TL;DR — By allowing hunting, we are promoting a culture that tolerates violence and treats it as a sport.

From a purely [animal rights perspective] (http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/using/hunting_1.shtml), there is no debate that hunting is unethical. In its most basic sense, hunting is the practice of pursuing wildlife with the ultimate aim of capturing or killing it.

It is this last aspect that allows people to question the morality of the activity because it feeds into the idea that killing animals can be classed as a sport. It is important, however, to stress that hunting does not validate killing in general, but rather develops the view that it is acceptable to kill an animal for sport.

It also cannot be ignored that animals are sentient. Accordingly, the arguments against hunting must include the fact that the hunted animal is not guaranteed a painless death. This boils down to the question of whether we should knowingly cause pain to another sentient creature.

However, perhaps the most important objection to hunting is based around the central moral tenet that it is morally wrong to kill for pleasure. To kill for pleasure by implication means that pleasure is derived from another’s suffering. So, if we allow this activity to take, surely we are creating the false perception that killing animals is acceptable? The reaction to [the killing of Cecil the lion] (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-33674087) suggests that many do not believe that it is acceptable. Therefore, it is challenging to morally and ethically justify hunting when it involves consciously killing a sentient creature.

TL;DR - Hunting for food is much more ethical than industrial farming

If you eat meat, the most ethical way of obtaining it is hunting. No hideous farming practices, no 'bred-to-die'.

If you take pleasure in hunting - the pursuit, the outdoors, etc... - and the animal is eaten by someone else, is that less ethical?

TL;DR - Hunting is ethical when people (such as Inuit) rely on it for survival, but there are many hunting practices which are unnecessary and unethical, such as trophy hunting and canned hunting.

There are people who rely on hunting as an essential part of their diet. For example, some Inuit people (indigenous people of Greenland, Canada, and Alaska) rely on seals, whales, fish, birds and their eggs etc. (alongside the few plants which can be gathered) for survival, as they live where it is impossible to cultivate plants for food (Searles, 2002). In these cases, where hunting is necessary for human survival, health, and/or wellbeing, it can be considered ethical.

However, there are people who hunt purely for leisure when it is unnecessary to do so. Trophy hunting (the killing of an animal for sport/leisure to display part or all of its body as a trophy) and Canned hunting (the hunting of often captive-bred animals confined to a limited area for ease of hunting), are undoubtedly unnecessary and unethical.
These types of hunting are especially unethical in cases where the hunting will negatively affect an ecosystem or the species is vulnerable/ threatened/ endangered, which is often the case for trophy hunting. Even cases of canned hunting where the animals are eaten are arguably more unethical than buying farmed meat as it will likely result in more pain and distress for the animal, and the animals are still 'bred-to-die'.

There are some cases where (non-canned) hunting does not negatively impact an ecosystem and is unnecessary for survival but the animal is eaten in place of farmed meat. These cases can be considered ethically permissible as they prevent the funding of unethical farming practices, but should ideally require enough skill that animals' pain and distress is cut short.

More info:
'Canned hunting': the lions bred for slaughter
(https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jun/03/canned-hunting-lions-bred-slaughter)

Breeding novelty animals for trophy hunting
(https://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/24/africa/breeding-hunting-rare-animals/index.html)

An introduction to trophy hunting
(https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/an-introduction-to-trophy-hunting/)

References:
Searles, Edmund. "Food and the Making of Modern Inuit Identities." Food & Foodways: History & Culture of Human Nourishment 10 (2002): 55–78.

If you are hunting for food as part of your way of life, it is ethical. It is natural for humans to hunt and kill animals for their food and pelts. I say this as a vegan myself. Hunting and killing animals for sport is something I do not see as ethical however.

We hunt for food. It’s cheaper and keeps the white tail deer population within limits. Far too many cars and too many deer.. you can put two and two together. From a fatherly standpoint, I feel more comfortable feeding my family something I know is natural with no extra ingredients.

I believe that hunting for food is entirely ethical. Probably much more ethical than buying it at the supermarket. However, trophy hunters and those who do not respect and use all parts of the animal I find absolutely disgusting. Hunting should be something you do for sustenance.