Why do we hunt? It’s an oft-asked question, the answers taking many forms and existing on many levels. Ostensibly we hunt for food, fun, sport and recreation. Hunting is now an avocation where we seek the thrill of the chase and challenge of the hunt, but that wasn’t always the case.

Those sensations developed out of the need to feed, a vestige that doesn’t always work in our favor.

For millennia, we worked much harder to obtain nutritious food as a matter of survival. Key elements included fat, protein and calories. A modern-day analogy might be to compare the caloric need and intake of a growing teen athlete versus that of a mature adult. When we could obtain it, we consumed as much as possible. Those that did persisted, and those that didn’t perished. And so the quest for food and the desire to obtain it became ingrained into our DNA.

We began as hunter-gatherers, collecting what we could from our environment. Calories kept us alive but protein, a key element in the development of the brain, let us thrive. The gatherers gathered but the hunters, with their forward-facing eyes, omnivorous dentition and inclination toward the hunt, provided protein that fueled our intellectual advancement, and the most successful were typically the most revered.

Then along came civilization, and innovations like agriculture and domestic livestock. In the blink of a geologic eye, we were transformed from a lifestyle of subsistence to one of abundance. Predisposed to consume calories, we continued to grow fat and happy, in some cases beyond healthy levels. Meanwhile the drive to hunt remained within our psyche.  

The contrast became clearer during the period of global expansion when “civilized” cultures encountered “primitive” cultures. Those accustomed to a source of readily available food were surprised to find aboriginal people still obtained much of their food through hunting. There also might have been some recognition about how lean and physically fit they were.

Some are driven to the hunt; they feel the urge more strongly. Some are introduced to it, awakening latent inexplicable stirrings from eons ago. Others suppress those sensations, avoiding the high-calorie foods they crave and ignoring the urge to pursue.

A successful hunt brings satisfaction on several levels. We see validation for our efforts and sometimes acknowledgment from our peers. It means more meat in a freezer that’s already occupied with farm-raised turkeys and Virginia hams, but that wasn’t always the case. Ages ago, it meant survival.

We may not recognize it but it’s in there, permanently implanted into the double helix that makes up our DNA; and that’s one reason we hunt. 

Bob Humphrey is a freelance writer and Registered Maine Guide who lives in Pownal. He can be reached at: [email protected]