THE HOLISTIC HUNTER
My use of the all-encompassing moniker the “shooting sports” has been troubling me lately. It's a convenient catch-all term. However, I've been wondering if it's fit for purpose. While part of what I do when hunting does involve shooting, pulling the trigger is a small part of the whole. I'm happy to concede that target shooting is a sport, I'm just not so sure that the taking of life (whilst hunting) should be classified as such.
Naturally, when we describe an afternoon of stalking rabbits as “great sport”, we do not mean it in quite the same vein as a football fan might when describing a hotly contested match.
We are speaking of the challenge involved, but there is room for nuance within the terminology. The difficulty is that recently nuance is recognised less and less in the forum of public debate.
But it's not just about the outward impact of our language; what we say resonates inwards too, and informs how we perceive ourselves and by extension how we go about our business.
In my search for a better descriptor for my hunting I've been drawn to the concept of holism. To take
