Letter to Editor about hunting

Aslı Özoğuz

IB1

10.10.2012

Word Count: 405

 Dear Editor,

My name is Aslı Özoğuz and I’m a student at MEFIS schools. I read an article on your newspaper which talked about the book called “From Boys to Men of Heart: Hunting as a Rite of Passage”. Overall it was a great article which gave lots of useful information. However, I believe that some of the points made weren’t actually accurate. I am writing this letter in order to state those incorrect points. I hope you’ll have the time to read it.

In one of the arguments the author relates peace with hunting. He says: “What do you think Jimmy Carter and Nelson Mandela would say? They won the Nobel Peace Prize and both are avid hunters.” to a woman who believes that hunting is violent. However, peace and hunting can’t be linked together.  First of all, they won the peace prize because they were being peaceful towards humans, not animals. Peace is within the humans, not the animals. It wouldn’t be right to make a connection between those two things. Also this doesn’t answer the question of the woman. She believed that hunting is violent and giving reasons of why hunting is not violent would answer the woman’s question. Giving information about how hunting is done and how it isn’t brutal because of the equipment they use would have made more sense.

Another statement made which I believe is incorrect is: “My survey of older hunters indicated that all men have spontaneously killed a small animal before the age of ten.” The author of the book believes that this happens because everyone has an urge to kill. I believe that this statement is invalid. There might be some exceptions, but there is no possible way that every child had an instinct to kill something when they were born. They might have an urge to kill something when they grow up or when they go through some difficulties in life. Also they probably killed it by an accident, not on purpose. However I don’t believe that every child is born with a desire to kill. If this statement is somehow true, I would want to see proof.

In conclusion I believe that this article has some problems that should be solved. However, despite the mistakes, this article is helpful and full of information about hunting. Thank you for taking your time to read this. I hope I was helpful.

 

Warm Regards,

Aslı Özoğuz