Hunters fall into two categories

Whether someone else bludgeons your meat for you or you choose to do it yourself one thing is for sure, most of us eat meat, and enjoy it.

It’s not hard to figure out how it all began when we look at the survivors from the Alive story.  If humans — when pressed — are willing to eat each other, to eat another species must of come as natural as breathing.

Primal instinct for survival is one thing, killing for sport is a different topic. Hunters then, fall into two different categories; the ones who kill for food and the others who kill for sadistic reasons. Most hunters live by the axiom; kill all you want, but eat all you kill.

Conservation is an interesting word often heard and used by hunters. By definition the word conservation means to preserve or protect something such as a natural resource.

The term wildlife conservation can be a bit confusing.  What exactly is being preserved or protected in this case?  Wildlife or hunting itself?

Take for example the common Whitetail deer success story.  In the early 1900s there was an abundance of whitetail deer.  However, most of these animals were hunted down to small numbers.

This inspired the development of our government to create agencies for conservation of these animals, mostly for the purpose of killing them. This philosophy calls into question the argument of deer hunting for the purpose of prevention of overpopulation.

For example, some of those nasty vehicle vs. deer accidents can be prevented because there is hunting. So hunting may actually save human lives.  The fact is, the whitetail deer population has exploded since the early 1900s from six figures to more than 20 million according to the U.S. Wildlife Service.

Many of our wildlife conservation programs are in essence, hunting conservation programs.  It is estimated by the U.S. Wildlife Service 4 percent of Americans are licensed hunters.