By Maitland Sharpe

Unlike most hunters, I came to the sport relatively late in life. I first went hunting in my late 20s. I got my chance courtesy of a new friend, a longtime hunter who introduced me to the mysteries and rituals of the sport and drilled into me his own highly evolved commitment to hunting ethics. Those were singular gifts?both the hunting skills and the ethics?and ones that can be repaid only by passing them on to another generation of hunters.

I've been hunting for about 20 years now, mostly for deer, but recently for ducks. The land I hunt is private, and I hunt there by permission. Access and competition are not problems, but poaching, trespassing, and road hunting are highly visible to everyone who hunts in the region.

My views on hunting, my sense of ethics, my sense of hunter behavior problems, and my expectations of myself and of those I hunt with are all products of my experiences in the field?with a measure of reading, discussion, and fireside debate thrown in for seasoning. I was taught to hunt for the joy of hunting and for the deep satisfaction of having hunted well, not for the bag; to take pride in my outdoor skills more than in my kill; to savor wild game; to know the land where I hunt; to study the critters, learn to read the woods, and work with my hands to improve habitat; and to expect other hunters to do pretty much the same.

I think those were good lessons?good lessons for living as well as for hunting. I am a father of daughters, and I hope to pass on to them an understanding and love of nature, a confidence in their outdoor skills, my own joy in hunting, a place to hunt, and a society that permits it.

My two girls have been raised with one foot in the woods, the other in the marsh and with game on the table. They were hiking with us before they could walk, fishing before they could bait a hook, and delighting in the cool, satin skin of a blacksnake before they knew to be afraid. The habits of the girls' brief lifetimes convey a comfortable familiarity with hunting, fishing, and foraging; with their own roles as predators atop the food chain; and with nature as a setting we live in, not as a set for a TV show. Well launched, I thought.

But there are powerful crosscurrents at work. There seems to be something in the air or the water in junior high school that infects the girls with a sudden concern for animal rights and a strict ethical opposition to animal testing, fur, leather, hunting, and eating red meat. A few years ago, right on schedule, my older daughter came down with it. And my cherished vision of having a homegrown hunting partner seemed to go up in smoke.

But ethics teach more than one lesson. My daughter has decided that hunting is ethical, if it is done well, and that it is all right for her to eat venison, even though she eats no other red meat. She reasons that deer live a wild, free life and are then killed by a hunter, quickly and cleanly, without suffering, and converted to food. It all meets her strict ethical standards?from the quality of the deer's existence, through the motives of the hunter, the speed of the kill, and the reverence for the game. It may help, of course, that venison is one of her favorite foods. But the real point is that she understands and respects the ethical basis of hunting, just as she understands the ethical arguments against abusing animals. And she has found she can honor both. I am proud of my daughter and satisfied she is well on her way to learning what I may have to teach?about hunting and about life.

Maitland Sharpe is assistant director of Renewable Resources for the federal Bureau of Land Management. This essay originally appeared in Outdoor Ethics, a quarterly publication by the Izaak Walton League of America, for which Sharpe was executive director from 1992 to 1995. Reprinted with permission.