Culture and Hunting

Our society has many views on what is right and wrong; hunting is no exception as I’ve said before, I know I’m a broken record.  When it comes to hunting we think of it typically within our own culture, but the truth is there are still cultures that still rely on hunting for their main source of food.  The Martu people are Australian Aboriginals that continue to hunt and gather.  Other cultures include the Mikea people of Madagascar –who returned to hunting and gathering recently— in India alone there is the Chenchu, the Birhor, the Nyaka, the Paliyan and the Andaman Islanders. The list can go on and on so I’ll spare the boredom.  What I’m trying to say is there are still many cultures that rely on hunting and gathering.  So what separates our hunting and that of the cultures that hunt daily?

Hunting in our own culture is highly controversial, so why do we worry so much when only 7% (according to dfg.ca.gov) of the U.S. population hunts and multiple cultures hunt 365 days a year.  Over the course of human history hunting and gathering were the main sources of providing food prior to large scale agriculture.  While it seems that even the earliest humans were hunters and gatherers; the truth is they were probably scavengers.  The first evidence of a group using hunting and gathering as a strategy is presumed to be Homo erectus, 1.8 million years ago.  Modern day hunting in the U.S. is regulated heavily and provides large amounts of funding.  In cultures, like the ones stated above, that rely on hunting as a source of food there is no regulation or funding benefits and yet there isn’t controversy. 

It’s easy to see why there is little controversy with the cultures that hunt for survival.  Our society lives with modern day food resources that make it so we don’t have to rely on hunting.  The cultures that rely on hunting hunt only as needed, for survival.  Instead of hunting for survival we hunt for sport, but in actuality that’s not entirely true.  Some remote locations like Alaska, people have to hunt for survival.  Even these remote locations are regulated.  Killing a moose in Alaska is no easy task; the animal must be a regulation animal; even after the kill all parts must be disposed of properly.  An Alaska state trooper will go out of the way to find the animal remains and inspect it.  After inspection if something hasn’t been done properly the hunter could face a large fine and a/or a year in prison.  That is a huge difference between our cultures hunting for survival and the hunting for survival by other cultures.  We still have regulation with strict consequences while other cultures don’t.