Why Teach Hunting?
Why teach hunting? Hunting's kind of an old, unpopular, out-of-date sport. Wouldn't a young person be better off, playing one of the more popular team sports. Consider football! Compare this popular sport to hunting.
The best players are popular, and often get a college scholarship. You won't get that from hunting.
Why teach hunting? Football is over after high school! For the very best after college! Professional football? Anything is possible; someone will win the lottery, but millions and millions will not. After high school 99% of those who played team sports become spectators. Guys may get up a game once in a while, or they toss a ball around a little, but mostly it's over. Many children become totally immersed in team sports. Then it's over for them about the time they are making mature decisions for themselves. Some, become fanatical spectators, they follow "their" team's every move. They spend their money and "support" the team in every way a spectator can. Why teach hunting? As a spectator, recreation may be sitting, eating, drinking, and watching. It doesn't cause obesity, unhealthy, unhappy, drunks... but it may feed some of those problems. Individual sports can last for most of a persons life. Not just hunting; other individual sports: golf, tennis, cycling, bowling, fishing... They may not offer the "big bang rewards" in high school, but they could add up to more over a lifetime. Some of these outdoor sports such as hunting offer another benefit which many people don't "get". A connection with the natural world. Even some "hunters", seem to think connecting with nature is for intellectuals, tree-huggers, poets, or some other group they are too macho for. Why teach hunting? In todays fast paced, materialistic world; it's easy to be out in nature, but never actually connect with nature. There are exciting activities which move too quickly for a connection. A young person (most adults) would you rather go shooting than hunting, 4-wheeling instead of camping, power-boating beats canoeing. A quick thrill, the power, the excitement, the speed, the fun... They are fun! Authentic hunting may seem, slow, boring in comparison. It may be hard to "sell" the tranquil, parts of hunting. It takes time to "get it", and we're in a hurry. Those who have experienced the natural, understand it. It's difficult to teach, it's hard to explain, it must be experienced. These pages could be a start:
Whitetail Deer 101 <>
Why We Hunt 
Previous GenerationsHistory may give us another reason we need hunting. This old picture, how it once was: Mom-Buck (grandmother), and Uncle Dan.When I was growing up in 1960's it was common to see loaded gun-racks in pickups in Texas. Some trucks weren't even locked. They sat out in the high school parking lot all day. It was "no big deal". What happened? Now many schools have guards... Consider this: People/children once saw real life and death, they understood it, they also understood There was no rating system for the movies, video games... Children were more often watching real life. Little children often fed and watched young animals grow, live, and then be killed for their meat. They saw a chick grow into a chicken. One day mom chopped it's head off, it flopped around in great pain. They saw Mom cut it up, she cooked it, and they ate it for Sunday dinner. They understood life, death, pain, meat... Why teach hunting? Now meat is seen as a package we buy in the store! Mom pays a hit-man (meat processor/food store) to do the dirty work for her today. The clipping below is said to have come from a San Francisco newspaper. It's hard to imagine anyone being that ignorant... 
Today people/kids see violence, death, horrible things on TV, Movies... but it's not real. Much of life is not very real (natural) either. Our light, our heat is from a source other than the sun, our cooling is not from a breeze... We're clean and comfortable, but less connected to the real world, the natural world. Why teach hunting? Good authentic hunters become very intimate with nature, or they will have little success. We need to hunt, sometimes even kill, see, hear, feel, understand... the beauty, the pain... it's the real world. This video is great, it says some of the things I've tried to say.
We have many more pages of information. Why Teach Hunting to Authentic Hunting
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