What Is Sporting, Anyway?
A friend of mine had a link in her blog to a CNN story about a website in Texas that lets you hunt by website. That's right. Now you can go hunting without ever leaving the comfort and privacy of your own home. Just log onto the internet, and point and click your mouse to bring down the game.And in California, steps are being taken to block usage of this site by Californians:
Quote:
| Wildlife regulators took the first step Tuesday to bar hunters from using the Internet to shoot animals, responding to a Texas Web site that planned to let users fire at real game with the click of a mouse. |
The article goes on to say that this is both unethical and unsporting. Well, I do agree with that...it isn't very sporting!
But that got me wondering...what is sporting, anyway? So here are a couple definitions:
Quote:
| clean: marked by or calling for sportsmanship or fair play; "a clean fight"; "a sporting solution of the disagreement"; "sportsmanlike conduct" |
and...
Quote:
| involving risk or willingness to take a risk; "a sporting chance" |
Now, I like that definition. Willingness to take a risk. So let's take an example...let's suppose Beth (who posted the CNN link, and who is also very good at basketball) decided she would take me on at a game of one-on-one basketball, with the stakes being a hundred bucks (and I'm not talking about the kind of bucks you can kill with a mouse click, either!) Would that be sporting?
Well, there certainly ain't any risk involved for her, because I'm so clumsy with a basketball that the whole thing would be just a total embarrassment. There's no risk involved for her, so it couldn't really be called sporting.
So let's take that over to the realm of hunting. There's a big risk involved in that...it's the risk of death. Of course, depending on what you're hunting, I figure that risk is mostly one-sided. So, the way I see it, the only way it's sporting is if there's about a 50-50 chance of the hunter getting killed instead of the hunted.
But we humans, we aren't really all that sporting, are we?
So Beth, the next time Bruce The Moose Is On The Loose, I expect you to go after him armed with sticks and stones, just to make it sporting, okay?
Posted On May 8, 2005 at 4:27 AM
On May 8, 2005 Beth wrote: Did you know that the root word of competition is 'competere,' which means "to strive together?" Random thought.
I guess my biggest problem with this whole scenario is the laziness factor. It completely undermines the ethos of hunting. Hunting isn't about the 2 secs it takes you to pull the trigger, it's about the preparation as well. It's about walking in the woods during the off season to learn the habits and wanderings of the animal you're hunting on the land you're hunting. It's about sitting completely still for 8 hours in dreary November weather. It's about target training.
See, when you hunt, you're no longer home, you're in a foreign land (unless you're Davy Crockett
) Yeah, you may have a gun, but the animal knows the woods like the back of his...hoof. He can run and hide, or sneak around you without you knowing it. The animal also has a sense of smell several times stronger than humans, and he can sniff you out with no problem. Their hearing is also quite better than a human's. These factors are what help to level out the playing field. A hunter is at an extreme disadvantage when he's in the woods. In fact, I've been going hunting since I was 15 and I've NEVER seen any deer while hunting, or seen a moose I could legally shoot. They're just too smart for me I guess But I still hunt because I enjoy the preparation and whatnot. It's the act of preparing, and the challenge, which makes it fun.If you're gonna be lazy and greedy and shoot an animal off a website (or even on an animal hunting farm, they have those too), go buy a steak from Hannaford. It'll probably cost you less money. How there can be any fun in doing something like that baffles me. It reminds me of two body builders in a gym. They start to talk about what they've done to get so big. The guy on steroids tells of the substances he's taken to the guy who spent countless hours working hard. He's gonna be laughed off. His achievement, like a hunter who didn't really hunt, shows no merit in the world of professionals.
Now, being the Rec and Leisure major that I am, I could go off on a huge tangent about what is sport, and what it isn't. But I don't even know if this whole response is going to fit in your text field, so I'll leave it at that.
Doug Replied: Ha! It all fit, Beth. I knew you'd want to comment on this one!
...and does this mean you ain't goin' after bruce with sticks and stones?
On May 8, 2005 Beth wrote: Wow Doug that was FAST. I had just finished reading all of your entries that I hadn't seen yet, and BAMMO, my comment is already posted!
Nope, that would put me at a severe disadvantage. If I actually got close enough to hurt a moose with a stick or stone, he's just run me over or toss me aside with his rack (antlers). Now that's not quite sporting, is it?;-)
Doug Replied: *sigh* okay...I didn't really want you to get runned over anyway...
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