“YEAH, I got to kill an animal that had did no harm to me, now let me Chop of its head and put it right there on my mantle, so the dead creature can stare at me for a while.”
I never understood the deal with hunting. To me it seems like a useless sport just to make humans declare their place over living things. If it is not for the food, I could understand that because veal is so delicious, but people do it just to say “I can kill things!” If you want a gun thrill can’t you go paintballing with some stupid friends (I would think it would be better because the thing you shot is still alive so you can make fun of it for the rest of the day).
It really bewilders me to see people talk about hunting trips and how they killed a really beautiful _____ (add cool animal here). Now don’t get me wrong, I love to eat meat, but it seems to be the only good justifiable reason for killing, for sustenance. You know I heard somewhere (my facts really suck) that if the whole world (especially you, china) stopped fishing, the Fish population would become normal in two years. Then we could go at depleting it again!
The world is really “kick ass beautiful” (thank you Wombels for giving me my favorite statement), why do hunters and other people become so hell bent on destroying it. We need to actually think about other species other than the humans, they are pretty important for us too.
Oh and by the way if you automatically got the quote from my title you are my new best friend!
Why hasn’t Jim Carrey done anything since 23 (which was kick ass AWESOME)?
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I am an environmentalist, but I support hunting in a good deal of cases. I couldn't do it, personally, because I'm too soft-hearted. I also couldn't hang dead animal heads on my wall and have them staring at me. Frankly, I can't even shoot a gun, but those who do are usually much more interested in protecting wild spaces than those who simply eat meat without working for it. There have been many cases of hunting groups teaming up with environmental groups to protect certain areas from development in order to protect the animals within them. It engenders a sense of pride, but it's also a sense of connection, from what I've gathered from talking to my hunter friends. Connection not only to your past, your roots, but also to nature. Native Americans, who lived very sustainably for centuries, hunted almost exclusively and became very attached spiritually to the animals they killed.
Furthermore, humans have eradicated most top predators from the system (wolves, bears, etc.) allowing prey to run rampant. Overpopulated deer, elk, and the like get ravaged by disease, hit by cars, and many other much more unpleasant fates than getting shot in the heart. Where it gets into trouble, I believe, is when it becomes out of control and becomes more about hatred for an animal that's considered a "nuisance," like in the case of wolves or coyotes or prairie dogs. That's how species go extinct, but controlled hunting is perfectly fine and can even benefit populations.
Frankly, I think it's people who eat meat without understanding where it comes from, how it got there, or taking any part in its killing who are more callous than hunters. Hunted animals get to live their lives out naturally whereas cattle (especially calves killed for veal!) live horrible lives and die horrible deaths before they ever get to your plate. Hunters are acquainted with death, they see the stage between living animal and food that most people don't see at all and yet take part in every day. It's much more honorable to actually look your meat in the eyes before calling yourself a carnivore.
Finally, even if hunters aren't using it to feed themselves, a lot of taxidermists will donate the meat that they don't use (like the body if they're only mounting the head) to a homeless shelter once they process it. Usually, the meat goes somewhere.
In the case of fishing, we have severely overfished most of the world's fisheries. The answer, though, isn't a moratorium on fishing, even if that would solve the problem faster. It's teaching fishermen how to fish sustainably so they don't starve. I'm a firm subscriber to the idea that we don't have to stop using our resources in order to save them.
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Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress. --Mahatma Gandhi
My Blog: http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/kablock
My PhotoBlog: http://takingpictures.wordpress.com
I really dislike hunting, and I'm not going into a whole rant on why it's wrong. However it's much more humane to "castrate" the animals rather than shoot them dead if you want to "protect the envirement". The thing is humans are simple minded and greedy, castration would cost to much, so lets pump 12g of lead into an innocent animal. Oh sure it seems well and good right now, there are 20 deer, the environment there can only support 10, so kill 10 deer.
Well let's apply that elsewhere, the economy is suffering there are millions of impoverished citizens around the world, and we all know that humans are overpopulated, so lets grab a R700 and blow their brains against the pavement. Why not we're providing a service!
Hunting is legitimized by the fact that they are animals, whose fault is it they're in this condition, oh yeah ours. Wow aren't we great, we screw up so what do we do, shoot the thing we messed up in the first place. Sounds like a plan.
