#Hunting #Evolution #Survival #Prey #AnimalInstinct
π¦ Have you ever wondered why humans don’t have a natural urge to hunt like other predators? Despite our history of needing to hunt for survival, hunting isn’t necessarily something that comes naturally to us.
π± The lack of a built-in hunting instinct in humans speaks to the complexity of our evolutionary history. Let’s dive into the reasons behind this and explore the fascinating world of hunting and survival instincts.
## Evolutionary History of Hunting
Humans have a long history of hunting for survival. For thousands of years, our ancestors relied on hunting as a primary means of obtaining food. However, as our society has evolved, so too have our survival instincts. Here’s a closer look at how our evolutionary history has shaped our relationship with hunting:
1. Early Humans and Hunting: Our early ancestors were skilled hunters, relying on their hunting instincts to provide food for their communities.
2. Development of Agriculture: With the development of agriculture, humans began to rely less on hunting for survival. This shift in lifestyle and diet has contributed to the decrease in our natural hunting instincts.
3. Modern Society: In today’s modern society, many people have lost touch with the hunting instincts that were once essential for survival. With easy access to food and technology, the need for hunting has diminished.
## Why Humans Lack a Natural Hunting Instinct
So, why don’t humans have a natural urge to hunt? There are several factors at play that have contributed to the decline of our innate hunting instincts:
π Cognitive Development: Human cognitive development has allowed us to adapt and find alternative sources of food, reducing the necessity of hunting.
π Agricultural Revolution: The advent of agriculture provided a more reliable and consistent food source, reducing the need for hunting as a primary means of sustenance.
π Environmental Changes: As humans have spread across the globe and encountered diverse environments, the need for hunting has diminished in some regions.
## The Role of Instinct in Modern Society
While our natural hunting instincts may have waned over time, they still play a role in our behavior and decision-making, even in modern society:
1. Hunting as a Recreational Activity: Many people still engage in hunting as a recreational activity, tapping into their primal instincts in a controlled setting.
2. Hunting in Survival Situations: In moments of crisis or survival, some individuals may find themselves tapping into their instinctual hunting abilities to procure food.
## Nurturing the Hunting Instinct
In some cases, individuals can nurture and cultivate their hunting instincts through education and experience. Hunting enthusiasts and survivalists often seek out opportunities to reconnect with their primal instincts and develop their hunting skills:
π Outdoor Education Programs: Many outdoor education programs offer opportunities for individuals to learn hunting and survival skills in a controlled environment.
πΏ Survival Training: Some people participate in survival training exercises to learn how to harness their innate hunting instincts in the wild.
## Conclusion
While the natural urge to hunt may not be as prevalent in modern society as it once was, the instinctual drive to survive remains an integral part of human nature. Understanding the evolutionary factors that have shaped our relationship with hunting can provide valuable insight into the complexities of human behavior and survival instincts. So, next time you’re pondering the lack of a hunting instinct, remember that our evolutionary history has played a significant role in shaping who we are today.
Yeah, you’re totally forgetting about that time we invented agriculture and domesticated animals and ditched that stupid, inefficient “hunting” thing.
We’re wired to take the path of least resistance. It’s a very useful survival technique. In the modern human’s life, that path is to the grocery store.
Huh? Millions of hunters or people like me who love fishing would disagree. None of the people I know who hunt/fish need it to survive.
Someone has never been hungry.
Haven’t you ever looked at a bird minding its business on the ground and gotten a tiny urge to try and catch it?
Huh? Half your video games are designed to satisfy your urge to hunt. Most of the rest exploit your desire to protect your cave. The reason women enjoy shopping but men don’t? Because women were gatherers, men were hunters.
Homeless right now, and I have to say, my hunting instinct kicked in with a vengence.
I only buy food now if I absolutely have to. Most of the time I set traps, catch fish, or hunt by hand.
Sometimes it gets a little challenging in urban areas, but the plus side to that is I’m a good climber, and there are endless roosting pigeons on roofs and gutters, this is where hunting by hand comes in useful.
It frees up what bit of cash I can make in order to buy things that really matter, such as blankets, warm clothes and the opportunity to take a hot shower.
It doesnt take much. Try not eating for a week. Also, all religion have motifs of fasting or rather, ritualized starvation practice to (hopefully) prevent cannibalism during times of famine. There’s a middle ages account of a famine in Egypt on the internet somewhere that’s… shocking. But what do I know? I wasn’t there lol.
wait until you’re placed in a situation that you know will result in starvation if you don’t do anything. I’m pretty sure the desire to kill for calories will eventually come
I think the popularity of hunting as a hobby would indicate that some people definitely do have a drive to hunt even when not required. Especially since it often involves spending a lot of money on equipment and withstanding seriously uncomfortable conditions and yet is still popular
Your premise is false. We don’t hunt because we also have a built-in means of conserving energy so we do the minimum we can to get our calories. However, the popularity of hunting-like activities is huge: video games, actual hunting, paintball wars, hide and seek, etc.
