New Jersey Grouse season

[Steve Hodges]

" It's called sport hunting not because it's a game, but because there are rules".

Times are changing and so is the perception of the the term "sport hunting". It does not carry the positive connotation than it once did. Anti hunting groups are using it to paint hunters as non-caring thugs who kill for "sport". A group here in New Hampshire who call themselves the "New Hampshire Wildlife Collation" are broadcasting this term in a negative way to the general, non-hunting public to discredit hunting in general.

From the NH Collation " We also agreed that sport hunting (killing for the sake of killing) has no place in modern society. "

This is becoming a slippery slope and we must be aware of that as a hunting community. I am not saying that it is right, but as the old song said, the times they are a changing.

[mobirdhunter]

Steve, I could not agree more. I no longer like to use the term sport hunting because most folks don't know its origin. When a few
American writers, many years ago, advocated for elevating hunting to the same plane as other sports, they were calling for a more ethical approach in a time when wanton slaughter was the norm. Guys like Herbert (Frank Forrester) and Grinnell made good cases for there to be rules of conduct for hunters. It seems our own hunting community of today has lost track of why ethical hunting became known as sport hunting.

I also do not care for the term "blood sport" for similar reasons. Steve, you are so correct about anti-hunting strategies manipulating the meanings of both terms.

I developed and taught a course on hunting and conservation in my last years teaching. I learned a great deal in doing research for the course, but even more from my interactions with students. I came away from that course afraid for the future of hunting, but with a sense of how it could be perpetuated even if there were non-hunters (big difference from anti-hunters) who only barely understood what happens afield.

Language matters. Just look around at how we describe things in our world and our interactions with each other today.

[Steve Hodges]

Garry, oh do I long for the days of Kurt Gowdy and the American Sportsman show on Sunday afternoons, when hunting was an honorable pastime.

[mobirdhunter]

Originally Posted by Stephen Hodges

Garry, oh do I long for the days of Kurt Gowdy and the American Sportsman show on Sunday afternoons, when hunting was an honorable pastime.

Amen! Like so many other things that Time has taken away.