Hunters I have a suggestion drop the gun and try to fight an animal head to head. We'll see if you deserve to kill an animal.
The amount of work and manpower that is required to castrate an animal, not to mention the ridiculous amount of stress that puts on the animal itself doesn't really do anything to curb dangerous disease. Catching the animal alone is ridiculously difficult to do and dangerous as you're having to approach volatile males of any given species. It's also almost impossible for us to keep that up long term, especially in regards to survival of the species and evolution. Who are we to choose which animals should be allowed to reproduce and which are most fit?
Let me give you an example. At Rocky Mountain National Park right now they have a severe overpopulation of elk and a disease called wasting disease is running rampant through the population (1). This disease slowly kills the animal while transmitting it to all the other elk that have to live so closely together until the animal's brain is finally eaten away so much that it has no control over any of its faculties. The've tried birth control darts for female elks, but they have to renew them every 6 months to a year and the amount of man power, money, and resources that it takes to find and shoot them is difficult for a national park to muster. Hunting is almost impossible in this situation as it would require literal supervision by resource management officials (it's a national park after all) but it's a good example of what happens when a species is overpopulated.
It IS our fault that they're like this . But it's important to look at why it's our fault. It's our fault because we've killed all of the natural predators in the system that would normally take care of this. They would kill the animals in the natural world, sometimes in what we would consider a much more inhumane way that hunters, so killing some of the population is a natural way of control, much more so than an invasive surgery. The absolute best solution in my mind is to reintroduce their natural predators, like wolves, but in highly populated areas that's simply never going to happen.
Once again, hunting needs to be done in a responsible manner. It should be carried out by people who value the resource they're taking. But it definitely CAN be done in such a manner and should be done in some cases. Simply maligning it because it's violent is not the solution and the meat that is sold in every single grocery store in the country is killed much more inhumanely and treated much poorly than any deer or elk ever was.
(1) http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5904032/Too-much-of-a-good.html
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Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress. --Mahatma Gandhi
My Blog: http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/kablock
My PhotoBlog: http://takingpictures.wordpress.com
Reintroduce Predators, hunting's bad, leaving it there.
I have faith in mother nature and evolution, humans should get their asses out of animal disputes.
In order for us to get "our asses" out of animal disputes, we need to destroy all our towns and cities, give up running water, growing food, and throwing out trash, and go back to living off the land. But oh wait, that still won't work because we'll need to hunt to eat.
Look, I seriously am a drooling, rabid environmentalist who believes that humans have screwed up the earth, but I'm also practical. There are instances where humans need to fix what they have done, and in those instances, reintroducing something like a grizzly bear just isn't practical. We need to work WITH hunters in order to allow them to hunt sustainably, just as we need to work with all industry to help them foster sustainable practices.
Since there's no way that we're going to be able to stop living the way we do (ie houses and grocery stores), we have to find other solutions. Hunting is always going to be a part of that solution. The only question is whether it will be sustainable or not
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Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress. --Mahatma Gandhi
My Blog: http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/kablock
My PhotoBlog: http://takingpictures.wordpress.com
If you have faith in mother nature and evolution, you should realize that humans have evolved to the point that we are in today with the help of mother nature...
By your argument that mother nature and evolution should take it's course, we are doing just that-- the being that has been, up to this point, most fit, is using the resources it's gained from mother nature to use weaker, less fit resources to it's fullest extent.
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Your Tongue is a Rudder; It Steers the Whole Ship, Sends Your Words Past Your Lips or Keeps Them Safe Behind Your Teeth... [Brand New]
Who are we to choose which animals should be allowed to reproduce and which are most fit? -kablock
We are the same nifety human beings who decide which one should die.
yes Animals are being treated unfairly in modern day slaughter houses, but we have a choice free roam.
Now in Hunting it is our fault that there is little to no natural predator's and how did this happen... BY HUNTING
So we are just going to act in the place of the natural predators by using guns (which if you ask me does not introduce death to the hunters eating meat, all it does is give guys reason to shoot at things). Two wrongs don't make a right (but 3 lefts do haha)
Now as we have seen before it can have a disasterous effect to introduce Predators that have no natural enemies (HUMANS) to an enviroment not ready for it.(also there is an article on just biological control but i think it applies as to humans as well http://www.tucsonaudubon.org/conservation/environment.html)
People can over hunt, and gaming laws don't always work. We need to find a common factor that can help us keep hunting down while making sure overpopulation doesn't go rampant.
