Hunting

[tbear]

Hunting is only acceptable if you eat what you kill.Hunting for sport is BS.To call something a sport implies that both parties have an equal chance.Hunting would only be a sport if A) Deers had rifles or B ) Hunters did their hunting naked with only a pocket knife as a weapon.
Trophy hunting is an abomination.To me stuffing an animal or mounting it's severed head on your wall is nothing short of desecration.

[Loganberry]

Might as well declare my paw. I think I'm fairly close to a lot of others here in finding little wrong with hunting for food, finding everything wrong with hunting for fur/sport, and having a bit of a mixed opinion about population control.

On pop control (wow, no more Sprite? ), I think it has to be on a case-by-case basis. There are occasions when doing nothing is going to be more harmful in the long run - usually, I have to say, when the problem was human-created in the first place (eg rabbits in Australia).

Oh, and it goes without saying that the sooner fox-hunting is made illegal in this country, the better. I'm not an ignorant urban dweller, but I still think that hunting with hounds is cruel, full stop.

[Ante]

Quote (Varg the wanderer @ Oct. 08 2003, 5:13 pm)

Ante understands, with no hunting more deer would die and the death would be a lot more violent than lead to the head.  That and quit a few humans would die too.  That's the real purpose of brush guards on trucks.  More like deer guards.

This understanding is a part of living in the northeast. Killing for food is completely natural, though we may have an unnatural upper-hand, and population control is just a little gift thrown in. Seriously though, deer are really, really bad up here. If it wasn't for hunters, starvation and cars would kill them back down to normal with, as I said, more casualties due to car accidents and lack of food for other animals. It really is a good thing around here. I couldn't understand hunting for this in areas with a lesser population of similiar animals unless that is how you lived.

[Bear Paw]

One plain and simple rule you kill it you eat it.If an animal dies to serve no survival purpose then it is wrong. And thats my two cents worth. ( any change from th by the wayat??)

[TheIronMaiden]

I voted food/population control. I personally would never hunt though. I don't kill things. I mean, I've stopped mowing the lawn and waited for about five minutes to let a moth get out of my way.

[Yip]

I've always believed that you shouldn't kill unless it's necessary. So I said food/population control. I don't have any problems with killing bugs though. I think the biggest things I've ever killed are mice. One of my fondest memories with our dog Ruffie was of "hunting" mice in the barn. There are normally mice in there, and that doesn't bug me. But at that time there was an overabundance of mice in there. So I guess you could call it population control. (It sure the heck wasn't for food.) I would point out the mice, and the dog would go get 'em. Now that I think about it, that's kinda strange 'cause usually the dog points out the prey and the human gets 'em. (As far as for food goes, the dog DID chew on them if that counts. I don't know if she actually ate any though.)

[Murrg]

I don't think I can say anything that has not already been said but I'll say my piece anyway.

I'm for hunting for food purposes only and in extreme cases of population control. Hunting for sport is wrong and wastefull not to mention (in my opinion) disrespectfull to nature it's self. The only way hunting should be used for population control is if the natural enemies of the animal in question is not around.
To many wonderfull creature's have been sent to an early death because of "sports men" and there wastefull ways.

[Shi Miao Yi]

Amitabha.

As the inner animal within us all most likely preys upon other animals, so do I on occasion.  I greatly respect the doe that I kill and I pray for it after it's death.  I use only a bow and I do it for food.  Hunting for sport is wrong, most of the time they don't even make use of the animal.

With a deer I am able to use it's fur and many other pieces of the animal.

The way I see it is that I am human, and the human race created weapons so we could survive.  We are to use those weapons, but there is a sense of relativity.  I will never use a gun to kill for one.

Amitabha.

[Ukiko]

Well, I admit to being a carnivore, but I'll agree with the majority on the only for food/population control front.  Personally I feel less guilty eating hunted meat than farm meat, considering the way farm animals are kept >.<  

I was a vegetarian for awhile, but I crave meat because I'm anemic so....

