I too have mixed feelings.

It would be one thing if hunters were, at considerable trouble and risk to themselves, hunting for subsistence and respectfully entering into a verdant, healthy and intact ecosystem to harvest the fat of the land and protein to keep themselves alive.

Problem is that most hunters are not filling a vital need in their families diet. Most hunters, and their families, are thirty pounds overweight and consume far too much fat and protein for their own good.

The money they spend for special hunting gear every year would buy more meat at the local Mega-Mart than they safely eat.

And hunting, especially as it is so often done down here, release the dogs and wait to shoot the deer as it runs across a road on the other side of the quadrangle, is not a sport. The deer never win and seldom break even. Exception being when the beer saturated hunters blast each others trucks as the deer bounds between them.

Even the ecological role many hunters claim is a bit of a crock. I have never heard a hunter brag about how weak and mangy the deer he just shot was. Even the most honorable hunters don't fill the roll of a predator. A predator kills the weak, old, diseased and slow while leaving the strong and vibrant of the species to perpetuate their line. Hunters always aim for the strongest, largest and healthiest while leaving the weak, old and diseased.

Of course the hunters are also only interested in certain animals. So the ecosystems are manipulated to favor those types. Florida had something like a dozen species of deer not too long ago. Now white tail deer constitute the vast majority of the deer remaining. Humans have the uncanny ability to reduce a vibrant and diverse ecosystem to a narrow, fragile mono-culture in a remarkably short amount of time. It isn't just hunters. Loggers, four-wheelers, ATV enthusiasts, sport fishermen and developers all get a piece of this action.

Of course one of the most disgusting sights I saw while hiking was where a hunter had shot a deer and skinned it. The hunter took the head and skin for a trophy and left the carcass to rot. I spent more than a few hours dreaming up the appropriate punishment. Medieval doesn't even begin to cover what I had in mind. Hannibal Lector would blanch.

Of course the biggest threat to wildlife isn't hunters. It is habitat loss. Parking lots, strip malls and McMansions stobbed in every 200' eat up territory. A lot of this comes down to cars and highways. Before interstates there were very few 'bedroom' communities or long-distance commuters. If you worked in town you lived in town. Cars and highways have allowed the miles and miles of suburban wasteland to exist.

As we expand into the wilderness every square inch of land is accounted for and 'owned'. Bears and deer don't pay taxes or build the cubist nightmares of suburban life that keep the builders and developers smiling so they get compromised out of existence. At least hunters tacitly own the harm they do.

I have been hunting a few times. Only got one deer. Using a high-power rifle I shot him. Clean shot at perhaps 150m. He bolted, took three bounds and fell over. He tried to get up a couple of times but by the time we got there, perhaps a minute or so, it was dead. I was amazed at how pretty and graceful the deer was. And how easy and unfulfilling it was to shoot. I felt better about seeing and observing the deer than shooting it.

It also dawned on me that I had given no thought to what I would do with a dead deer. I lived in an apartment with very little in the way of methods of cooking and a refrigerator so small it barely would hold a twelve-pack of beer. Luckily my friend had a chest freezer and a family that ate deer regularly. When we got to his place we carved off a few choice cuts for me to have at home. His father appreciated the hide as he was teaching a Boyscout troop how to tan leather. Cool deal by me.

So that was my deer hunt where I came back as 'the mighty hunter'. We went out to drink that night and everyone told me what a great shot it was and how proud I should feel. I didn't feel proud. I also didn't feel like a monster or murderer. I didn't feel much of anything. It was so mechanical. The deer never saw it coming and shot without any joy or feeling. Only something like mechanical efficiency. The only feeling was a feeling of competency with a little luck. I had followed procedure and the bullet had landed where I aimed it. I felt lucky the deer died quickly. I don't think it suffered much. The look in its eyes was one of surprise, not anguish or pain.

On following hunting trips I was always careful to make sure I 'didn't have a shot' and a 'missed' a couple of times. I sure did like to be out in the woods. Hunting inspired me to get back into hiking.

I feel like I have proven to myself that I can hunt. That I can carry through with the mechanics of the harvest. If I was forced by events to hunt again I think I could give an adequate showing of myself.

But one question keeps surfacing. Exactly what role does hunting play in survival? In most disasters I'm not likely to be where hunting is possible or practical. After a hurricane shooting game in a semi-suburban environment seems more hazardous than it is worth. And showing up with a forty pound deer carcass when folks are worried about the meat defrosting in the freezer seems wasteful.

If I was to find myself in a remote area hunting sounds good but I think my biggest concern would be getting found or getting back to civilization. Hunting could easily turn into a distraction. At most I might take small game if it presented itself along the way. A squirrel or rabbit or two might be beneficial as long as I didn't have to take too much time or trouble to get it.

Of course there is always the mythical mass breakdown of civilization. I doubt I would be doing much hunting in that case either. There are likely a couple million mall ninjas and part-time hunters out there. You can pretty much count on all of them to be out there harassing the local wildlife. I see no advantage to getting caught in the crossfire. Let them kill each other off. I will be hunkered down until the gunfire and screaming stops.

Point being I don't see a big role for hunting in most survival situations I'm likely to find myself in. If and when I see a role for it I feel I could get the job done. I don't have any compunctions about killing if killing is the most effective and practical way to go.