In 9 days I will be heading off on my first deer hunting trip. In fact, it will be my first hunting trip - period. I have never killed another mammal in my life apart from putting one poor Colombian Ground Squirrel out of it misery that had had its back broken by a car. Even that was a little traumatic for me at the time (I was in my late teens). In fact, it was probably at that point that I realized that I was facing a bit of an ethical problem.
You see, I have been an omnivore my whole life. I once spent 6 weeks being a vegetarian just to see what it was like. The rest of my years have been spent eating meat at least 1-2 times a day. When I was young, I remember it being more like 3 times a day 7 days a week. The only exception to my omnivoreness growing up was veal which I decided to stop eating back in the late 80's once I learned that it came from calves. I hate to admit it, but I only realized quite recently that the rack-of-lamb that I love so much does indeed come from a sheep that doesn't see its 1st birthday. Now I think about it, I have also been reluctant to eat pig after learning about how intelligent they are. The argument being that if I could consider an animal to be a loyal pet I probably shouldn't eat it.
All this thinking has left me in a bit of a bind. Am I a speciesist? That is to say that I rank animal's intelligence as a major criteria for my decision to eat or not eat them? What of ethics? Does and animal deserve a chance to live a full life, or at least a chance to grow into adulthood?
So, I have decided to go out and be on the sharp end at least once. That is to say; go out into the woods, shoot, gut and clean a deer, then butcher it (or in my case - help the butcher out).
I fully realize that evening being able to think this way is a luxury of our times. For most of humanity's existence humans have tried their level best just to make sure they made it through the winter – never mind trying to take the high ground when it comes to what they put in their stomachs. However, I can afford the luxury of putting thought into this matter. I have the economic means with which to eat meat regularly if I wish. I even have the means to be able to afford ‘free-range’ and ‘organic’ meat (which I do my best to do). I don’t think of hunting as something that will account for all the meat that my family and I eat through the year. However, I do think that it would be impossible to get anything that is more ‘organic’ or ‘free-range’ than something that has grown up in the woods.
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