History of Hunting-Tools, Weapons, Tactics, Roles and Purpose

Am Shooting Journal ^ | 10/1/2018 | S Ott

[w1n1]

Since the existence of life as we know it, hunting has been the key to survival for predators, leaving their prey with the paranoia of being eaten day in, day out. Back in the day, life was all about hunting.
Everything’s sole purpose was merely to survive.
Then came the dawn of man, who would become the smartest predator to ever roam the planet, dominate the food chain and eventually alter the entire purpose of hunting altogether.

A man’s mind is the source of his power. Without it, he wouldn’t be able to create tools and weapons or think of tactics for hunting. Before analyzing modern hunters, it’s important to understand where they came from and what tools, weapons and tactics they used in the hunting process since their first cognitive thought.

Tools/Weapons
If you haven’t seen 2001: A Space Odyssey, you should at least see the beginning. Stanley Kubrick shows the dawn of man and how they emerged by learning how to adapt an object into a tool and a weapon. The bone, which represents a tool/weapon, is then visually matched with a shuttle floating through space. This represents the progression humans made with the use of tools and weapons.

Bones, Sticks & Stones: We’ve come a long way from these primitive tools and weapons. Now days, it seems laughable to even think about using a bone, stick or stone... Read the rest of history of hunting.

[Big Red Badger]

That “Shuttle” was a Missile Launcher.

[Sacajaweau]

I always hated that escalation pic.

[Big Red Badger]

Me Too.
It should begin with a
Primordial Swamp!

[schurmann]

The writers and editors of American Shooting Journal have made a big mistake in their final point.

Predators have been taken out not through limitless sport-hunting, but through habitat loss and deliberate killing - because they competed with animal husbandry: ranching, herding, bird-flock-keeping and the like.

The human propensity to bring non-native animals into environments where they have never lived before sometimes reaches absurd levels.

Over a dozen years ago, the State Game/Fish/Parks Dept of South Dakota decided to allow limited hunting of mountain lions (the big cats had begun to increase in numbers, after being hunted to non-existence in earlier years, as threats to ranchers and farmers). Some people approved, some did not; public debated heated up, and comments from folks on both sides of the issue were placed on record.

One local landowner took severe and vocal issue with the notion of any limits on lion hunting; it came out he had been attempting to raise some very exotic geese. Shortly after he had had eight geese imported (from some tropical nation like Ecuador, if memory serves) at rather serious expense (something like $2,400.00), mountain lions got into his pen and devoured the luckless birds.

In an op-ed the local newspaper published on a Saturday, the wannabe geese-herder condemned all who did not support total eradication of mountain lions - which he vilified as “wonton killers” [sic].