Very nicely written.

I don't understand why hunting gets such a bad rap in the furry community. I mean, really-- what the hell do people think foxes, wolves, cats, and all the other common fursona species do to eat? THEY KILL THINGS.
Also, knife to a gunfight much?

I think it's the general difference in principle. Animals hunt out of necessity and don't normally kill more than they need. Humans hunt for sport/vanity/fancy trinkets. Having said that, my uncle hunts and he cooks everything he kills, so I don't know where that falls in this.

On killing for sport: every hunter I know (and that's quite a few) consumes everything they kill, or donates the meat they harvest to food shelters. While they may hunt for sport and not neccessity, the animal's sacrifice is always respected. And think about it... if you go to all the trouble to drag yourself into the woods at some ungodly hour in the morning, stalk a deer, and then shoot it, why on earth would you just leave the carcass there?

The one exception to full consumption-- that I'm aware of-- is for nuisance animals such as wild hogs, which are vastly overpopulating large swaths of the US; a half-dozen can ruin an acre of farmland in a single night. Population control and protection of property are, I think, valid reasons to hunt.

Even African safaris, perhaps the most ostentatious type of hunting, end up donating animals' meat to local villages who really need it. Somewhat ironically, safari hunting also provides a real economic incentive for governments to stop poachers and ensure the survival of elephants, lions, water buffalo, and so on-- if there wasn't a financial incentive, why would the authorities care? This practice also injects a tremendous amount of money into the local economy and provides employment, something that can be said of all kinds of hunting.

A final point-- sad as it is, animals aren't always the paragons of virtue and purity we sometimes want to think they are:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surp.....ling#section_3
(Much as I'm loath to quote Wikipedia as a source, the reference links are worth your attention)
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infa.....ogy)#section_2
(see the "Infanticide involing sexual conflict" section)

Hope I provided some food for thought.
-GunRacer

Thank you for the information. I should probably mention that the use of a vengeful deer was not intended as a comment on hunting. I was struggling to come up with something for camo boots/longswords when a friend suggested a vengeful deer. Though if you're interested in reading about unseemly animal behaviours, I suggest you also look up "The First Recorded Instance of Homosexual Necrophilia in the Mallard". I am not making that up.

Oh, I understand that "writers gonna write," and that was a very creative way to put your prompt to use. But there's also a tremendous amount of misinformation about hunting that's out there (just a few weeks ago, a guy I knew said he thought animals that were hunted and shot became deadly to consume because the bullet in them would instantly contaminate all their meat, so any animal that was hunted was totally wasted)... if there's an opportunity to help give people a fuller picture, I'll take it.

Anyways. The mallard thing? No. Just no.