include the offal, bones, marrow, hide and all meat that I can retrieve . However, circumstances can often make that impossible. This year we had an epic hunt and I wasn’t able to preserve the hide or bring up all the meat possible from the canyon we were in. I still feel bad but I know I took what I could and going back down would have put my life severely at risk. I did however bring back some femur bones for my father in laws dog. Interested to hear what others thoughts are on the topic. Where to you agree or disagree?
Note: I was wearing my blaze orange hat when I took the elk initially, this picture was taken later when I had changed.