Why I want to kill Bambi, (and not build a super computer)

My father is somewhat befuddled by the fact that I have taken up hunting. And in truth I can some what understand. As an RMT, I am in a profession more known for its interest in tree-hugging than hunting.

No one in my family is a hunter, and my father has a strange soft spot for animals that makes him hesitant to even have pets because he feels that they would be happier being free. By my dads logic, really I should have grown up to be an electrical genius like him and not a Hippy RMT.

Sorry Dad. I’m not going to be building the next super computer.

So why is it that a forty two year old woman is suddenly taking an interest in hunting?

The interest is not really so sudden, but the journey to this path is long and meandering.

Years ago, friends of mine used to go to another friends farm and slaughter and butcher there own meat.

My first reaction to hearing that was: “EEEEEEEEW!” But as I thought about it logically I realized that if I ate meat, something had to die so that I cold have that steak. My friends killed their animals quickly and cleanly. The animals to be slaughtered did not wait in over crowded pens, smelling the blood and hearing the screams the animals that were in line before them. Anyone who has ever seen video of what goes on in an abattoir will realize that those animals got a much more humane death than there abattoir-bound brethren.

My husband and I have for some time been trying to be conscious of the food that we are eating. To purchase things that are locally grown, and where possible to eat meat that grows up in a field instead of a factory farm, is raised antibiotic free and grain fed.

The journey has lead us to farmers markets to purchase our food, its lead is to butchers like Sanagans meat locker (all local, small farms, all antibiotic free) its changed our diet as we have been eating much more root vegetables that are grown in Ontario like beets, turnips and parsnips. Some people choose to purchase there food from boutique butcher shops like the healthy butcher, Cumbraes and Row farms. Those places can provide you with organic meats but even those places still have to send there cows and pigs and what not, to the abattoir.

So my moral dilemma remains, and the question I as my self is: If I am going to eat meat, than shouldn’t I take responsibility for the death of the animal that I am putting on the end of my fork?

I don’t believe that every meat eater should do this nor do claim any moral superiority for doing this, but for me, its important.

My friends no longer have access to a farm, so now if I want to kill my dinner I’m going to have to hunt it.

After years of planning endless research and months of practice this Sunday I put an arrow through the center of a four inch wide pumpkin at twenty yards. This weekend the haggis and I are going out to try our hand at hunting.

I wont take a shot unless I’m sure it will be a clean ethical shot that will bring the animal down quickly.

(-I'm going to take a small side track about why I am shooing with arrows and not a gun. I want to provide an animal with a quick death - I shoot very well with a cross bow, thank you very much. I don't currently own a gun nor do I have time to or money to join a gun club. What shooting I have done with a gun thus far?

Sucks. Far too much flinch.

A heart shot with an arrow will be far more humane than a gut shot with a gun.

Thus ends the side rant)

And if that ethical clean shot presents itself and I can’t take it?

Perhaps I shouldn’t be eating meat after all.