Stoneramhunter, I find it somewhat interesting that you seem to be onboard with the wolf cull, but for some reason you seem to be against the grizzly hunt because it is a "trophy hunt"? Wolves indescriminantly shot from a helicopter with no regards to age or family unit composition is ok, but killing a bear and enriching ones life for the experience isn't ok?
For the record, I have zero issue with people who hunt for the experience when done fairly, making their own decisions, and reconciling that experience in their minds for their own benefit. Being led by the nuts to a big bull elk or ram or deer that other people patterned and hunted isn't a hunt to me, its merely being the trigger man in the execution of an animal.
I don't classify killing a hog in the pen in my back yard as a hunt, even though I was the only person involved in the entire process from trigger pull to pork chop.
I have zero issue with people, like myself, who are picky on the animals they kill, and let the experience guide their compass on when they are ready for a hunt to be over.
I also have zero issue with people who are as thrilled with shooting a spike muley from the side of the road as I am from finding a mature 4 point high in the rocks on the last day of the season. Not everyone hunts for the same reasons. I hunt deer every single year, all season long, but I sure as hell don't do it for the meat.
And yes, I absolutely do classify myself as a trophy hunter. I don't find issue with the term.
I wrote this a couple years ago when I was feeling a bit verbose, and possibly a bit tipsy. (I apologize to the ones who have read it already, but it did seem kind of fitting in this thread...)
Not everyone hunts for the same reasons. Period.
I am a sheep hunter. I love sheep meat, but I have no interest in hunting ewes. I will not condemn those that choose to though. I hunt sheep for the experience, for the chance to be out there in their country and watch them, and for the hope that I can find one big enough to kill so that I can posses him, hold his horns in my hands, and wonder about the chips and gouges he acquired in his life time. I will look at those horns on the wall and relieve those days long past the time that I am able to climb those mountains. The meat will be eaten because I like it, but that is a trophy to me as well. Few will be able to taste the meat of a mountain sheep fairly hunted, but I have.
I am a grizzly hunter. I run my fingers through the long fur of the mountain grizzly I killed, and I will relive those moments where I trailed him through the alders after I shot him. I will watch the video of his reaction to the shot as he fed high on a mountain slide, and I will be secure in the knowledge that my life is better for that experience, for I have hunted the grizzly in his home, on his terms. I did not hunt that bear so that his flesh might sustain me, I hunted that bear to collect the memories and to know deep down that I have been tested, and stood strong.
I am an elk hunter. I hunted elk across mountains and through forests. And I listened to the sweet sound of elk bugles and chuckles and grunts, and it filled my soul with purity and strength. I let animals that I could have killed walk unmolested, because they didn't meet the criteria I held myself to at that time. And when that season came close to ending I killed an elk that had no antlers, had no teeth, had nothing to offer in the way of a trophy but the memories, and it's sweet meat that fed my family over the winter.
I cannot pretend to fully understand your motivations for you trying to tell me why I should be ashamed of my reasons to hunt. And I don't expect you to understand my reasons to hunt. I can tell you though, that I am not ashamed of killing a bear, and taking his hide so that I might better remember his life. And I am not ashamed that his flesh fed the Ravens and Eagles and sustained lives other than mine, for that was his purpose, much the same as every other living being that has existed. Had I not killed that boar high on that mountain, his flesh would have come to no different end, possibly at some other time, but after his last breath, the result would have been the same; he provided life to other animals that needed it.