I grew up in Northwest Pennsylvania. We lived out in the country, and during hunting season, hunters used our driveway to get to a rather popular path and area. I remember being 12 years old, opening our door and screaming at the hunters as they got ready to go into the woods, "Murderers!" (I loved the deer, they were my friends.)
My mother told me not to call the hunters murderers. She said I was going to get in trouble. My brother laughed at me and said didn't I know we'd been eating deer venison all year? (My mother seasoned it properly so it just tasted like beef.)
It continued to bother me every year and sometimes I even went out into the woods and covered the deer tracks in the snow with my own boot tracks. My neighbor, a hunter, saw me out in the woods covering deer tracks and told my mother. Everyone said I was going to get shot, I had long brown hair and looked like a deer.
Deer are God's beautiful creatures, Chad. I love them so much.
Unfortunately, there is an over-population of deer in some areas of US (or so they say), and if there weren't a hunting season, they would starve to death for lack of food.
My husband grew up on a farm and has had to butcher pigs, rabbits, chickens, etc. to eat. I don't think I could do it. And I know I couldn't shoot a deer. But I don't seem to have any problem opening a package of ground beef, cooking it, and eating it.