We draw heavy criticism from people who don’t hunt. Our message is simple: hunting is a natural and enjoyable human activity. But this falls on deaf ears with most uninitiated urbanites. To those who don’t hunt, it appears to be an exercise in ego, domination, and “toxic” masculinity.

I grew up hunting, so their criticisms are as bewildering to me as hunting is to them.

When responding to critics, I try civility first. But I lose patience after a round or two of ignorant arguments. The conversation was doomed from the start.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking about what we’re trying to communicate. Why do we do what we do? Why do we film it? Why do we watch other people hunt?

Our Evolutionary Heritage

There is a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA in almost all living humans. This supports the idea that our species split from a more distant, ape-like ancestor. If our species separated from an earlier humanoid, then our species has been evolving for 3 to 5 million years. That represents countless trips around the sun, and we spent most of those trips chasing animals and foraging for food. Hunting is built into our DNA. It defines who we are as a species and as individuals.

Early humans, like other apex predators, were few in number. They roamed massive territories, running down and consuming prey like wild horses, bears, and woolly mammoths. They were as comfortable in the natural world as an elk or deer is today. They wouldn’t have known anything else. Their lives followed seasonal changes, and despite popular opinion, the quality of their lives was good. If a primitive human survived childhood, their life would likely be long.

But about 12,000 years ago, humans domesticated grains—the agricultural revolution began. Over time, humans quit roaming vast territories in pursuit of megafauna. Instead, they settled on a few acres to focus on a few species of crops. They replaced ever-changing horizons with small plots of ground. The world became a smaller place.

For some time, nomadic humans coexisted with settled humans, but eventually, settlements won. Forager societies evolved into the massive technological and cultural centers we call cities.

The Modern Disconnect

However, 12,000 years is a mere blip in evolutionary time—it barely registers. The psychology that drives human behavior is still based on our evolutionary past.

The most common attack from anti-hunters is that we’re sociopaths with a thirst for blood—that there must be something wrong with hunters, something sick about us. But nothing could be further from the truth. As with most extreme rhetoric, the exact opposite is true.

Paleolithic dynamics kept human populations well below the carrying capacity of the land. The weak, the sick, and the unlucky didn’t survive childhood. Humans were scarce creatures, like apex predators today. When human populations explode, the environment degrades. Humans, with their large, complex brains, need interesting and changing surroundings. When you cram people into small, monotonous spaces doing small, repetitive tasks, mental problems arise.

You can’t study this in humans because of ethical constraints, but you can draw conclusions based on research with other species—and the results aren’t encouraging.

When you cram rats or rabbits into tight spaces, you get diminished mothering, gender-role confusion, social withdrawal, and lethargy. Studies of primates in zoos and humans in prisons show abnormal dominance hierarchies, sexual perversions, hostility, and intolerance. Does this sound familiar?

If the brain evolved in conditions of scarcity amid interesting, changing environments, it’s logical that our psychology would turn pathological in this modern alternative. That hunters are “bitter clingers” holding onto ever-changing horizons in pursuit of game, that we prefer natural environments to urban settings, and that we prefer a life built more closely to that of our ancestors isn’t a sign of mental illness. Instead, it’s evidence that hunters may be the most well-adjusted among us.

The Three Pillars of Human Fulfillment

For our ancestors, three things made for a good life, and those three things still enrich human beings today: membership in a tribe, an ample meat supply, and movement.

Hunting provides all three in one activity.

Tribe

Hunter-gatherer tribes comprised smaller hunting bands. Tribes shared territories, customs, and rituals, creating cohesion among the disparate bands. Tribes consisted of somewhere between 200 and 1,500 individuals, providing social interaction and genetic diversity. Around 25 people made up a hunting band, with six adult males handling the hunting duties.

One of the best aspects of hunting today is doing it with a small group of friends. It’s a tradition passed from generation to generation. Your friends become a modern hunting band. My friendship with Chase is what it is today because we’ve shared many successful hunts together. We’ve brought hundreds of pounds of wild game meat out of the woods and enjoyed the tasty rewards of those hunts. The same is true of everyone I’ve hunted with. The struggle, the failure, the success, and the work forge unbreakable bonds of friendship.

Meat

Despite what many claim, hunter groups did not experience massive periods of famine. War was limited, and they did not live in constant fear of their environment. There were lean times, but mass starvation wasn’t common. It took our ancestors around three hours daily to supply their caloric needs, leaving them several hours for other tasks or leisure. They were proficient hunters who killed species as large as the woolly mammoth (with some help from climate change).

Hunter groups, even today, don’t worry excessively about tomorrow. They are satisfied with the present day and remain in tune with their surroundings. The meat provided by hunting, combined with other gathered foods, created a rich and varied diet. Some studies show hunters ate from a dozen different meat sources and over 40 varieties of plant foods. This diversity of nutrients rewarded their bodies with excellent health.

Movement

The biological systems we depend on today result from our ancestors’ skill and dependence on hunting. Humans evolved to move—to run, walk, and throw. Our ancestors chased down antelope and horses while running from and throwing rocks at predators. But with agriculture, we became less mobile and more dependent on a handful of grains.

Without the need to use the muscles and systems developed for hunting, the body undergoes stress. We develop heart disease, strokes, and numerous other conditions. These ailments were unlikely to affect the hunter groups we evolved from. We’ve extended our lives through medicine and surgery but are far more likely to get sick. Hunting today requires movement, and many hunters stay active throughout the year to prepare for fall hunting season.

Our Message

Tribe. Meat. Movement.

That’s all that’s needed, and that’s our message to the world. It’s the story we tell with every video and every post. It’s our answer to a culture moving in the opposite direction. We’re holding onto our heritage as hunters and foragers because, like you, we know how healthy and enriching a hunting life can be.

While others make conservation or public land advocacy their calling card, this is ours.