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Hunting is good for kids, Randall Eaton says.
Hunting is an important rite of passage that evokes giving back, Eaton said. He cried at age 6 when he killed his first sparrow. Today, he still carries a sack of seed in the back of his van to feed the birds.
“It is not out of guilt, but out of thanks,” Eaton said Wednesday night at Viterbo University as part of the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership’s Fall Lecture Series.
The award-winning author and film producer said young people aren’t hunting as much as past generations. He attributed this, in part, to parents who lack hunting experience and do not understand the profound, sacred and transformative nature of hunting.
About 82 percent of the 2,500 hunters Eaton surveyed in the U.S. and Canada reported they prayed or gave thanks to their creator after taking the life of an animal.
Hunting is instinctive for boys, said Eaton. Just as women are adapted to bring life into the world, men are adapted to take life in order to support life, he said.
But both sexes can gain patience, fortitude, courage, generosity and humility from hunting, he said.
Viterbo senior Jason Hake, who began hunting at 12, agreed with Eaton.
“It (hunting) has made me more responsible, mature, respectful of wilderness, and given me more time with my dad,” he said.
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