Hunting
Hunting has not changed much over the years. It is not very different now than it was back then. In the short stories, hunting was needed for survival. The men went hunting because it put food on their table, but they also went hunting because they enjoyed it. Hunting is more than going out and killing an animal, it is to go out into nature, bonding with family, the accomplishment, but most importantly it is the learning experience.
Hunting now is more recreational and people do it for fun instead of going for food. In my opinion, that is the only difference I think there is in hunting now than many years ago. Most people go hunting because it is enjoyable and not because they need the food to stay alive. The reason I think this is because there is more industrialization and it is easier to get food when we need it. Back then, I don’t think there were too many stores and the people did not have a lot of money to purchase food to feed their whole families so they went hunting instead because it did not cost as much money and they would be getting a lot of food from it since one big animal can produce a lot of food.
Hunting then compared to now is similar in many ways. In “Orphan Calves” by David Quammen, the man tells how his father felt bad for the moose because he saw the look on his face when he knew he was going to get killed. They have to kill the animals for food but yet he still felt sorry for the animal because it is going to die and he could sense the sadness of the animal and knew it was scared. It is like that today also, I have gone hunting for fun and as a hobby because I like to do it but I still feel kind of bad when I see the animal running scared for its life or also when I see it dead animal after I shoot it. The emotions they had towards taking an animal’s life has not changed because they still had a sense of sadness.
In the same story, the man tells his son bout when he killed his first moose. He says how pressured and scared he was to kill the moose because first of all he did not know what it looked like and his father was trying to give him directions on what to do when he sees it or goes into contact with it. The first time I went hunting, I went hunting for Elk. I had never been hunting before so I did not know the difference between a deer and an Elk so I was asking my step-father the same questions the man in the story had asked his dad, “What does it look like? What is he going to do when I see him? What if he sees me?” I was so scared because I did not know what to do or what was going to happen. I was so nervous.
When the man saw the moose he says, “I stopped. My heart started pumping so hard that it seemed like I might black out,