Blood on My Hands: How hunting led me to question our relationship to animals, discover that DNA unites us all, and realize that we have to expand our understanding of ecology and take responsibility for the Earth

Shocked by how bloody my hands were after field-dressing my first big game, an antelope, I knew only that this blood involved something mysterious.  What did it mean that I felt marked by that blood?  And why did I keep thinking about that blood the rest of the day and keep dreaming about it that night?  To answer these questions, I began the process of discovery that resulted in Blood on My Hands:  the Ecology of Hunting.  Topics include how our culture overvalues life and fears death, how we can kill “such beautiful wild animals,” what is faulty about the arguments for animal rights, how DNA relates us to other life forms, the social importance of feasting and story-telling, and the need to begin rewilding the world by restoring habitat.

Blood on My Hands differs from all previous books on hunting because it is the first to treat hunting as an ecological act; it differs from all previous books on ecology because it is the first to insist on a definition of ecology that includes ourselves within it.  With this shift, hunting becomes an ecological act.  Such an ecological view of hunting enables us to rediscover the radical elements of being fully human:  consuming together the gifts of the game, celebrating the cycle of life amidst death by feasting and storytelling, and, by something more than metaphor, becoming what we eat.  Becoming mindful of our relation to other life forms in turn can help us stop being the most invasive and destructive species on earth and become the one that begins cleaning up the mess we have made.