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"...but hunting is a choice and undertaken almost solely for the pleasure of killing animals (please note - consensus of opinion - not my view)."
whose consensus? I don't know if i agree with this...
I'm not a hunter myself, but i live in montana where hunting is a regular part of life and I see a lot of this first hand. 99% of the hunters i know (or have heard of) hunt for the meat. Do they enjoy shooting guns - killing animals included? Sure, most of them do. But, if you're hunting to have meat to enjoy and eat i still see this as much more respectful than those of us that get our meet from the grocery in a little package and have no knowledge of or connection to the animal it came from. I even know folks that enjoy shooting stuff so much that they spend all their time and money on guns; however, they won't take down an elk or a deer simply because they don't like the meat (personally, i think they're nuts for preferring beef).
Are there people who hunt simply for the trophy to hang on the wall and/or the "thrill of the hunt?" Sure, but these people are looked down upon by the hunting community as much as by non-hunters. For example, I've seen wanted posters around town for any information of who killed such and such animal illegally and left it. Hunters do not take that sort of thing lightly.
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