Awesome post.
First off I have no problem with trophy hunting or brown is down hunting AS LONG AS it is done legally and with respect for the animals and other hunters.
My concern with the trophy hunting culture is that it has picked up an element of fascism in that if you aren't on the trophy team, then you are wrong and must be corrected. I think most of this is commercially driven and is KILLING hunter image with the non hunting majority.
If you look at hunting culture trends over the last 20 years, it has gone from a mainstream culture of "getting into the woods with family and friends trying to kill a deer" to "gotta get a whopper" as the main trend. Yes you still have meat hunters but the middle of the bell curve has shifted in the trophy direction.
That by itself is not necessarily a bad thing, and I think this is where a lot of hunters on here support it. I mean if we have more deer than ever, whats wrong with hunters upping their desires/expectations on bucks a bit to match the increased opportunity ? Nothing wrong with that.
The problem comes when that goes too far and antlers become the sole focus and people start feeling greed, envy, disappointment, and competitiveness toward other hunters. Comments like, "he would have been a good one next year", "he wasn't mature" "scrub buck", "cull buck" "just a spike" "only 2.5yr old" or any other negative term makes hunters LOOK like they don't respect the animals they hunt and kill, to the non hunting public. It makes us LOOK like hunters only care about horns, ego, and bragging. And lets face it, nobody likes a braggart.... boom.... a non hunter just moved toward being an anti-hunter.
With the focus on antlers, commercial interests will pile on and market their products to a willing customer base. NOW we have a real opportunity for a PR mess. #1 rule in advertising.... GET NOTICED. So companies use huge bucks in their advertising, language that promotes bigger and bigger bucks to the point that NOBODY is talking about the intangibles of deer hunting anymore but EVERYBODY is talking about big racked bucks. Even the hunting shows & commercials are using heavy metal music in the back ground....?? I have never been on a deer hunt in real life and thought...."Gee a heavy metal sound track would fit the quiet peaceful woods perfectly" Nobody is selling "buy our product, runty spikes and scraggly bucks love it! "
How does that look to non hunters? That only huge racked bucks have value?? Hunting shows with heavy metal music showing whopper bucks being shot, ads pushing products for big racks, and then the host moves on to another show in another state and kills Another big racked buck. To the non hunting public, hunting APPEARS to be all about big racks and bragging rights. Remember, they are not in the woods watching the chipmunks, sunrises, and birds, they only see the commercialized media....THAT is their reality.
So....what is the long term trend?
Think about WHO all this marketing is going to attract into the sport ?
Think about the effect this commercialization frenzy is going to have on the opinions of VOTING non hunters.
Think about the effects of commercialization on the hunting culture and experience.
My beef is not with trophy hunting.... my beef is with the commercialize at all costs and the effects on the culture be darned attitude we have been suckered into participating in. Its with the black eye commercialization gives the image of hunting to non hunters, and its with the hunters who jump on the band wagon and belittle other hunters and who perpetuate this negative stereotype of hunters.
I salute any hunter who can have a quiet, rational conversation with a non- or anti- hunter and explain the intangibles of hunting and that its NOT only about horns. :tu: :tu: That is how you turn a non hunter into somebody who supports hunting even if they don't personally hunt.
The only risk here is as Steverino said above. A lot of these people will want to hire "Experts" - whatever that is - to humanely kill the deer rather than just regular ol' hunters that they (non-hunters) might see as slobs who aren't as capable of quickly eliminating the deer. It's important that we try our best to avoid that image.
