My work takes me from rural kitchens to the homes of political leaders in Ottawa, often in social settings, and my approach to friends and acquaintances who despise hunting is to own-up as a killer. Words have meaning. I use that word. But how can you? Well, hunting is a part of my life as inseparable as shoes. I trap wild animals, too. Audiences and interlocutors are forced to come to grips with it. You shoot deer, with those big eyes? I've shot deer but most of my hunting now is birds. I enjoy it more; it takes more skill. My integrity doesn't permit the meat-for-food and leather-for-shoes apologia or silly euphemisms like "harvesting" for killing, doing good by killing them. Honesty is respected. The results are satisfactory.
