Kill Thrill?

R

roy reali

New member
Does anyone here actually enjoy killing?

Years ago I read an article about African Lions. They studied there behaviors during the actual kill of prey. Evidence suggested to the researchers that the lions might actually get a thrill as they suffocate the life out of an animal. The females seemed to make sounds that they make when they are playing with their cubs. They emitted a "purring" type sound.

You always here human hunters say that killing an animal is just part of the game. It is something that has to be done in order to aquire meat or fur. You rarely hear of a hunter say they get their kicks from killing. How much of this is our way of giving Joe Public a "PC" answer? Do we secretly enjoy killing?

The most common nongame critters we have here are Jackrabbits. I have to admit, I enjoy shooting them. I don't eat them or salvage their hide. The buzzards and the ravens have an easy, free meal as far as I am concerned. I could say I get the thrill by just being able to hit one, being a good enough shot to do it. I also shoot inanimate objects. Even though I enjoy hitting a rock two hundred yards away with a handgun, it doesn't compare with knocking off a bunny fifty yards away with a rifle.

Is there a thrill that comes with killing? If there is, is it natural, or are some of us mentally defective?
 
There is a certain thrill to hunting and getting your game. However, to me it's the thrill of the chase verse the actual act. In all honesty, I love to hunt, but I hate to kill an animal. However, I eat what I hunt and killing is by product of the act. One might say you haven't hunted until you make your first kill.

There is certainly a dual facet in hunting and I guess the only way to explain is to hunt yourself and for me anyway, I try to reconcil the differences between the two in between when the rifle fires and the animal falls.
 
Last edited:
Kreyzhorse, i feel much the same as you. i also have shot poorly on occasion and a wounded animal escaped and there is no worse feeling for me than that.
 
If I didn't "enjoy" every aspect of a hunt, then I wouldn't hunt.

But I do, and it's no "secret" that killing an animal is a part of it.

I hunt hard when I hunt, and working toward a successful end makes it all that much more enjoyable when it finally all comes together.

Daryl
 
Remember when you were a kid and felt the thrill of anticipation when you were playing hide and seek? Your heart would race and your senses focus as someone came closer and closer? That's a naturally occurring facet of the human psyche. We thrill at the hunt. For some of us, it fades as we mature, because we don't engage in our ancient hunting behavior. For those who hunt, however, this thrill never fades.
 
I like everything about hunting except the kill itself. There’s an intense thrill immediately before the kill, and a sense of satisfaction. That mixes with a slight depression a split second later when an animal falls. Then the work begins, the depression immediately disappears, and I’m left with the satisfaction of having the meat.
I don’t get that little taste of depression with pests, just with the species that I care about being in the woods. Still, there doesn’t seem to be a thrill in killing itself, but from knowing my skills bested theirs.

The purring of a lion while killing isn’t necessarily them enjoying the kill itself either. The hunt isn’t over until the prey is dead. An antelope wiggling loose is an unsuccessful hunt. For them, the last part of the hunt lasts longer than a split-second, well placed rifle shot. I say this because I was once stuck in a situation where I had to strangle a dog in self-defense. There was a thrill in "conquering", for lack of a better word, and there were spikes in the "sense of a thrill" when I was able to counter his struggles, but in the split second I realized the struggle was over, that slight depression came.
There don't seem to be words to describe this stuff well. The depression only lasts as long as you let it, and might be more of a regret that the kill was part of the process ? For me, hunting is a microcosm of the struggle of life itself. There are some "downs" along the way, and death/loss is a part of it … but the living and gains far outweigh the "downs".
 
Having graduated with an undergrad degree in Biology, I can tell you that most of the "scientific" types that make statements about how animals feel when they do this or that are anthropomorphizing almost as bad as Walt Disney. Saying that a lion enjoys killing as much as playing with the cubs brings out the first question of "how do you know?". "Well, they make the same sounds". Well, I make the same sounds when I am eating a nicely grilled steak and going after my wife, but it ain't the same thing! Did they interview the lion? Have it fill out a form listing enjoyment on a scale of 1-10? No? Then they have no way of knowing what the animal is feeling or not feeling. I can tell you for a fact that I get excited by a steak dinner, but it's not the same as the excitement I feel when I get the look from my wife, which is different from the excitement I get driving at 160 mph, etc, etc.

Anyway, yes, there is some enjoyment to killing. Jackrabbits are fun, ground squirrels are a blast, rockchucks are eminently satisfying, starlings are almost like taking a major trophy, crows just look good coming unglued from a well-placed 22-250, mule deer or elk are almost a religious experience, and shooting a prime winter coyote ranks way up there. But we are taught by society not to enjoy killing for the sake of killing, it's a dangerous thing to have running loose in society. So we kill things that kill us, and teach people not to kill other things for fun. It's probably a good thing.
 
Hunting is something that is simply instinctive in us. I enjoy the hunt. I think some of the ancient cultures that said a prayer for the animal they had just killed might have had it pinned down just as close as we will.
 
Truth be known the human male is a bloodthirsty animal.

What seperates (some of us) from the lower predators is a sense of compassion for the animals we stalk and kill.
 
I wouldn't go so far as to call it a thrill but I rather enjoy being the apex predator taking the life of my quarry for my own gains...

