And yes, it came from a store. We have that luxury. As such, there is no need for the majority of the macho-boyz out there to "harvest' animals from the forest. Like you, pods...you obviously have the income for an FWC...so your take from the forest isn't about survival, correct? I make the same distinction as you on the entire topic. If you are POOR and you need to FEED YOUR FAMILY, i support hunting. If you are out there to drink and kill stuff >for fun< (???) and you have the means to buy other food from other sources that are already set up to "harvest' animals, I see no need and no reason for these hunts/"harvests". All it is is a money game. It supports our Division of Wildlife (user-fees supported, not tax supported) and brings in tourist $$$ to this state (who then tie their kill on their hood with it's blue eyes staring into nothingness and cook it all the way back to Podunk. MMMMM. Aged meat!)
I'm not hunting for survival but I'm not doing it for some macho trip either, at least in the macho trip you are referring to. I'm a very utilitarian type person who dislikes not knowing how to do things for my self if I so choose and I often opt to do many many things I could pay someone to do myself (my lack of free weekends at times speaks to that as I work on my house, etc.). So for starters the fact I don't have enough land to raise my own livestock means I'd have to turn to nature to provide a meat harvest that I can connect with on the personal level of acknowledging I'm going to kill it, field dress it (and quarter it out if a large animal), dry/cool the meat to protect my harvest (which means its not going hood of my car to adsorb heat & exhaust fumes), and then cut/package/freeze the meat. Its basically a version of having your own veggie garden instead of relying on the grocery produce section. Or perhaps an even more fitting example is hunting for wild morel mushrooms instead of relying on one of the common grocery varieties or paying ridiculous amounts of money to picked ones at the grocery. Same goes with elk & deer venison, you can't get that type of lean/hormone free meat at the store without a very high premium. Grass feed beef isn't as high a quality and farm raised elk for instance will run $10-30/lb.
The argument of "we are managing their numbers and if we didn't kill them they would die in nature from overpopulation" that I hear alll the time from my hunting friends is such crap that it isn't even funny. Like the animals didn't manage themselves for billions of years before humans with high-powered rifles and mega-scopes (and cars) came into the picture? Yeah, right.
Two things on this:
For starters its modern day hunters who have put massive effort & financing at habitat development/protection and fund the game biologists who manage & encourage animal populations. Around 1900 there were less than 100,000 elk left in north America due to habitat destruction and reckless harvesting for money. Roosevelt, a game hunter, was a big force in getting that turned around so these animals would be around for future generations. Future generations that would respect & hunt these animals. Otherwise cattle ranchers, who provide modern meat, and such could care less if elk existed still or not since they compete with livestock for grazing food.
Secondly yes hunters actively help manage animal levels. An area can only supply so much food for animals during the winter. Current populations are built up at higher levels than the environment could otherwise sustain because hunters (and other natural predators) reduce the population numbers, heavily in the fall after the new offspring has arrived. Removing these adult animals leaves resources available for the young animals. Without doing so the bulk herd would run out/low on food partway into the winter and you'd have massive winter kill. In the course of a year or two you'd see populations drop substantially. The reason this happens now is because billions of years ago humans hadn't gobbled up a large portion of their habitat... (why do you want to kill off the animals by taking their home?
).
