Hunting Is Evil

Abigail Hobbs: Do you think I did it?

Marissa Schurr: I don't think you're the type. Then again, I didn't think your dad was the murder-suicide type. Though the hunting should've been a red flag.

Abigail: Mine or his?

Marissa: Both, now that you mention it.

— Hannibal

Hunting can be dangerous to people as well as animals. There's a reason why the Hunting "Accident" is one of the most popular ways to dispose of characters or people. It's also a reason why (it's believed that) Manly Men Can Hunt.

This is when hunting is treated as Foreshadowing for violence or violent people, and usually bad people. They do not need to be the Evil Poacher for it to apply (though it can do), but sinister and otherwise immoral characters. They may be an Egomaniac Hunter. In portrayals of The City vs. the Country, this will be treated as a reason to distrust or dislike the country. It will often coexist with the Half-Witted Hillbilly, though a lot of characters will not be stupid. If indigenous peoples are present, there will usually be a distinction drawn between the Noble Savage who hunts for survival, respects the animals he kills, and uses every part, and the Great White Hunter who just kills for fun.

A lot of the time, it's a sister trope to Bad People Abuse Animals. However, in depictions of hunting, the focus is often not on animal abuse but on killing animals, and hunters are not always shown to get pleasure out of harming the animals. This is not necessarily shown as a positive side to the characters, just that hunting is often portrayed as more utilitarian than sadistic. This can be considered the human counterpart to Predators Are Mean.

This is a unisex trope. However, because A Real Man Is a Killer, it may be more common that female hunters are a bigger red flag. Could overlap with Cruella to Animals if the reason they hunt is to take pleasure in eating meat or wearing fur.

To a point, this is Truth in Television. Hunting has been considered to be an early sign of a Serial Killer, and can sometimes act as direct Foreshadowing for Hunting the Most Dangerous Game (which would be a subtrope as a particular form of bad or evil hunt). However, in-universe examples only, as this relates only to the attitude in-universe that hunting is bad, wrong, or morally corrupt, and/or associated with characters like that.

---

Examples

Anime

• In The Bush Baby animal hunting is done by poachers looking to skin endangered animals for a quick buck. That being said, Jackie herself also fishes for a living, so this trope is subverted.
• In the first episode of Hello! Sandybell, Kitty's hunt takes a turn when Sandybell prevents her from taking a bird she shot, vowing to protect the injured animal. When Kitty goes to the school board and demand they punish her, Professor Christie pretends he doesn't know the girl Kitty's describing (who happens to be his daughter), and says that it could have been any of his students, as he taught them that injuring animals is bad. He ends the session by telling Kitty that it's for the better that she doesn't hunt, causing her to fume.
• Laura, the Prairie Girl: After Laura finds a shot duck outside, she tells her father, who looks at it and tells her that it is definitely dead. When the man who shot the duck asks for it, Laura bursts out crying and berates him.

Fanfiction

• In The Simpsons fanfic Lisa and Flanders, Lisa is about to hunt a deer, which fits with her Adaptational Villainy as she's transphobic in the story.

Film — Animated

• Bambi: The hunters kill Bambi's mother (which they would not usually do). In an example of Adaptational Villainy, they are also stupid enough that their fire burns out of control and nearly burns down the forest.
• Beauty and the Beast (1991): Gaston hunts birds, and it's implied he hunts deer too because he decorates with antlers, and while he doesn't kill anyone, he's still bad news, wanting to marry Belle despite her not wanting to be his wife and throw Maurice in the asylum even though he's not crazy.
• Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted: The main villain, Du Bois, hunts exotic animals and wants to have one of each, making her a threat to the protagonists, who are a lion, hippo, zebra, and giraffe.
• The film Open Season is seen from the animal's perspective which means the hunters looking for them are portrayed as the bad guys, particularly the Big Bad Shaw who will go to lengths and even break the law to hunt down the animals he's looking for.
• Rocky and Bullwinkle (2014): When Rocky fights Natasha, he asks her why Fearless Leader has been sending her and Boris to destroy him and Bullwinkle for so many years. Natasha tells him that if he saw his rumpus room, he would understand. What follows is a shot of Fearless Leader in his rumpus room, which has a wall filled with many animal trophies, except for two empty ones labelled "Moose" and "Squirrel".
• Tarzan: Clayton, though technically serving as Professor Porter and Jane's guide to Africa, is a big-game hunter who treats their research on gorillas as foolish; in his own words, he sees gorillas (and all animals) as "wild beasts" who are only good for target practice. There are elements of hunting in everything Clayton does: his weapon of choice is a hunting rifle (to the point where Tarzan initially thinks that the sound of a gunshot literally means "Clayton") and he uses a machete to shave. Later in the film, Clayton is also outed as an Evil Poacher who plans to sell off the gorillas to various zoos.