[Kada-Ru]

I used to think I could kill for food. I don't know any more though. I have a bad habit of turning ANY animal into a pet regardless of what it was meant for. I would probably end up being a vegetarian and having all the animals for pets! '>

[Gril]

I'll admit that I don't know everything about hunting, but I do know that the majority of people around here (the northwestern part of the US) hunt deer or elk, and they use the meat.  Some people have the heads mounted, if it's a "big one", or some just mount the antlers.

I'm not very familiar with sport hunting, but I'm under the assumption of a couple of things.  First of all, the primary goal is to procure a large beast as opposed to just getting a deer that could supply food.  Also, it's not limited to deer, but animals all over that may not be necessarily consumed for food?  I always thought that in cases of animals that aren't consumed for food, it was a bit strange to hunt them.  I'm not sure about the process, but in order to have a taxidermist (is that the right word?) prepare and stuff the animal, he would have to remove all of the innards, right?  So if it was a cat or whatever, you couldn't save the meat.  Besides, from what I understand, you have to drain the blood and all that stuff right away, otherwise the meat gets a "gamey" taste.  (so I'm told, anyway.  I've never hunted, myself)  So with sport hunting, would it be at all possible to save the meat?

I'm just wondering, because it seems like people would try to if they could.  (good people)

Also, we're not getting sport hunting confused with poachers are we?  I just want clarification for myself, since I'm pretty fuzzy on all thus stuff.  I've seen documentaries where people poached elephants for the tusks, but left the elephant carcasses to rot (even though, from what I remember, elephants could supposedly be consumed).  That I find completely wrong.  But since they *were* hunting illegally, you can see why they didn't hang around long enough to take care of the carcass.  =/

Anyway, to make a long story short, I voted for meat/population control.  I do think both are necessary.  And in some cases, if a certain animal that can't be consumed grows to be out of control, it may be necessary to hunt them, even though you wouldn't eat them (I've never heard of such a thing, but I wouldn't oppose it.  If the tiger population exploded, and they were a threat to themselves and people, as well as to their own food sources, it's time to take action.  However, I don't forsee the tiger population growing huge anytime soon...).

Okay, I'm rambling at this point.  =P

--Josie

[Gril]

I forgot that I wanted to add a comment about reintroduction, which I'm not a big fan of.  There is so much rural and unpopulated land just in the US alone (more than 50% of the US population is coastal--that leaves a lot of empty space in between), so I don't see the point in reintroducing wolves or bears into areas that have high levels of populations.

I live in Idaho, where they've been reintroducing wolves (and I think grizzlies, too).  It's true that wolves were endangered for a while--here's why.  They kill livestock.  So what do the farmers and ranchers do?  What any person would do--and if you're honest with yourself, you would do the same in their shoes--you'd shoot the wolves!  You'd protect your livestock!

Think about it.  Are you going to kill the wolves and save the lives of your cows--other animals that are the source of your income, whether for meat or for dairy farms or whatever--or sheep that support your wife and children by supplying the market with wool?  Or are you going to stand by for the sake of the wolves, and protect the carnivores while you watch them destroy your livelihood?

Okay, so farmers and ranchers shot the wolves until they were endangered.  So they were pretty much gone, and many/most of the wolves left were kept in captivity, until the population was restored.  So now they're reintroducing them back into the areas where the trouble all started in the first place?  Bad idea.

Yeah, the "wolves were there first", but this is a humanized environment now, and the people aren't gonna just go away.  I predict this to be the beginning of a vicious cycle.

Already the wolves are killing livestock again.  At the moment, the farmers and ranchers are powerless to retaliate, but a time will come when the population of the wolves will skyrocket, and it will be too much.  That's when the cycle will start again.  They'll eventually be forced to remove the protection from wolves, and ranchers, angry and frustrated, are gonna go on a wolf killing rampage.

I sympathize with farmers more than wolves.  Wolves are following their instinct, and they don't what not to kill.  But I sympathize with ranchers and farmers because they're the powerless victims in all this--all their generations of hard work, with little payoff I might add, being slowly picked off.  Sucky!