Of course, not every human is motivated by the same things, just like when hunting was a bigger factor in human survival it is likely that not all humans participated directly.
I’d say we do have a built-in urge – hunger. We don’t think of hunger that way because we have so many ways to satisfy it in the modern age, but for virtually all of our 200,000 year history, hunger would’ve provided the urge to hunt or forage.
Also, I think there are a lot of activities that we do today that provide a sense of satisfaction that probably evolved to provide an extra psychological “reward” for hunting well. Think about team sports, online gaming, and actual hunting. A lot of things that involve teamwork or tactics (whether individually or as part of a group) are satisfying in the doing of them, quite apart from winning or being successful.
That might sound far-fetched in this day and age, but when you consider that humans have barely changed over the past 100,000+ years it’s fair to say that we are still primarily suited to hunting and gathering despite being socially and technologically distanced from those activities. The complex of urges and rewards that made us good at those things are still there, we just find or develop other ways of satisfying them.
I also wonder how many of our mental condtitions and frustrations emerge from the Paleolithic hunter gatherers we evolved to be having become domesticated, treadmilled (dare I say it?) livestock.
Knowing the history of humankind i feel like this shouldve stayed in the shower
Don’t we? Lots of people like to keep small fuzzy animals in their house. And when seeing creatures like that, most people have an urge to touch them or even grab them.Β
Kids love chasing and catching each other and animals, though.
Eeeeh we were more gatherers than hunters.Β
That shit takes energy.
Because it’s not true. Hunter-gatherers were gatherers more than hunters. Hunting was a supplementary bonus source of food. They didn’t have to do it to survive. We aren’t instinctual hunters like cats.
Most animals donβt. Lions only hunt when they are hungry. When they are well fed they lie around and have sex. Domestic cats seem to be an exception.
The same is true for farming and gathering plants. Most people donβt farm their own food or gather their own sustenance from the wild.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. Stores like Cabellas are almost dedicated solely to people with “urges to hunt”. They are packed and almost as common as game stops.
That’s a good point. Even domestic pets have the urge to jump after anything that darts away from them.
Hunting is expensive energy wise.
Humans mainly used hunting to supplement a diet based on gathered foods. Omnivores, not carnivores.
At first, I somewhat agreed that, at least in modern industrialized society, our hunting instincts have mostly faded, but giving it more thought, I think they’ve just *changed.* Most of us don’t have the strong desire to kill anything, but when you look at a lot of our interactions with animals and with each other as kids, you can see that predator-prey instinct all over the place. I’m 24 years old, a fully grown adult, and *still* get excited over ponds where I can catch a frog with my bare hands. Do I want to hurt them or eat them? No, I would never. But the instinct to *catch* little critters is still there, even if all I do is giggle about it like a little kid and show everybody what I got before politely releasing it.
Kids’ games like tag and hide & seek arguably fit this too. Your instinct to chase, track, and catch are still very intact, even if you don’t have the desire to kill anything.
Thatβs called evolution
My limited understanding of human psychology is that these βprimitiveβ instincts and urges manifest themselves in other, more abstract, ways.
For example, our βmating ritualβ is not *literally* showing brightly colored feathers or doing an elaborate dance like birds, but itβs still a form of that.
Our hunting instinct might have taken the form of career ambition or something even more abstract.
Thereβs an element of tribe status with ambition but status is also tied directly to accessibility of resources aka money for food
We do. You just dont know it yet, because you have never been hunting to activate the instinct. Its still there, just harder to get at.
Humans have always been opportunistic hunters. Now we just hunt for when ribeye’s go on sale instead of chasing something till it collapses from heat stroke.
Except for hunters of course.
You have never been to Alabama, Georgia, or North Florida it seems.
Somebody doesnβt know any conservative gun nuts or military fanatics. I can promise you there are a large number of people who have the urge/desire to hunt down and kill their βpreyβ.
You can live without killing anything.
If a puppy who has never seen any animal other than dogs suddenly sees a rabbit running away, that dog will take off after the rabbit trying to catch it. Many dogs need to be trained *not* to hunt smaller animals.
If a human child sees a rabbit without knowing what it is they will either run away from it or try to pet it. Some people do hunt as a hobby or a necessity but it’s not hard-wired in us.
Why put in energy into hunting something down if I donβt need to?
That might be because of the fact the we did not need to hunt animals to survive for most of our evolutionary history?.. You cannot ignore pre-homo-sapiens evolution of homo sapiens.
Apes, our closest animal relatives, eat a predominantly frugivorous diet and that’s what we were like for the most of our evolutionary history.
When we started branching out, we most likely were scavengers[^(1)](https://www.history.com/news/prehistoric-human-diet-scavengers-vs-hunters)^(,)[^(2)](https://www.jstor.org/stable/25801183), and hunting was more of extra-curricular activity.