Hunting is one of those pleasures that you won't understand if you have to have it explained, which is good because folks who enjoy it can't fully explain why. Obviously hunting is more than shooting animals. As the philosopher Ortega y Gassett said, one doesn't hunt in order to kill, one kills in order to have hunted. If hunters were really bloodthirsty killers, they could buy a barn full of chickens and get a whole lot more bloodletting for their dollar than the average pheasant hunt yields.
Dedicated hunters see the world with a special perspective.
When they drive through farmland they don't see wheat fields and pastures, they see lost upland bird habitat. When they tour a new shopping mall, they don't see new businesses, they see destroyed deer habitat. When they pass a forest, they don't see trees, they see bedding cover, travel routes and feeding sites. Hunters live for the first cold front of September. They listen for the cry of snow geese on a blustery October night.