For me either someone else hunted (as my brother did to provide for his family). Or a recent (as I lived in the mountains) deer was hit on the road and the local people that knew I did my own work would call me and ask me if I wanted it. The buffalo came from the Eastern States Bison Co op, originally because they wanted to save on their disposal fee costs, and because I didn't want to see them dumped. Large birds and small animals were usually a happenstance but I don't like to see them wasted if I can help it. To me if they are hunted for food, they should be honored in a way that extends their lives by beauty. Do I kill an animal just for its hide, I would if I was cold, and hungry, but I am not, so no.

It is funny, people have no quams about going to the supermarket and picking up a nice steak for dinner, or how many local animals are displaced by building homes, or that the state of Pennsylvania traded wild turkeys to Virginia for wolves and they released the wolves into a rural farm area with cows and horses, or that wild buffalo from Yellowstone were herded into an area because they claimed one had a disease, a disease that does not even effect them or infect a population and created and sold the remainder to farms.

I can hunt, and am very good at it if I need to be, but don't hunt just for hunting sake or to obtain an animal or animal part for ceremony or ritual. I believe if the spirit of an animal is helping you, you are not required to kill one for the medicine or a piece of it to increase it's effectiveness. If along the way something comes to you as a gift or you rescue something here and there because of your love for it, then it becomes that, a gift.