The tragedy of killing animals
The tragedy of killing animals is a modern concept, that developed during last century, and its my belief that ironically, it might be related to the enhancing distance between man and nature.
In other times, no so long ago, everybody would "assassinate" an animal, by shooting its head or twisting its neck until the column collapsed, to have a dinner served. This people -our ancestors- far away from being monsters, were just playing their role in the ecosystem.
Nowadays we luckily have the possibility of buying a piece of meat in a plastic pack, which hardly represents the image of the animal that meat belongs to. Most of our contemporaries don´t even know how those animals are killed nor want to know it. That is certainly a distancing between them and nature. So, I would add, with your allowance, at least a third kind of person to the two you suggested: those who "kill for a need". This "kind of people" nowadays still exist, and were majority in the times when W. H. Hudson was raised here in Argentina.
I´m an argentine who enjoyed contemplating birds since a kid, in the so called "Pampa" (which we simply refer to as countryside). I didn´t discover Henry Hudson till many years later, and when I did I truly felt that his love for nature and particularly birds represented my feelings.
I believe we should be able to recapitulate history without judging the acts committed with a conscience that was shaped in a different scientific and cultural background. We must try to understand why people acted in a way that we now consider cruel, without judging them for acting that way.
As you perfectly state: "It all depends where we began, and how we were shaped, and what was the example".
As a last thought, I´d like to ask you a question: Don´t you think that its because of people like Hudson and Darwin, who experimented true love for nature, that people like you and me feel the need of protecting wild life and condemning bird hunting? I certainly do.
I suggest you should all read "Far away and long ago" which in my opinion is some of the best Hudson has written. And I hope that the lecture of this book will help you understand why he and many other early ornithologists "killed birds" while they "marveled at their beauty".
Hudson was a poet and a hunter, and yet I´m sure that gentleness was a virtue he possessed. His books inspired me love for nature like no other writing has.
Sincerely, Tomás