Wild ideas }} A place for hunting in a more
environmentally conscious world
MATTHEW ROBBINS
Photo: Matthew Robbins
Camouflage gear is not an unusual sight in Kawartha Lakes. Like many rural Ontario communities, hunting is part of our recreational history and has long kept retailers stocked with leaf-adorned bedspreads, decals and, yes, even masks. But people don’t relate to hunting, or to hunters, like they once did. Despite hunters’ widespread presence in our community, a lot of folks are uncomfortable or even downright angry that some among us would go out of our way to kill an animal. Hunters are increasingly portrayed as behind the times, the strange and unfortunate remnants of a less progressive era. So, it raises the question — does hunting still have a place in our society? As a lifelong hunter, I encounter this question from time to time, and part of my answer always seems to raise eyebrows. Hunting, I say, is a sustainable source of food. Hunting offers a unique opportunity to remove oneself from a corporate and notoriously problematic livestock system and enter into something not only per-
sonally rewarding, but environmentally conscientious. For one thing, wild animals don’t represent an anthropogenic (human-made) source of greenhouse gas emissions. Due especially to livestock, commercial agriculture is now one of the world’s leading contributors to humanmade climate change. By consuming wild game, hunters can partially step outside of this system, effectively eliminating a portion of their personal carbon footprint (other than hunting-related transportation.) In contrast, plantbased diets usually replace calories that would otherwise come from meat with a crop of some sort and, while these generally have a much lower impact on the climate than livestock, they are still responsible for human-induced emissions. Hunting can also be an opportunity to live a less invasive and wasteful lifestyle. Marcie Goldenburg is a local high school teacher and recent graduate of the Ontario Hunter Education Programwhose interest in hunting developed 15 years ago.
32
www.lindsayadvocate.ca
