you suond like a very fair and nice shooter, back when i was an anti i just thought all of you must despise animals and have no care for them whatsoever. i was wrong :P

I had a weird feeling when i shot my first pigeon about a month back. normally i have no feelings for woodpigeons, they dont particulary appeal to me as animals, but i dont hate them either, i just have no opinion on them to be honest. And when my BF let me shoot one, and we saw it soar down to the ground, we sent his cocker after it, and she bought it back to me, and it was weird because at that point that animal was so precious and beauitful to me, it was such a weird feeling. where as one would normally carry the bird back to wherever you are by its neck, i held it, as though it was still alive, i wanted to protect it in a way, and it was just such a weird feeling. And at the end of it my BF chose one of his pigeons and i obviously had mine and we sat down and ate them together. So i felt really accomplished because id killed it, plucked it, preserved its wings and skull, *my BF gutted it, i cant deal with that just yet* and then his mum cooked it and i ate it. and it was just such a nice feeling know ive used pretty much all that pigeon, and seen it through till the end.

And i just feel so proud everytime i shoot something and so thankful for that animal, and this is why as well as eating it i preserve some part of it as well, so i can remember it.

And i must admit i see so much more animals now than i did when i was an anti. I mean when i was an anti i was VERY naive. I thought nature was like bambi. It sadly isn't. I mean i thought foxes were the size of alsation dogs, the british wolf in effect. I was quite shocked when i saw one my BF's dad had shot :P I didnt know there were different types of deer, i thought they were all spotty and adorable like bambi when actually theres different types of them. Found it very hard to belive that the muntjak that got pointed out to me was actually a deer XD

So all in all i think i have more respect for animals now that im learning to shoot, because i know more about them, and see what a great effort shooters and gamekeepers put into the countryside to help preserve the animals, and that with them killing foxes and rabbits, there actually doing it for the good of other animals. By killing 1 your saving many.

-Melissa