Film — Live-Action

• The Hunt (2020): One member of the "deplorable" conservatives chosen to be hunted down, "Trucker", is an unashamed big-game hunter of endangered animals who is eventually shown to have posted a picture of him posing beside a dead rhino on social media.
• Jumanji: The film's (human) antagonist is Van Pelt, a stereotypical Great White Hunter complete with elephant gun and pith helmet. Once Alan releases him from the titular game, Van Pelt becomes completely obsessed with tracking him down (and causing immense property damage along the way), all while scolding Alan to "face him like a man" (Van Pelt is also a psychological representation of Alan's cold, harsh father). Unlike most examples, though, Van Pelt is only evil insomuch as he's the final challenge Alan has to overcome—the hunter seems completely aware that he's a magical construct bound by the rules of Jumanji and even refuses to kill anyone besides the person who summoned him; as he tells Sarah, "You didn't roll the dice. Alan did."
• Leave Her to Heaven: Although she is a pathologically jealous Femme Fatale, Ellen is first established as being One of the Boys. The delight she takes in wild game hunting is treated as foreshadowing of both her unfeminine and violent nature, which culminates in her cold-blooded murder of Dick's disabled brother.
• May December: Gracie molested twelve-year-old Joe, groomed him, and had children with him, still keeping him under her thumb years later. She is also shown to be a hunter, hunting meat for her, Joe, and Elizabeth's meals. She also tells Elizabeth that she went hunting with her father and brothers. Georgie tells Elizabeth near the end that Gracie was sexually abused by her brothers growing up.
• Wild: When Cheryl is walking the trail, she is menaced by two hunters, including one that seems about to rape her.

Literature

• A Fly Went By: Subverted — when the boy finds out that the fox was not trying to kill the calf and instead running from a man with a gun, he assumes the man is bad and wants to shoot the fox. As it turned out, however, the man was innocent and in fact didn't even see the fox. It's never revealed why he was carrying a gun, though judging by his clothes, he was probably in the military.
• In the Roald Dahl book The Magic Finger, the girl narrator's Berserk Button is hunting and she yells at the Greggs every time they return home with a new catch. As she has magic powers that are set off when she gets too angry, she accidentally turns them all into human-bird hybrids. After they get a taste of what being a bird is like, the Greggs promise to never hunt again when several ducks (who have become human-sized and have grown hands) threaten them at gunpoint.
• The Most Dangerous Game shows that this trope is Older Than Television; Zaroff is portrayed as an immoral murderer who enjoys Hunting the Most Dangerous Game— that is to say, other people. However, downplayed in that the protagonist is also a big game hunter.
• Whale Talk: Early in the book TJ describes an incident where he tries and fails to protect a young deer from Rich Marshall, the first of many reasons he and Rich don't get along. He had overheard Rich talking about having killed a mother deer, and that he wanted to get a tag so he could kill the fawn as well. TJ goes to where the fawn is hoping to protect it, but Rich and his buddies arrive soon after. TJ tries to shield it with his own body, thinking they won't risk shooting him. His buddies try beating him up first, but when that doesn't work, Rich simply puts the muzzle of his rifle right against its head and pulls the trigger. TJ is horrified when he feels its life drain from its body, and thinks hunting, particularly for sport alone, is horrible. At the end, Rich tries to kill Heidi using the same hunting rifle, but TJ's father takes the shot instead.

