Hunting does not make the sports list

With the opening of deer season, many hunters are preparing themselves for a big and successful hunt. Many of these hunters hope to be sporty in their pursuit of a prized buck. However, for them to be sporty, it would imply that hunting is a sport. This is not the case.

Hunting, by most, is known to simply be a search for food. A sport on the other hand, is a game or exercise where each participant or team competes within a set of rules to establish dominance. So, how does hunting fit in to the sport category?

The answer is that it doesn’t. Hunting is not a sport. Rather, it is a type of chase or quest or for food. There is nothing about hunting that implies any sense of the necessary competitiveness all sporting events share; nothing at all. Don’t get me wrong, hunting does require some skill.

For example, the know-how to wait for a perfect shot and endurance to brave the elements and to maintain a stealthy posture are both skills required for hunting.  However, when hunting, who is the hunter competing with? Bambi? That’s ridiculous. To imply that a human is competing with an animal is beyond funny. Animals are handicapped because of the technological advantages humans wield.

I mean which person can hunt without any tools? Even the playing field if it is sport. After all, animals don’t use any tools to escape when being chased.

Any human that prides himself/herself as being a sporty hunter while wielding a technologically advanced weapon is sad. If hunting were a sport, where then is the competitive aspect in hunting the handicapped?

Though the difficulty increases with the animal or game being hunted, humans, because of our infinite imagination and superior intellect, will always be able to adapt to any animal being hunted. This is why cavemen were able to hunt with bows, spears, and clubs. Not because the animals back then were dumber, but because humans naturally honed their hunting skills for a particular prey.

Long ago, cavemen used to wake up early in the morning to hunt. This hunting expedition would most often last for days or even longer, depending on how far they had to travel and the difficulty of game being hunted. Nowadays most hunters wake up early in the morning to drive to designated hunting grounds in hopes of nailing the ‘Big One’ just for the thrill of it.

These hunters hunt not just for food or clothing, but also for the adrenaline rush and bragging rights. Hunting these days has become a pastime. It has devolved from a survival necessity to a type of leisure activity for fathers to share with their children. Hunting will never be what it used to be.