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.
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"Doubtless the good Lord could have made a better game bird than bobwhite, and better country to hunt him in...but equally doubtless, he never did." -- Guy de la Valdene (from A Handful of Feathers )
"'I promise you,' he said, 'on my word of honor, I won't die on the opening of the bird season.'" -- Robert Ruark (from The Old Man and the Boy)
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