If more than 50% of the US population is coastal, then surely the could find some places the release the wolves where there aren't people around.  I have faith in them--they just need to look harder!  If they don't, I think all those years of work will be for nothing.

--Jos

[Yip]

So for the re-introduction thing to work they need to find ways to make the livestock harder to get than the wild animals. And it would have to be done in ways that make it obviously to the wolves.

I read something about guard dogs being used with some success. Luckily, back home we never had anything more than a few coyotes, and those were rarely seen. So simply having the sheep in the same area as the cattle (which seem to be considered off-limits to the predators around) was enough to keep 'em safe.

[Lobar]

Quote (Gril @ Oct. 15 2003, 12:35 am)

Okay, so farmers and ranchers shot the wolves until they were endangered.  So they were pretty much gone, and many/most of the wolves left were kept in captivity, until the population was restored.  So now they're reintroducing them back into the areas where the trouble all started in the first place?

The reason that the farmers and ranchers shot predators to the point of endangerment is that there weren't any effective alternatives to protecting the livestock at the time.  Now there are quite a few ways of keeping predators away.

Predators can even be psychologically conditioned to hate the taste of sheep, or whatever your livestock is.  It's a technique that has been used successfully before.  A farmer can kill one of his livestock and mildly poison the meat and leave it in the field, and when a predator eats it, they become nauseous.  You wouldn't eat something again that made you sick the first time, right?  Neither would a coyote.

There's other ways too, like guard dogs, which was already brought up, and other ways I'm too tired to think of at the moment.

[chimera soul]

kill to eat, but eat all you kill thats all i'm saying

[Ulario]

Hmmm... this poll seems to be a bit one sided.  '>

I definately believe in hunting for food.  It's natural.  

I also belive in population control.  I live in Mid-Michigan where there is an overabundance of deer.  When the population gets out of control, the deer will starve in the winter (especially a cold snowy winter like the one that we had last year)... or  deer will end up as a venison-pancake on the side of a road.

My dad hunts for sport... and it really makes me p-oed.  last year he went bear hunting.  Just think of the concept:  a group of drunken idiots go out and kill a bear who was just minding it's own business, wandering around looking for food so they can reshape it's skin into an evil snarling position that makes it looks like it's going to rip somebody apart.  It ends up scaring most of the little kids that come over to their house.

[Ulario]

I've found that people can be really opinionated when it comes to hunting or keeping wild animals as pets.  One time I got chewed out because I said I was against falconry.

[Varg the wanderer]

Quote

(especially a cold snowy winter like the one that we had last year)

So that's were all our snow has gone thies past 2 years '>

[Varg the wanderer]

Quote

(especially a cold snowy winter like the one that we had last year)

So that's were all our snow has gone thies past 2 years '>

Only if you plan on using as much as you can from what you hunt, and not just for decorative purposes.  I'm not saying shooting as a hobby is a bad thing, but there's definitely more exiciting things you can take aim at than Bambi's mom. '>

[firefox_b]

I think native Americans approached the ideal for hunting, which was necessary for their existence in earlier times.  In hunting buffalo, every part of the animal was used, and the spirit of the animal was venerated.

The hunting culture will always be with us, in some areas more than in others.  It's certainly not for me, but I respect the right of others to hunt game within legal parameters, especially if the hunt is for food rather than purely for sport or to acquire trophies.  Those who travel to distant states or other nations to hunt exotic animals have probably crossed the line.  I'd prefer also not to see the pics of hunters holding aloft the lifeless heads of their prey which appear in the local newspapers.  

While foxes are known to eat mice, squirrels, and an occasional rabbit, I prefer to stalk the wily pizza!   '>

[Richy]

I believe that as long as you intend to eat it, hunting is okay.

[Zarathus]

for food..

*looks at Varg's reply*
And there was me getting told off by certain members for reviving old topics!!
   to them!!

[RyoJintai]

I've never been hunting,and if I did,I would NEVER shoot one of my own kind.