Review and Analysis of Hunting for Food Significance in The Hunting, Climate Change and The Future of Food, an Article by Nick Romero

Romeo, N. (2012, October 7). Hunting, Climate Change and the Future of Food. Retrieved September 28, 2016, from http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/08/hunting-climate-change-and-the-future-of-food.html?source=dictionary

In the article, “Hunting, Climate Change, and the Future of Food”, journalist, Nick Romero discusses how using hunting to gather food comes with many benefits such as the avoidance of chemicals and other pollutants in animal meats. Mr. Romero states, “as long as you’re not growing or raising your own food, you have to trust what people tell you about it” (2012). Author Steven Rinella claims that, “One simple solution to this problem is to hunt and kill whatever you eat” (Romero 2012). While hunting your food seems to be an easy solution to the problem of pollutants in animal meats many worry that the animals will suffer when they are killed for their meat. Mr. Rinella states, “Most animals raised for human consumption suffer considerably, whereas most wild animals killed by hunters suffer briefly. So if you’re going to eat meat, kill it yourself” (Romero 2012). Mr. Romero however counters this argument by stating, “Rinella rehearses this argument for hunting, but his attachment to hunting doesn't seem primarily ethical or intellectual” (2012). In spite of this, I seem to think that Mr. Rinella is driven to hunt by tradition, the will to live a healthy life without consuming chemical filled meats, and the desire to be outdoors. Mr. Rinella also made his living on hunting and writing about it. He has written the book, “Meat Eater: Adventures from the Life of an American Hunter” and made a substantial amount of money by trapping game. This shows that some hunters live off of hunting and it is their main source of income. Because of this business like comparison to hunting Mr. Romero states, “It would have been interesting to see an argument for the scalability of hunting: what percentage of American meat demand could hunting satisfy without disrupting ecosystems and food-chains?” (2012) Mr. Romero ends his discussion on hunting by recalling Mr. Rinella’s shift to trophy hunting. Mr. Romero states, “Rinella recounts his shift from hunting for food to hunting for sport. ‘Just to be clear, catch-and-release fishing amounts to poking a hole into a fish’s face and exhausting it, then letting it go because you don’t want to hurt it’” (2012).

This source was helpful because it allowed me to hear the opinion of an avid hunter and why he does what he does. The first portion of this source was equal in comparison with my other sources, but the final portion was irrelevant to my topic because it began to discuss global warming and the global lack of food provisions. I found that this source was unbiased because the author merely presented Mr. Rinella’s opinion towards pro-hunting while not letting his opinions overpower Mr. Rinella’s opinions.

This source fits into my research effectively because it presents the opinion of an experienced hunter. This source enhanced how I think about this topic in the way that the author presents Mr. Rinella’s intimate relationship with hunting and the joy he feels while participating in it.