James Researcher
Welcome to our forums . I am a relative new comer here myself ( three months ) , but l find most of the forum members here to be extremely warm hearted .
I choose to believe you . However , you will forgive our cautious nature . We live in an era where people ( especially media ) attempt every under handed trick possible to undermine hunters and demonize us .
I am a retired Professional Shikari from India ( back when hunting was legal there until 1972 ) and just three weeks ago , two teen aged Indian boys ( who oppose hunting and meat eating ) came on these forums , pretending to be secret government appointed hunters in India who currently hunt man eating tigers and leopards . They were trying to discredit me . While many forum members saw through their charade quickly , l actually believed them until much later , when l realized that they do not possess some basic knowledge about hunting , which every one who ever shot Royal Bengal tigers , will know . We are a cautious sort. Most of us are family men who come to these forums for one or two hours a day , to have a good recreational time with others of our community and talk about the sport we love so much .
The last thing that we would like , is to be a part of a report which may demonize our kind .
Based on my knowledge of psychology , l do find something a little odd about your behavorial pattern :
In your first post , you added two sentences saying " This does not mean that l will actually go trophy hunting " .
Forgive me for my insolence , but that sounds like some one who does not think too highly of what we do , but is trying to hide it , or appear respectful to us superficially . Also , most of us who actually hunt , or support hunting refer to " trophy hunting " as just " hunting " , because to us , the trophy is a very small part of the value of the hunt. For us , it is the experience.
That said , welcome to our forums. And if l am wrong in my assumption about you ( l hope l am , as you seem to be a genuinely pleasant fellow ) , then you will find most of us very friendly and kind hearted . Who knows ? Maybe your research can end up writing something in our favor .
Kind regards
Sgt. Kawshik Rahman ( Retd)