Taking joy in death is retrograde

IT’S called ‘game’ because that is supposed to be the method used to kill it — a game of chase for us powerful humans exerting our authority over defenceless animals.

But I don’t see the game element of it at all — it thoroughly disgusts me that we should choose to extinguish the life of a creature unable to fight against our might, and tools, simply to satisfy our need to feed.

We are not cavemen, we don’t have to rely on flesh any longer in order to sate our appetites, so why are we still killing? Is it because our ancestors were born with a very strong need to hunt and kill in order to provide for their families? It’s a savage urge that some men and, naturally, fewer women, are intent on carrying on, long after it has outlived its use. I see no difference between game hunting and hare coursing, badger-baiting or cock-fighting. There is something so vile, so retrograde, so basic, about men gathering to take joy from the death of another creature.

You can dress it up with fine clothes, nice conversation and expensive weaponry, but to me it’s mass murder, without having to answer for your actions.

And don’t pass me off as a bean-eating eco-warrior: we all know it’s wrong. How else do you explain the disinfecting of the language with terms like the dogs ensuring the pheasant is ‘dispatched with urgency’ when what our writer means is that the dogs are sent to retrieve the poor ailing birds so the butchering of them can be finished off? And what about the irony of the ‘gamekeeper’ being in charge of their diet and ‘safekeeping’ in the run up to the day of the mass carnage?! Don’t make me sick.

These birds are bred for the entertainment of humans and we justify their deaths by devouring them later with some fava beans and a nice chianti, to borrow a quote from Hannibal Lecter.