Live-Action TV

• Cruel Summer: In Season 1 (which takes place in a small Texas town), Martin Harris (a principal who groomed and imprisoned Kate in his house) is shown meeting her during a hunt. It gets a Call-Back during Kate's imprisonment when it's revealed that she shot Martin and killed him after he was unable to go through with killing himself.
• Hannibal: Abigail and her father Garrett Jacob Hobbs are hunters who are first shown hunting and killing a deer. He is then revealed to be a Serial Killer of young women that look like Abigail, kills her mother, and slashes her throat before Will and Hannibal save her. They then devote themselves to finding out whether Abigail was his accomplice, as she is suspected of being. And she is, but she didn't choose to be. She helped her father kill girls to stop him from killing her, though she continues to struggle with this decision and what it says about her.
  Will Graham: Abigail...did you fish or did you hunt?
• Haven: Played With in season 1's "Fur," in which the Troubled Person of the Week is causing animals stuffed and displayed at the Haven Hunt Club to come alive and attack the people who killed them. The overall message of the episode seems to be this, particularly as Nathan and his father clash over Nathan's distaste for hunting. But one of the main suspects is Jess Minion, a Quebecois woman of Mi'kmaq descent who runs her grandmother's farm. She's an animal rights advocate and is a suspect because she won't let Club members hunt on her land—and isn't shy about firing upon poachers who trespass. When Nathan points out that hunting animals is acceptable in her culture (and Jess herself hunts), she fires back "we use them, we don't mock them." So the message is less that hunting itself is evil, but that hunting for sport is evil and deserves retribution.
• Downplayed in Season 1 of Mad Men. Betty is bothered by the birds in her garden, however, it's only after she loses her chance at modeling again thanks to Don, and realizes that she is still trapped in an unfulfilling and unhappy family and marriage that she takes a gun out to the garden and calmly shoots them.
• Mrs. America: Lottie Beth Hobbs is shown shooting at a deer while discussing with Phyllis Schlafly about the need to hate.
• Night Gallery: "Clean Kills and Other Trophies" has Archie Dittman, who hunts not for sport, but for bloodlust. He has a son who is nervous even by the sight of a gun, whom Archie Sr. views as a coward. He puts a clause in his will that his son will not inherit one cent from him if he does not kill an animal within fifteen days' time. Archie's butler, Tom, who is African by birth and studied in England, actually argues with his employer about it. Archie points out that Tom's native tribe hunts. Tom points out that for them, it is a matter of food and survival, not sport, and certainly not the bloodlust that Archie makes of it. How the story ends depends on whether you are viewing the episode, or reading the original short story. In the former, Tom appeals to his native gods, who transform Archie into a head mounted on the wall. In the original story, being forced to kill drives the son insane, and he attends to his father in a more hands-on manner.
• Pagan Peak: The second season plot heavily features the hunting culture of mountains near Salzburg, with the presentation being far from positive. The traditional hunting club of the area is presented as being populated by smug, classist crooked elites who use the connections to cut illegal backroom deals. Likewise, the main antagonist of the season Xandi Gössen is a prolific and highly skilled hunter. Whilst it is framed somewhat sympathetically (as it's made clear his turn to hunting vulnerable women is born out of his ongoing misery and frustrations at failing at everything he ever attempted, with hunting being his only genuine skill but one he can't turn into anything productive, making him feel more like a failure and a burden to his family especially his older brother Wolfgang), he is still a dangerous Serial Killer and Serial Rapist.
• Worzel Gummidge: Downplayed for Col. Bloodstock. He lists hunting as one of his hobbies, and he owns several animal skins, but he's not evil, just a bit of a Jerkass towards the other characters.
• Yellowjackets: Zigzagged. Nat and Travis hunt in the wilderness, which is portrayed as unpleasant but necessary to survive. However, Nat is the best with a gun, which is revealed to be because she shot at her abusive father with his gun and intended to kill him, but she left the safety on. In the present day, Shauna also kills rabbits that are in her garden. Though they are pests, she is shown to take pleasure in doing it, and her family is horrified when they see the newly-killed rabbit on the table.

Music

• Songs by Tom Lehrer: "The Hunting Song" is about a comically inept and dangerous hunter who, in a quest to hunt some deer, shoots seven other hunters, two game wardens, and a cow. However, this doesn't stop him from dragging their corpses home and turning their bodies into trophies.
  People ask me how I do it, and I say there's nothing to it
  You just stand there looking cute, and when something moves, you shoot!
  (*BANG* "AAGH!")
  And there's ten stuffed heads in my trophy room right now
  Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a pure-bred Guernsey cow!

Video Games

• Marvel's Spider-Man 2: Sergei Kravinoff/Kraven the Hunter and his supporters hunt superhumans instead of animals (indeed, some of them used to work as anti-poachers before they were recruited), but they are treated as no less dangerous and amoral for it. They cause tons of collateral damage trying to capture just two supervillains from an armed prison ship, treat the staff at their Smoky Gentlemen's Club callously by testing their tranquillisers out on them, and have no problems killing civilians in the crossfire. Kraven is by far the worst of them, encouraging his own family to hunt and kill one another to test their strength, taking the underage Miles prisoner, and forcibly turning Curt Connors back into the Lizard, dismissing MJ's pleas that Connors is a good man with, "There are no good men. Only good prey." And why is Kraven so obsessed with these dangerous hunts? Because he's Secretly Dying of cancer, and he wants to make sure to find a Worthy Opponent who can give him an Honorable Warrior's Death instead. Which goes to show how self-centred and callous Kraven is.

Western Animation

• Animaniacs (2020): In "Good Warner Hunting", Dr. Walter Grubb is a hunter of exotic cartoons who wants the Warners as part of his trophy collection. While initially played for laughs, it becomes disturbing once it becomes clear Grubb has already captured and made horrific trophies of most of the side characters from the original Animaniacs, including humans Mindy, The Mime, Miles Standish, and Katie Kaboom (though they later turn out to somehow be fine, just pissed off). Doubly so when Grubb is revealed to be Chicken Boo, himself a side character.
• Family Guy:
  • Discussed in "Blue Harvest", when Luke/Chris talks about hunting womp rats with his T-16.
    C-3PO/Quagmire: You shoot small animals for fun? That's the first indicator of a serial killer, you freak!
    Luke/Chris: There's two suns and no women! What the hell am I supposed to do?!
  • In "Screams of Silence: The Story of Brenda Q.", Quagmire and his friends attempt to murder Jeff, his sister's abusive boyfriend, by inviting him along on a midnight hunting trip. He gleefully accepts because it's an excuse to kill animals for fun.
• Looney Tunes: Elmer Fudd is a hunter who wants to shoot Bugs and Daffy to death despite knowing they're sapient. In Rabbit Fire, Bugs and Daffy each try to steer him towards the other by reading out dish recipes to him; Elmer answers that he's actually vegetarian and hunts for the sport of it.
• The Simpsons: Mr. Burns hunts so that he can make the animals into clothes, which is part of his portrayal as one of the most evil characters in the series.

---