Meditations On Hunting By Peter Grieve
One of the best books on hunting is “Meditations on Hunting” by the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset (he likes it, by the way).
One of his amusing points is that while people speak of “defenseless” animals, every hunter knows that every animal has a great defense, that of being elsewhere.
Hunting really doesn’t fit into any categories. It’s not nature, because there are rules. It’s not a sport, because one of the participants doesn’t want to play. It’s not economic behavior (nowadays, anyway), and it’s not relaxation.
My take is that it’s a kind of controlled participation in Nature, where deeply primitive elements are combined with very noble goals.