Canned Killing: Don't Call It Hunting!

David Petersen Outdoorsman and author

Huffington Post

Among ethical hunters, the term "fair chase" implies a universal bottom-line of self-imposed fairness and morality. Fair chase hunting specifies the pursuit of wild, free-ranging game animals, and, together with limits on technology, assures wildlife a better-than-even chance of escape. Thus, the term hunting.

Meanwhile, another and wholly opposite term and mindset, "Canned hunting," was coined by fair chase hunters to condemn the sickly "sport" of paying thousands of dollars for the great soulful adventure and challenge of executing captive-raised, half-tamed wildlife on "game farms," several of which stain my longtime home of LaPlata County and surrounds.

...Jim Posewitz, hunter, retired Montana wildlife biologist, and founder of Orion: The Hunter's Institute. Canned hunting, says Posewitz, "is killing and nothing more. The worst thing it does is to trivialize the value of wild animals. A fenced shoot is just the sale of a fabricated image to people who have neither the skill nor the inclination to obtain the real thing. It's a threat not only to real hunting, but to our whole concept of wildlife conservation."

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