notes from the field

I subscribe to the newspaper in the town where I am conducting my dissertation research. It is a great town and I would move there in a second if I had the chance.
Anyway, the local sports section has been running pictures of kids standing beside the deer and moose that they have bagged. I feel compelled to cut the pictures out.
There is something about them -- I can't figure out why I feel the need to keep these images:
Lost innocence maybe? Most of the kids look happy enough standing under the 650 bull moose that is strung up in their driveway to drain or kneeling beside and tilting up the antlers of the 3-point buck lying in the leaves with its eyes still open and its tongue hanging out.
I don't really have a problem with hunting (trapping and hunting with dogs, yes but otherwise, no). In fact, I think that we would probably be better off if people got more of their meat from the forest instead of the supermarket.
I think it might just be the pictures themselves - that they strike me as inadequate obituaries. There is no recognition of the finality and solemnity of death in them, no explicit thanks for the animal that is lost. It's not clear to me from the photos that Cody Morin (aged 13), Cassie True (aged 11), Eagan Nadeau (aged 12), Jennifer Rancourt (aged 13), Nathan Cortes (11), Rocky Cotton, the Lee brothers and all the rest recognize the true cost, and, corresponding worth, of their prize - that their gain is also a loss...
Oh, I don't know...