Formal Writing

Hunting Animals for Sport Should Not Be Banned:

Hunting animals for sport should not be banned. In this essay, I will explain how it helps the environment by eradicating pests, hunting certain animals is already illegal, and how it can train people in the correct usage and handling of firearms.

There are 7 classifications of conservational status for animals; extinct, extinct in the wild, critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable, near threatened, and, the category that humans fall under, least concern. Great efforts have been made for the species before vulnerable. Most animals that are hunted for sport in New Zealand are least concern or, in some cases, invasive, such as carnivores like stoats, weasels, possums, and rats, or herbivores that feed on native plants, like tahr, deer and wallabies. These have decimated New Zealand’s wildlife and plant-life, and it seems that hunting them until we can reduce their populations to a manageable size, and then farming them for either meat or fur. Hunting least concern status species also prevents overpopulation, as some species with great populations, although they are normally positively co-existent with their environment, as with European rabbits in England, managed by fox populations, but tear through it with large populations.

Another point that I must make is that any hunting of endangered animals is already illegal. The average New Zealander is not going to stalk and hunt a kiwi, for example. There are laws set in place preventing the poaching/killing of threatened species. Besides, our population already has a vested interest of maintaining and increasing the population of threatened animals. As explained above, hunting certain species that can decimate threatened species will, in time, increase the latter’s population, while allowing us to control and manage the former’s population.

Finally, hunting trains people how to handle firearms. If we are more proficient in the correct usage of firearms, accidental injuries and deaths by shooting will drop. On average, since 1979 there has been one accidental shooting of a hunter by another hunter every nine months. On a more offensive side of this point, if New Zealand were to go to war with, for sake of example, Australia, we would need to train soldiers to serve for the country. If applicants already had basic knowledge of firearm usage, fewer man-hours would be wasted on teaching them how to load, aim, and fire a weapon.

In short, hunting animals for sport should not be banned, as it eliminates pests, does not affect endangered and protected animals, and teaches people correct firearm handling and safety around firearms.

By Matthew Hitchings

Heil Satan, Hitler, Osama bin LAden and Gary Busey!