I haven't hunted in a while, but I've killed a few deer in my day. 2 does and one spike (my first) to be exact. I sorely regret shooting the spike, but I was very young at the time and I thought it was a doe. All of the deer that I've "harvested" were not "pen deer" and all salvageable meat was stored for later consumption. Replace any of those deer with a trophy buck and there would be a picture somewhere of me standing next to it shortly after the kill.
There is merit in making a record of an exceptional kill. A buck doesn't grow to be a remarkable specimen in hunted areas without being considerably cunning and difficult to hunt, thus taking a trophy deer IS an accomplishment. It also happens to transcend gender, as one of the largest deer I've ever seen in recent memory was taken by a (quite pretty) woman who was every bit as delighted with her kill as any man would have been. Anecdotal, I know, but she's not the only one.
The only wall we're hitting here is that some people don't see the point in killing a cute furry animal of the wood unless you absolutely NEED to. And throw out the "only if you eat the meat/use the hide" argument, because we know that very few of us need the meat or the hide from a deer when we have clothing and tofu readily available at the nearest Wal-Mart supercenter. The fact that you make allowances for the people that "eat their kills" is a hole your argument IMO.
People, we do all sorts of stuff that we don't necessarily need to do. Most of the time we do them in utter disregard of what impact it has on other people, furry animals of the wood, or the planet in general. At least, AT LEAST hunters are not generally a part of that group. While they sit there waiting for their buddy to snap the picture, maybe they're really smiling because they know that as long as whatever they just killed is a game animal with a regulated hunting season, it's species will NEVER become extinct. I promise you that legal hunters are more rabid about preserving the environment and the animals in it than any of the lot that are against hunting (yes that means trophy hunting too).
There is merit in making a record of an exceptional kill. A buck doesn't grow to be a remarkable specimen in hunted areas without being considerably cunning and difficult to hunt, thus taking a trophy deer IS an accomplishment. It also happens to transcend gender, as one of the largest deer I've ever seen in recent memory was taken by a (quite pretty) woman who was every bit as delighted with her kill as any man would have been. Anecdotal, I know, but she's not the only one.
The only wall we're hitting here is that some people don't see the point in killing a cute furry animal of the wood unless you absolutely NEED to. And throw out the "only if you eat the meat/use the hide" argument, because we know that very few of us need the meat or the hide from a deer when we have clothing and tofu readily available at the nearest Wal-Mart supercenter. The fact that you make allowances for the people that "eat their kills" is a hole your argument IMO.
People, we do all sorts of stuff that we don't necessarily need to do. Most of the time we do them in utter disregard of what impact it has on other people, furry animals of the wood, or the planet in general. At least, AT LEAST hunters are not generally a part of that group. While they sit there waiting for their buddy to snap the picture, maybe they're really smiling because they know that as long as whatever they just killed is a game animal with a regulated hunting season, it's species will NEVER become extinct. I promise you that legal hunters are more rabid about preserving the environment and the animals in it than any of the lot that are against hunting (yes that means trophy hunting too).