Blue Planet

Slow Death In a Shady Glen

However, the player who takes a bad shot will find himself exploring some dark terrain. After tracking the doe, that is where I found myself.

I hadn't actually expected to find a live animal at the end of the chase, and certainly not one that was aware. Until that moment, the blood trail had been a game mechanic, a bit of inconvenience parceled out to players who lacked the skill and patience to score a clean kill. But the doe, silent and watchful on the ground, made everything a little too real. My hasty, lousy shot had inflicted a slowly crippling wound. Now, her race run and energy spent, it fell to me to dispatch her with the shot I should have taken a half-hour earlier.

I pointed my rifle at her head, but she was still looking at me. Unnerved, I gave it up and circled around behind her, but she craned her neck to watch me. Once I was out of her sight, I aimed the rifle again. Before I could fire, she placed her head down on the dirt and drifted off. I had not even managed to fulfill my responsibility to dispatch her mercifully. She had died of the terrible wound I had inflicted on her hip.

It occurred to me that The Hunter had passed judgment on me. Or, perhaps more accurately, it forced me to pass judgment on myself. If the simulated hunt was thrilling, and the simulated forest relaxing, then this animal's simulated suffering was horrifying. I understood now that a successful hunt is not a binary state, where a deer is either killed or not. How I hunted and what kind of death I dispensed mattered more. A quick snapshot at a running target, far from being the feat of reflexes and marksmanship that I thought it was, turned out to be irresponsible and cruel. I was the worst stereotype of a hunter: a yahoo loose in the woods with a gun.

Since then, I have become much more careful and selective about shooting deer. In many cases, it seems gratuitous or mean-spirited to aim at weak targets. An underweight doe is no one's trophy. I never take wild shots. If I can't get a good angle and steady aim on the target, it's not worth it to fire. I've had one miserable pursuit, and don't look forward to another.

The conservationist movement has historically sought to deepen people's understanding of nature, and their relationship and responsibilities to it. The Hunter belongs in that movement, and teaches its values by example. The Hunter is someone who places his actions in the larger context of an ecosystem and a moral universe that extends to animals. By demonstrating that to people like me, who have few opportunities to learn these lessons in practice, The Hunter can change how players view the world and our place in it. The ethics of the hunt and the values of the conservationist find new expression in long rambles across Whitehart Island.

Rob Zacny lives in Cambridge, where swan boats and late-night MBTA passengers are the only wildlife he encounters. You can find more of his work through his blog.