Why hunters smile

 

Are they right? Do hunters smile because they are happy the animal is dead?

 

The answer is a little more complicated than a simple yes or no. To understand why hunters smile in trophy photos, you really need to 

understand how much effort goes into a hunt. 

 

For rifle hunters, that process starts with first getting a firearm’s license. Here in Australia, that’s not as easy as just popping down to your local gun shop, filling in some paperwork and heading home with a rifle. It takes months to go through the process and includes police and background checks, completing a firearm’s safety course, and then waiting for your license to actually come through. Once that happens, you then go through a similar process to purchase a firearm, have the police come and physically check your premises and the safe where you will be storing your rifle. Only once all that is complete can you start learning how to actually shoot that firearm.

My first opportunity to shoot an animal came when I was invited to take part in a crop protection hunt of wallabies and rabbits – 9 months after I first made the decision to learn to hunt! 

 

I was nervous as hell, and had no idea what I would feel when it actually came time to pull the trigger. I was scared that I would miss, or worse, that I would hit the animal badly, and not kill it! And what would I feel when I actually saw the animal dead? Would I feel sad? Would I be sick? It was all so unknown to me. 

 

As I was soon to learn, there’s a HUGE difference between looking through the scope at a static, paper target, and taking aim at a living, breathing, moving target. 

 

Animals have this really bad habit of moving around – a lot! When they see humans, they generally run in the opposite direction. So when they finally do sit still long enough for you to take aim, you literally have seconds to steady the rifle, find the best shot placement (you can’t just shoot anywhere. An ethical kill requires you to hit the animal in a vital organ – head, heart or lungs) and fire off a shot before the animal moves. 

 

When I squeezed the trigger and saw the animal drop, I was utterly shocked that I felt a huge sense of relief and elation. Even more shocking, I actually high-fived my husband! 

 

And yeah, I smiled. 

But guess what? That smile had nothing to do with the animal on the ground. I did not feel joy that I had taken an animal’s life. In all honesty, I felt bad for the wallaby. It is hard to sit beside an animal that is no longer alive, and know that you were responsible for its death. But how many times had I looked down at my steak and never given a second thought to the animal that died for me to eat it. If I was going to eat meat, I wanted to at least feel some kind of connection to that animal. I mean, let’s face it. Meat does not come on a polystyrene tray covered in plastic. It comes from an animal that was once living and breathing. My reason for learning to hunt was because I wanted to take personal responsibility for the food on my plate. I wanted to reconnect with where my food came from rather than consume meat with no sense of personal responsibility. And if I was going to do that, I had to learn to put aside the sadness. 

 

Contrary to what Psychology Today would have you believe, I was not glorying in the gratuitous violence. Nor was I happy to have ‘murdered’ an animal. The happiness I felt was the culmination of 9 months of hard work coming down to one split second shot. It was overcoming my own fears and succeeding at something I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do. It wasn’t easy watching that animal be gutted and broken down into meat. After all, buying your meat from the supermarket or butcher is a lot less confronting. But there was a sense of pride that soon I would cook that meat for my family, and know exactly where it had come from, and that it was sustainably sourced. 

 

The best way to describe the smile one experiences after a hunt is to compare it to what an athlete experiences after winning a race.  To win a race, the athlete must actually destroy his fellow athlete’s dreams. He must beat out the competition and serve them up a decent old dose of defeat. When he crosses that finish line first and realises he has won, there is a sense of elation and happiness. 

 

 

When that athlete stands on the podium and receives his trophy, there is a sense of victory and pride he feels, even though chances are the trophy is nothing more than a cheap plastic replica. The trophy serves as a visual reminder of the hard work, the effort, and the victory. 

 

When an athlete smiles after a victory, we don’t automatically assume his smile is cruel and heartless; that he is rubbing his victory in the face of those he beat. We don’t automatically assume he is focused on the negative aspect of his win. We recognise his smile as the culmination of months of hard work and training. When he stands on the podium and has his photo taken, holding aloft his trophy for all the world to see, we don’t wrongly assume he is sick or evil, or being egotistical. Instead, we celebrate his victory with him.

Hunters don’t smile because an animal is dead. It’s not about ego, size, violence or sick pleasure. Hunters smile because they have overcome the odds and achieved a goal. And that is something to feel proud of.