I'm never going to go out and shoot an animal myself - I'm much too soft for that - but I do realize that hunting is a necessity, since we don't have the predators (including Native Americans) to do the culling. Our deer population has grown so much that it's much higher than when Europeans came to the New World. We also provide optimum conditions - farms with field edges, not to mention suburbs with all those lovely bushes we plant to feed the deer. So - increase and multiply! The deer now have decimated the native plant life, and are so crowded that starvation and disease can be a real problem.
But I would much rather have professional hunters do the killing than the amateurs who don't know what they are doing - easier on the deer, as well as neighboring livestock.
Smaug, you're right about hunters giving in other ways. Hunters provide a lot of the money for wildlife refuges, because they are more aware than most people of animal/gamebird need for habitat. Too many people see that land and think of the money they can make from development.
As for fox hunting, "the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible," as Oscar Wilde put it.