Although times have changed and, with them, techniques and tools, hunting is a passion that has its roots in ancient eras, while remaining very current. The most important aspect to underline is the reason that pushed our ancestors to hunt, which is the survival, linked as much to the procurement of food for oneself and for families as to the possibility of covering oneself from the cold thanks to the skins of animals.
With hunting men have not only managed to do this, but they have developed capacity that they did not have before: they began to adopt an upright posture, which allowed them to be much faster in chasing their prey, they learned to collaborate with each other, dividing the tasks according to their skills and, above all, they began to elaborate strategies and tactics to reach the target. From "hunting for exhaustion", in which the animal was chased for even days and, when it could no longer take it, approached it to kill it, we then moved on to the use of throwing weapons such as spears, stones and arrows, which required great precision. Another technique was to get help from both live animals, such as the dog, and dead animals, using the latter as weapons.
To date there are several tribes that still practice hunting using ingenious methods, like the Penan men who hunt wild boars in the Borneo rainforest with hardwood blowpipes and arrows dipped in tejan poison, extracted from the latex of a tree, while in industrialized societies hunting is carried out mainly as a recreational activity and, consequently, spears and bows have been replaced with rifles and pistols, which find safe shelter in hunters' homes in gun cabinets, furniture safes and wall safes. Not only passion, however, because hunting is now used to keep the number of animals of a specific species within the sustenance capacity of the environment. An ancient practice that has never lost its importance, but which has simply changed its skin, passing from being necessary for human survival to being pure passion, but also a tool for managing wildlife.
Article written in collaboration with Armored cars, a leading company in the online sale of clothing, accessories and material for hunting and leisure.