You're right on that first part, I've only hunted what were essentially tame deer on a small island. Very much a "harvest" situation for a years worth of sausage.
I've no moral pangs about a burger, but I don't go championing myself for manliness in eating one, either. My issue isn't with hunting in general, it's with folks that think they are hot **** for shooting an animal just for the trophy of it. It's so wildly juvenile to think you've bested nature by shooting a polar bear or elephant or jaguar for sport. The technological advantage is so stupefying that it's a surprise these same guys aren't showing off their store bought jeans like "hey y'all, I domesticated cotton!"
Again, you should take the time to learn what is actually involved in hunting an animal, especially an apex predator like a bear or wild cat. Even with the technological advantage available to humans (which has arguably been our only advantage ever since we began as nomadic hunters), the actions and skills required to locate and shoot an animal are not easy to come by. By your own admission, your only experience with hunting is shooting a bunch of tame deer which were trapped on an island....so what is it that you think you know about hunting big and dangerous game in the wilds of North America? I also can't help but notice a little hypocrisy in your opinion: you'll call a hunter who tracks down and kills a dangerous polar bear in the remote wilderness of North America a "pansy," but yet you think nothing of shooting a bunch of trapped deer which have been de-sensitized to human presence.
As for a particular hunter's motivation, I really don't care what motivates him/her, so long as the rules are followed and money is paid into the conservation system.
In this day-and-age, with moral outrage just one click away, I don't think most hunters are going after animals in order to show-off to the rest of the world....I know I don't. You spend quite a bit of time cold, uncomfortable and uncertain in a very remote, and sometimes dangerous, environment. That's a lot of hardship to endure, and I suspect most hunters endure it for a more substantial reason rather than for some egotistical and vain attempt to show off. There are easier ways to impress other people, if that's your true goal.
I'm not saying that those hunters don't exist. But it's unfair to paint all hunters with such a broad stroke.
The people who legally hunt and harvest bears arguably provide more, financially-speaking, to bear conservation than the internet-dwellers who mock and decry such an activity.
