What's Wrong with Hunting?
People's Opinion About Hunting
During a Work in Progress Day I had the chance to interview several people in my school about how they feel and what they think about "hunting" when they first hear this word. I gave each person a few minutes to reflect before answering. Most of the participants were in lower grades such as 5th grade and below. However I was very suprised with some of the responses since they very well explained their thoughts in few words.
I was also very shocked by how many people were in favour of hunting rather than against it since I have anticipated that most people would have an opposing view.
Many people during The Work in Progress Day have asked me for my own opinion about this subject but it was very hard to explain since the goal of this project is to understand hunting without a preconceived opinion.
Here are the responses that I have obtained recently on the survey:
Source of the gragh: Survey Monkey
At this point I have received 67 responses from my school. The graph shows that 19% of the responses are for hunting. 44% of the responses were in between since they all had a concrete answer. 43% of the responses have voted against hunting. Only 9% so far had no particular opinion on this subject. To sum up, the majority of the answers from the survey indicate that opinions fluctuate between a neutral and a negative point of view on hunting.
In my opinion the reasons why people have responded unfavorably could show a misconception of this topic, even though some could be knowledgeable or experts on the topic.
I believe that poaching triggers the misunderstanding of the concept of hunting since these are two completely different subjects.
What is then poaching? Poaching can be defined as the illegal hunting, killing or capturing of wild animals. While hunting, however follows specific regulations, national and governamental laws, conservational rights and land permissions. Hunter always have to pay tax, fees for trophy animals and need to obtain a legal license and authorization to kill certain animals.
On the other hand, unfortunatuly some people take advantage and break those rules. Poachers tend to disobey the laws (capturing wildlife outside legal hours and hunting seasons and using prohibited weapons)and kill animals with out permission from the government and land owners. Most of the time poachers leave carcasses or injured animals lying around. They sell trophies to the black market, they mostly attack endangered animals for their skin, fur and tusks. Poaching produces a negative impact in the ecosystem and reduces animal population and possible extinction of species. One recent example of an unauthorized killing is the tragic case of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe in the summer of 2015.
Below you find a link to a survey (Survey Monkey). The results allow us to understand people's perpectives about hunting.
If you could take a minute of your time to fill out this survey that would really help the progress of my project.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2JBNVW3