Saint O Nothin' Says
Always go FORWARD, going straight will get you no where!
-Greenday "Jaded"
As I have said in each of my comments, I am not advocating uncontrolled hunting. There are bad forms of hunting and good forms, but they all come down to the motivation behind them and the controls imposed.
Hunting did get us to the point where we have no top predators, but that hunting was completely different than the type we have today. There were no limits on wolf or grizzly bear hunting and the federal government actually funded professional wolf and bear killers as well as research on the animals in order to more effectively eradicate them. Research has been turned to conservation purposes from those days, and hunting can be, too, when it is regulated.
Ranching is the impetus behind the eradication of top predators and it is also the force that keeps them from being reintroduced in most cases. Should we stop raising cattle for your veal, too?
Hunting laws, when properly enforced and made with the health of the animal population in mind, can be very effective. This is seen in many different cases all across the nation where hunting seasons and bag limits have kept populations down while making sure there were enough animals to live and thrive in the next generation. We have no shortage of white-tailed deer, and they're one of the most hunted animals in the country. Also as I've said before, many hunters are concerned about conservation, there are instances where hunters have elected to raise taxes on their own tools (bullets and guns) in order to fund wildlife preserves or reintroduction programs (1)(2)(3). You simply can't malign all hunters and all hunting simply because you don't have the same outlook. I certainly would never be able to go hunting, but I acknowledge that it's a natural part of who we are as animals and predators and that under the right conditions it can be both beneficial and necessary.
And do you know anything about what the criteria for "free-range" meat labeling is? It's poorly monitored, and there are no criteria at all regulating how that animal is killed in order for the meat to be called "free-range" (4). If you were so concerned about cruelty to animals, then perhaps you should do some research about the cruelty you're perpetuating, first. There are ranchers who take wonderful care of their animals and put in a lot of work to do so. I also acknowledge that slaughtering animals for meat is necessary for our society, though I don't support the industry because I also believe that it can be improved. Notice how I don't malign an entire group based on my personal distate for it.
(1) http://www.iowadnr.gov/wildlife/files/huntcons.html
(2) http://www.rmef.org/Hunting/HuntersConservation/
(3) http://www.boone-crockett.org/huntingEthics/ethics_overview.asp?area=hun...
(4) http://www.all-creatures.org/articles/ar-howfree.html
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Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress. --Mahatma Gandhi
My Blog: http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/kablock
My PhotoBlog: http://takingpictures.wordpress.com
To me it seems like a useless sport just to make humans declare their place over living things.
Real hunters cringe at people who think this way.
but people do it just to say “I can kill things!”
Yes, they do in PETA pamphlets and crappy movies, but not in real life. People who hunt just to say "I can kill things!" don't call themselves hunters. Everyone else calls them pricks, and they don't call themselves hunters.
why do hunters and other people become so hell bent on destroying it.
Hunters are actually hell-bent on sustaining the environment and the world. It's fucking ridiculous that someone would suggest the opposite.
Do you know what would happen to those animals if they weren't hunted?
For one thing, hunting is extremely regulated; in Washington, where I have the most experience and knowledge of hunting, the Department of Fish and Wildlife does surveys of every plant and animal they come across. They determine the population growth and decay, they test the food, the weather... and then they give out a limited number of hunting licenses... just enough to sort of "control" the population. (And I don't want to hear "let nature take it's course" because the animals wouldn't have populations as successful as they do if humans weren't involved.)
If there was no hunting, the animals would starve, kill each other, or come into our precious suburbs and eat our rosebushes or tiny dogs. (kind of like what happened with bears when they made it illegal to use hunting dogs).
I've grown up with hunters. I've grown up eating elk through an entire winter and into spring. My family is fed for months off of one animal. My dad, my brother, my uncles, my friends are the most environmentally sound people I know.
To say that hunters don't care about the world and don't care about the environment is preposterous... it offends and enrages me. I'm actually surprised I was able to be so nice in this response.
I hate when people who know nothing about hunting and TDFW try to talk down on it. Sigh.
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Your Tongue is a Rudder; It Steers the Whole Ship, Sends Your Words Past Your Lips or Keeps Them Safe Behind Your Teeth... [Brand New]