Why Hunting Ought To Be A Family Tradition
If you’re reading this, there likely isn’t much reason to convince you of the personal benefits of taking up hunting as a hobby. However, we’re going to take a closer look at how the hunting lifestyle can go much deeper. Hunting has always been a family tradition but lately, it has started to slip out of favor, with fewer younger enthusiasts in a world of increasingly older hunters. Here, we’re going to take a closer look at how you can revive the interest in your own family, and how it can have far-reaching benefits for all of you.
It’s great for your health
In a world where chronic illness, poor health, obesity, and a lack of physical strength is becoming increasingly common, finding just about any reason to encourage kids to get more active is well-worth it. Even if they go nowhere near a bow or a firearm, having your family join you on hunting trips have many health benefits that can sustain them years down the line. Traversing the great outdoors is great cardio, while carrying the necessary gear builds strength. Maintaining your posture and moving quietly helps to build a sense of balance and self-control, too.
Build those bonds
The mental and emotional benefits for the individual goes a lot further than just helping you build a stronger body does. While hunting can be a solitary experience, it has a long history of being something done with the community or the family. Spending time away from the stresses and responsibilities of the world and collaborating towards a shared objective gives you the peace and quiet to build a stronger connection with your family. It helps you communicate better, better understand one another’s habits, and encourages a deeper sense of trust. Shared interests are a convenient way to build bonds that can help the family get along better in the other areas of life. As a parent, it’s one of the most active ways to encourage siblings to get along better, too.
Get you and your family much closer to the outdoors
One of the main benefits of hunting compared to, say, playing family board games is the chance to get out in the fresh air. The benefits and beauty of nature are all too underappreciated these days with the sheer amount of distraction and entertainment available in the home. Finding your own nature retreat through sites like SportsAfieldTrophyProperties.com can give you easy access to not only the game and trophies you’re after, but a connection to the outdoors that is an important part of the human condition that we ignore. Our ancestors benefited greatly from spending time in the wild, which is why we still find nature so relaxing and inspiring. It’s important to get back to that from time to time.
Teach your kids the value of self-sufficiency
Without judging other lifestyles, there is no denying that life as an outdoorsman teaches one to be a lot more resilient and a lot more self-sufficient. Tracking and hunting, camping and navigating, safe use of bows and hunting equipment, it all teaches you to be a much more independent person. If you send your kids to school, then taking them hunting and turning your child into an outdoorsman can be one of the most valuable lessons you can offer them in their spare time. The resilience and patience they build out in the wild will help them succeed later in life, no matter what field they want to go into.
Eat more ethically
We are all becoming much more conscious of the environment we live in, and how to get along more ethically with the earth and the other creatures we share it with. Some people understand very little about hunting and think of it all as wasteful. However, anyone who really has a passion for it knows that it has real benefits that apply to society at large. In particular, the “eat what you kill” lifestyle enjoyed by most hunters is much more ethical than the inhumane conditions animals suffer in factory farming as shown at Organic4Greenlivings.com. Eating what you hunt has been a part of the human lifestyle for thousands upon thousands of years. Beyond being more ethical, it’s simply much more rewarding to sustain yourself off the fruits of your own labor.
Join the conservation effort
Beyond being a worthwhile discipline, a sustainable way of eating, and a fun hobby, hunting has serious connections to conservation efforts happening all around the country. Some of your family members may need convincing of the benefits, so to win them over, you can explain to them that selective hunting helps control populations that otherwise go out of control, endangering the ecosystem that even they benefit from. This has been proven, for instance, in the increase in antler size in many deer. Because their population is controlled, they are allowed to mature further and gain more access to nutrition that allows for greater development, including larger antlers.
A diverse education
Teaching your family about hunting teaches them about much more than just how to navigate, survive, and hunt in the wild. It also teaches them more about their environment than they might ever learn at school. Identifying nature, appreciating the ecosystem, experiencing zoology lessons up close and learning about animal behavior all helps them build a much better understanding of the world. In a world where access to firearms, bows, and weaponry is common, safe handling as taught by hunting including tips at Ducks.org, such as trigger discipline, can help them avoid particularly unfortunate accidents later in life, as well. Hunting might not teach you absolutely everything you need to know, but it can be a vital component for parents who care about giving their children a truly diverse education.
Hunting can be ethical, educational, responsible, and beneficial for every member of the family. It goes deeper than a hobby, more engaging than a discipline, and more fulfilling than a sport. Perhaps it’s time to reconsider passing the torch to your kids and make more of an effort to welcome your family to the passion.
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