....Hardly any of us are entirely logical or honest about the hunting of animals. "Hardly
any" because logic has to be conceded to strict vegans who won't drink milk or wear
leather. Jet alone eat meat or take an animal's life, not to mention the Jains who wear face
masks so as no to swallow riny insects inadvertently.
The rest of us are inevitably ambiguous and hypocritical. Most of us do eat meat and wear
leather and wool, many of us enjoy some form of field sport. And yet we are still revolted
by a story like the shooting of three practically tame elephants....
...There is clearly a difference between stalking a wild stag, which detects and takes fight
at a human being several hundred yards away, and clubbing a corpulent deer in a public
park. Our perception of the two deaths has to do less with some equally intangible
aesthetic quality....
...I don't hunt but I do fish, yet if I had to choose to outlaw one field sport, it would not
be hunting. At least the foxes hunted and the hares coursed are wild creatures. But there is
surely something aesthetically displeasing about modern commercial trout fishing and
pheasant shooting....
....But for the rest of us, even as we go on chasing animals, we have to justify sport by
that very word. It's not the lack of decency or humanity in killing a tame elephant, not
even the grubby greed that offends, but quite simply the lack of anything resembling a
sportsman's challenge.