If I went thru the moves to stalk my quarry yet failed to seal the deal, I wouldn't be too happy about it...

I have killed with many means and this includes sticking hogs with a knife... I would be a liar (pronounced politician) if I deny having a very happy grin on my face when I make a good kill no matter the method...
Brent
 
To me its the thrill of the Hunt, not the Kill;

My most memorial hunting trip was taking my Granddaughter on her first elk hunt.

Didnt fire a shot. Got pelted with snowballs while glassing a hillside, damn near froze my belly when I pulled her off her horse, took off her wet boots and held her feet under my shirt to warm them up. Stopping every little bit to build a fire to make her hot choc. and my coffee.

Like I said, we didnt fire a shot, but we did have the only snowman in elk camp.

Its the thrill of the hunt, not the killing.
 
There's nothin' like listening to the song dogs as the sun sets with a nice bourbon in the hand and mesquite knots poppin' in the fire at deer camp. Man has listened to those coyotes since man become man. Even if you don't like coyotes, you have to admire their ability to thrive and work in a pack. I love coyotes, but I won't hesitate for a moment to pop one if I've given up the hunt for game. I don't save the pelt nor would I consider trying to cook one. Armadillos and skunk are in the same category and feral pigs are just a notch above (I will definitely eat a feral pig sow). I enjoy tilting the odds in favor of my preferred game and quarry. I don't think I'm ready to call killing a 'yote a thrill, but I find satisfaction in knowing the quail have one less predator looking for them. Same goes for 'dillos, feral cats and skunks. Even so, I find it hard to wait for the next dog song on a clear and cool November evening.
 
The sense of compassion for an animal is only allowed by anthropomorphism, imo. It doesn’t belong in science, but it’s a part of life.
Our pets might just have a touch of canipomormhism or felipomorphism (sometimes its fun to make-up words) that allow them to have compassion for us. There’s no way to really tell, but it seems that way sometimes. We can overanalyze the unknowable, or simply accept what seems to be true. There’s no harm done as long as sentimentality doesn’t outweigh functionality, imo.
 
I eat meat. Meat has to be killed. I can pay extra $$ to have some stranger kill meat that is pumped full of hormones and chemicals, or I can go kill my own all natural hormone and pesticide free meat.

I kill my own cattle, and I kill my own game. I wouldn't even call what I do hunting. I park my Jeep on the edge of alfalfa fields along the river. I set sand bags on the hood, and I nestle a 12 pound 22-250 into the bags, wait for light. As soon as it is light enough I pick out the fattest deer, shoot them in the head. Aint no sport about it. I can get up to five deer B tags at once for my zone. With the one steer and five or so deer elk and antelope I get every year, my family eats pretty healthy. As soon as the shot is made, the work begins. Nothing to get excited about really.
 
BIg youre more harvesting than hunting. I agree tho, the meat today, is full of chemicals, pesticides, preservatives and a million other things. I Live in Southern California in suburbia so no framing/harvesting/hunting for me, tho i would definitely do it.
 
Is there a thrill that comes with killing?
Click to expand...

No, I feel sorta sad, even with a steer that was raised for one reason. Sad that a life was taken, but taken for a purpose.

The thrill is in the hunt, the stalk, getting up close and personal. That is what I like about hunting besides the eating part. :)

On birds it is watching a good dog scent the game and take you right to it with a stout point. Never fails to amase me to see a dog use the gift God gave him in that nose, and then how can a bird that big hide so well even in a dirt field? :)
 
I only hunt feral hogs. I don't know that I would call it kill thrill, there is big excitement that builds up to the shot. If anything the shot kills that thrill. I know there is also anger and depression from blowing a shot as well.

I would rather not have to kill them, but I can't let them free range on my property.
 
For mr, the thrill comes from a well-placed shot. I don't get any special pleasure from killing the game, but I eat meat and you don't get meat without killing something.
A former Bio major myself, I agree wholeheartedly with Scorch. Much of animal behavior we tend to attribute to feelings or conscious thought is simply instinctive. The lion's belly is empty, it kills a zebra. It really is as simple as that.
 
This is the kind of thread that makes you stop and think

I looked at this thread a couple of times today....I really had to think about it before I answered. For me. it comes down to a few things. First, have I made a good decision to take the shot in the first place? Is this the animal I want to take down? Am capable of making the shot in the current situation? I hate to lose game to a poor shot. To me, the thrill comes with the success of bringing down the animal as cleanly as possible. I strive to make my kill more humane than what happens in slaughter houses and with the exception of woodchucks, I only kill what I eat.
 
I'm with .284 in that I looked at it a couple of times before I could figure out how to respond.

Back when I commercial fished I never gave the killing a second thought. Did not get any satisfaction out of the killing. Did feel good when the nets and traps were full though.

When I hunt, even when we hunt gators which I guess sense we sell them could be called commercial in some sense, I do think about it. And I will say that "enjoy" is not a word I would use for the actual act.

I feel bad, really bad, when I make a animal suffer because I did not do something right. One of the worst feelings is to leave a animal in the woods.

If killing something was the only reason I went to the woods then the motovation would be gone. I mean if you like to kill you can find far easier ways than to go through the trouble and cost of hunting. That in and of itself seems to give weight to the position that killing is not the motovating factor.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top