How Hunting Signals the Psychological Need for Power Over the Innocent
In September of this year Idaho Fish and Game Commissioner Blake Fischer emailed and posted photos showing him smiling over the kills he had made during sport hunting in Namibia, Africa. It caused an uproar. When he was asked to resign his post by the Governor of Idaho, he apologized for sharing photos of what he called his “harvesting” of the animals. He indicated that part of his purpose had been to impress his wife and give her a “feel” for Africa. The hunt was legal. That is, it was legal to kill the creatures who moments before their death were living free in their own habitat, unaware of the hunter who needed the kills to satisfy something deep inside him — an emptiness of spirit he thought he could fix by exerting power over innocent animals. He used the word “harvesting” as if the animals in the wilderness were plant food, though he had no intention of consuming what he had destroyed: these animals were trophies.
In the wilderness, the lion does not always catch the gazelle, the wolf does not always bring down the moose or deer. They go after their prey in a fair fight, and sometimes lose their life trying, when the long legs of their prey kick at them in self-defense.
Guns have nothing to do with a fair fight. Guns always win. In Alaska hunters have been known to fly in small planes over…
