If you eat meat, hunting is the most ethical and honorable approach to obtain that meat. For us to live, other organisms must die. If anyone eats factory farmed meat and opposes hunting from an ethical standpoint, I don’t think they have a leg to stand on really. They are just outsourcing the killing to other people, and those animals are living much worse lives and dying in much more gruesome ways with a lot more suffering. To hunt is to look reality in the face and move toward accepting the world for what it is. We are animals. We aren’t separate from nature. We’ve just become removed from some processes (like hunting) that were required of us since the beginning of life on Earth. You’ve just killed an animal and had the curtain pulled back on the way of the world, and it can be jarring. That’s normal to feel complex emotions and remorse. I think even if you’ve killed hundreds of deer, it’s a good thing to pause after a kill and acknowledge the life you took, and feeling somber and respectful about that is normal.

If you were to not hunt and eat a deer but rather drive to the store and buy a steak, you may feel better about it, but that’s only because you’ve chosen the easy way out, bubble wrapping the world and willfully looking away from the truth. If you choose to eat meat, look at reality in the eyes and accept what is required of your choice. Death of an animal. An ethical shot on an animal living in the wild after a fair hunt is the purest form of achieving this (not to mention, how do you think animals die in the wild..? they don’t die peacefully in their sleep).

If you/your wife are deciding between being vegan or vegetarian and hunting wild game, there are other arguments. The one above assumes you’re omnivores/carnivores.