A San Diego hunting group is raising the old debate about hunters and whether or not they really care about the animals they hunt.

Here & Now's Robin Young spent last Saturday with a group of men who had volunteered to repair an old guzzler on state land near Ramona, northeast of San Diego.

The guzzlers were built decades ago to collect rainwater for animals. They're cisterns made of concrete, and the one these men worked on was badly deteriorated, with cracks in the concrete above and below the ground.

How Guzzlers Work

Guzzlers collect rainwater as it falls on an outer concrete apron, which guides the water into the cistern below.

"When it rains, the water falls on the apron and it just runs down and fills that cistern. And then there's like a 25 degree slope or ramp to the bottom of that cistern so that animals can go down through that opening and walk down to the water," said Quail Forever member David Preddy, "There's no moving parts, so the simplicity is actually kind of exquisite."

These men are quail hunters. They say they will never hunt near a guzzler, where animals are vulnerable, and they may never get to hunt on this particular parcel of land.