In a review of situational pressures on tourists, we identify seven sins or risk zones that induce moral disengagement and allow for behaviour that would be considered unethical by the same people when not on holiday. The context of hunting tourism reveals the following sins act cumulatively on the hunting tourist: “The Pay Effect”, “The Tourist Bubble”, “Last Chance Tourism”, “The Bucket List”, “When in Rome”, “The False Display”, and “The Saviour”. Identifying these sins and the way hunting tourists draw from them to neutralize eco-guilt are argued to be a first step on the call to set standards and practices within consumptive wildlife tourism consistent with the Precautionary Principle in tourism planning.

Modern hunting appears to be undergoing an identity crisis as a result of transitioning from labour to leisure. This transition is by no means linear or absolute. Today, hunting is framed both as a hobby for the leisure participant, and as a societal duty that delivers wildlife management, pest control for agriculture, sustainably sourced meat and euthanasia of injured wildlife. Hunting is hence doubly serious as ‘serious leisure’: it involves skill and perseverance, but it is also seen as serious in constituting societal labour. In this article, we employ netnographic research to examine how and in what contexts labour‐leisure tensions are manifested among Swedish hunters. We observe hunters struggle with the balance between leisure and labour on four levels: (1) internally, when it comes to reconciling their personal motivations for hunting; (2) between hunters, resulting in the normative differentiation between ‘urban leisure hunters’ and everyday hunters in the countryside doing ‘real’ work; (3) between different hunting practices; and (4) between wanting to enjoy the freedom afforded by the leisure label, while also inviting formalisation of hunting's role as a public service, including compensation. Our findings show the contradiction between labour and leisure is also differently managed across these levels.

What do hunters consider an ethical hunt? Ethics are a central part of hunting as it concerns the killing of wildlife. Modern developments are exerting pressures on hunting affecting its practice and ethics. Normative ideals, such as animal welfare and sustainability, are growing in signi-ficance and questioning the legitimacy of hunting, pushing the question of ethical conduct. This research explores how modern developments shape contemporary hunting ethics and examines hunters’ concerns about the emerging dilemmas from various pressures affecting hunting. Exploring the prescriptions that hunters voice in relation to these developments reveals broader ethics and values held by hunters beyond communicated principles of ‘fair chase’ and ‘quick kill’. An applied ethics approach is taken, utilizing qualitative empirical data to analyse hunters’ perceptions of their own and other hunters’ ethical conduct in the face of modern developments, specifically technological innovation, commercialisation, demographic change and centralisation. The thesis thus sheds light on how hunters accommodate, reflect on, or resist these developments, providing insight into held values among hunters and their relationship with wildlife. Each of these developments are investigated, focusing on ethical issues and the emergence of dilemmas for hunters involving trade-offs between moral principles around fair chase, animal welfare and ecology. Results show that these developments affect how hunting is and should be practiced, causing tensions between different values and perspectives on the purpose of hunting and its continued role in society. The research concludes that ethical principles alone are not enough to guide modern hunters and that the hunting process, which is essential to ethical conduct and experience, is being compromised by modern pressures. Finally, three elements of hunting consisting of effort, knowledge, and purpose, are proposed as a complement to ethical principles to buffer against modern pressures and guide hunters towards an ethical hunting process.

Although hunting is declining in western countries, the number of people taking the hunting exam in Sweden are stable, and new demographic groups are becoming hunters. Through interviews done in Sweden with both new and experienced hunters, as well as focus groups with young hunters at agricultural colleges, we investigate how they navigate praxis and ethical frameworks taught in hunting. Using theories on moral learning, as well as Walzer's thick and thin moral argument, we contrast the views of these young hunters with the ethical principles outlined in the educational literature for the hunting exam. We then present how young hunters reasoned around issues regarding hunting ethics, animal welfare and the place of hunting in modern society, both inside and outside the classroom. The young hunters we spoke to acted as moderators of modern trends in hunting, often bringing ‘destabilising’ influences like social media and female hunters. Young hunters are enculturated into traditional hunting structures and, in the process, caught in a dialectic between modern influences and traditional hunting culture. Our findings highlight challenges such as ‘false consensus’ and ‘ethical trade‐offs’ in the learning of hunting ethics, which emerge potentially due to a lack of space for deliberation on hunting ethics.

Modern hunting is an ambivalent practice, torn between leisure and labor. Nowhere are these conflicting dimensions better manifested than for wild boar—a simultaneous game and pest species in many countries. Here, we consider the sociological, political and cultural phenomenon of wild boar hunting from a change perspective, starting at its historical roots to future implications concerning the changing demographics, drivers, needs and practices of a modernizing hunting community. Using the case context of France, we present an approach to deconstructing each component of wild boar hunting firstly, and subsequently the external forces that change the nature of hunting. The objective of this manuscript is to discuss of the wild boar optimal harvesting to be applied in changing social and ecological environment. Findings show that the challenges facing wild boar management will likely intensify in the future, especially under the spotlight of a controversial public debate.