Carbonara 357

Following up to Jane Gillett

We are a social animal and invented specialisation. Could a single dog from a pack bring down a bison or whatever? Secondly, where in nature is the concept of a fair fight? Animals always avoid prey that might damage them. We only see a "fair fight" when a young male spots the dominant male is getting past it and thinks he can grab all the totty.

Field-outdoor pursuits addresses two needs in men, one is the instinctive need to "bring home the bacon", some are happy sublimating that into wearing a suit and a stupidly expensive watch and balancing some accounts, others less so. I can see the pull of roaming the Serengeti with a spear, but I have my allotment.

The other factor is a need for risk. Anything prefixed "sport" doesn't really do that, although it often gives an impression of it for those who don't want the real thing, as in "sport climbing". Hemingway had an unusual take on "sport" rather than seeing it as sublimation of war, he rejected most sports as games and said that only bullfighting, motor racing and mountaineering were real sports, in other words where the participant has a real chance of dying (there are of course others). He didnt include hunting as its pretty safe for the hunter, as you point out.

I'm rambling, aren't I? Must be the testosterone. To me, hunting should be judged on cruelty content v farmed animals and any environmental aspects, I don't see any need for it to be a fair fight. (Of course, HHs just buggering about in the country are beneath contempt.) -- Mike Reid