The Justification of Duck Hunting

A lesson on investing in yourself, keeping your finger on the pulse and leaving work at work.

I’ve learned over the years to enter the breakroom at work meekly. 

I don’t boast of my weekend happenings, or of the political state of the world. Nor do I care much for the gossip that seems to make the day go by quickly. 

It’s well known and (on good authority) that I am, however, a duck hunter. The gratuitous amount of work missed each fall made that apparent early in my tenure at this job. There’s no story here of anti-hunters, pacifists and vegetarians threatening HR cases because of my tales in the field. Instead, the hunting culture is embraced within the confines of the chemical plant in which I work. Still, the admittance that I’m a duck hunter leads to doubt. 

“There ain’t much meat there,” a millwright I worked with surmised as I showed him a picture of a morning gone by. A strap of wood ducks, teal and gadwall wasn’t enough to persuade the lifelong deer hunter that duck hunting was a worthwhile venture. 

He had a point, though. How much money was I spending per bird each season? The number had to be obscene. Between my obsession with decoys, the cost of gas (I routinely burned a tank of gas for a single day’s hunt), shells, licenses and everything else, what was I exactly doing it for? 

I had to reckon with myself that it wasn’t for sustenance, no matter how nice the thought was that I was filling my plate each night with wild game. The only issue is, I wasn’t. Not off of duck, at least. Thank the Lord for fish. 

That left me with my own glutton and greed. I needed duck hunting. I needed the thrill. I needed my intimate understanding of ornithology, something that I’ve honed over the years. 

I needed the sport. 

Whew, that’s tough to admit in 2024.

The non-hunting public has drawn an important distinction in their ethical debate around hunting: Hunting for food and sustenance is perfectly fine and commendable. Hell, it’s even preferred, given the other option is pen-raised beef subjected to all sorts of unethical conditions. 

Hunting for sport, on the other hand, may as well be illegal. The idea of sport hunting evokes images of the Great White Hunters of Africa, flaunting their wealth and social status over a bunch of natives that track down all sorts of game for him. Of course, not all sport hunting is like that. The Europeans like to release pheasants, partridge and a litany of pen-raised upland birds from towers to be shot by positioned shooters underneath. The concept has taken hold in the eastern United States, as well. 

So where are duck hunters on that spectrum? Certainly, we’re not as nefarious as the tower shooters, or the Great White Hunters, right? 

Of course we aren’t. Whether we spend .50 cents or 200 dollars to shoot a teal, the teal’s going on a dinner plate at the end of the hunt. It’s still a wild teal, a bird that had little interference from humans. It had every chance to not end up on a dinner plate.

So maybe we’re not just sport hunters. 

Maybe we’re just don’t spend our money as wisely as most hunters.