There’s a little fishing spot in Malibu that I remember driving by as a kid on the way to the beach. From the road you could see the miniature “ponds,” which looked slightly larger than a backyard Jacuzzi, stocked with trout where you could go and fish. Guests could sit around the ponds, cast their bated lines, and pull up a fish possibly within minutes. The trout have nowhere to go, and are probably used to being fed by people with food that’s very similar to the bait, so why wouldn’t they nom on a line?

That’s kind of where the idiom “shooting fish in a barrel” came from. It’s completely unfair to the fish because it’s just sitting there, and the act requires absolutely no skill on the part of the fisherman. I could stick my hand in my fish tank but I’m not going to go around bragging that I caught a fish.

Canned hunting is basically the same thing: animals are kept fenced-in, usually in small areas or cages, until the hunt when they’re released into a larger yet still fenced-in enclosure. The animals often lack the instinct to escape since they were raised around humans and have nowhere to escape to, anyway. Some animals are mostly tame by the time of the hunt and many are used to going to man-made feeding and water areas where they can be easily found and shot. Guides at these canned hunting farms take high paying guests into the miniature forest and make a bee line for the watering hole or food trough where the guest can have an easy shot.

There are serious problems with canned hunting, a practice condemned by legitimate hunting associations. First, there’s absolutely no sense of sportsmanship in these hunts because the animal does not fear for its life or think to run away, and even if it did the fence would make it impossible to escape, completely removing the concept of “fair chase,” a notion hunters take pride in. Second, these animals are shot exclusively as trophies rather than for food, which means they aren’t shot in the head or other place where they’d die quickly, they’re shot where the skin or head isn’t  going to be damaged and then die slowly of blood loss. Some animals are shot with a bow and arrow, an incredibly ineffective killing method made even more brutal by the lack of skill these hunters have with a weapon. Third, animals raised for canned hunts are kept in unnatural environments, much like livestock, and are bred for their looks, making the less pretty animals waste. Last, but certainly not least, canned hunting (or shooting fish in a barrel) is incredibly cruel.

Canned hunting is legal in the United States as well as South Africa and neighboring countries. A wide range of animals are bred and bought for these little adventures, from quail and pheasant (which are released in the same way clay pigeons are) to deer and even to lions, tigers and leopards. Animals are bought from breeders, some zoos and circuses, and are sometimes the unwanted byproduct of selective breeding (for example, breeders trying for a white tiger will sell the orange tigers to canned hunting facilities). Hunting licenses aren’t a requirement for most facilities and the guarantee of a kill, which is nonexistent in the wild, is what guests pay up to $100,000 a trophy for. In some cases (for the hunter who has never handled a gun before or can’t wait even 5 minutes for a kill), animals are sedated or tied up before being shot. And then the hunter can pose with his game for a camera, have the head chopped off and the skin tanned, and go home to hang his prize.

I’m a supporter of hunting. I base my meat choices on sustainability and ethics as much as I possibly can, and hunting an animal in the wild or fishing from a pole and line are the most sustainable and ethical ways to get meat. It allows the animal to live its natural life in it’s natural environment, hunting rules govern the individuals that can be shot (even in deer season only bucks are allowed), and the hunter won’t shoot more than he can carry back with him.  Hunting requires skill, a knowledge of animal behavior, a respect for the environment and an investment of time and energy. I firmly believe that if most Americans had to hunt and kill their meat we’d almost all be vegetarians. Canned hunting is just shooting fish in a barrel: you’re at point blank range and the animal is trapped. There’s no way you’re going to miss.