Crap…I screwed that last post up. Starting with the “quote” by Raygun99 (the above is NOT Raygun’s words):
As to trophy hunters do they always pack out (say) 500 pounds of bear meat after a kill (I’m just guessing that a 1,200 pound bear equates to 500 pounds of meat [no bones, blood, etc.)? If you’re way out in the mountains is this even possible without a dozen hunters to share the load?
What about the stories you hear of hunters going to shoot caged exotic animals? That doesn’t happen? There are NO hunters who just want the trophy?
While a hunter might make good use of the animal they kill I sincerely doubt they make maximal use of it. Industrial slaughterhouses DO make maximal use of the animal. Literally the ENTIRE cow gets used. Blood, bones, brains…you name it. I sincerely doubt any hunter makes as much use of the animal they kill (just due to practical matters more than choice on their part).
Oh yeah…FWIW I buy free-range meat whenever I can (I admit I’m not picky about it when I’m at a restaurant…if their meat is free-range then great but I’ll still order what they offer regardless). I also no longer eat veal even though I love it. My conscience just can’t allow the thought of a calf hobbled so it can’t move so I can enjoy a meal. Plenty of other things I like so it isn’t necessary to go for the veal.
Whack-a-Mole, ironically enough, I’m hunting a mole right now, and I’m not going to eat it. As a matter of fact, I’ve used just about every trap I could…because I’m for the vegetables and plants, and he’s killing my grass.
Sure. My father used to go hunting in Colorado and it wasn’t to difficult for them to bring home a couple of elk weighing between 300-550 pounds each. Uh, before gutting them of course. It shouldn’t be to difficult to get a bear out of the mountains provided that you dress him in the field. It isn’t as if you’re just taking one solid 500 pound chunk of bear.
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You’re quite correct. In fact last time I went hunting for deer quite a bit went to waste because the guy I normally pay to dress it wasn’t open that year. I got as much meat as I could but some did go to waste because I don’t have the equipment ot make use of it all.
Get a mallet and wrap a pillow or other padding around it.
Lie in wait very quietly in front of the grid of holes you made in step #1.
Whack the mole on the head when he pops out of the ground. He will tend to do this more and faster till eventually you’re wailing away at all the holes like a madman but you should get him eventually.
Oh, I agree, many food animals do lead miserable lives. Most of what you’ve brought up here is tripe, though. Force-fed poultry? Does this happen outside foie gras production? If so, I don’t know about it. Chickens are raised in very cramped quarters, it’s true, though given how mind-bogglingly stupid they are I’m not sure they care. I have a hard time feeling sympathy for birds that would rather crush each other to death in the corner where the pagewire meets the chicken coop trying to escape a thunderstorm instead of walking around the corner of the coop and into it through the open door. (Yes, I witnessed this first-hand.)
Cows don’t much care what they eat, and you can be sure that no one is going to pay good money for feed that isn’t healthy and nutritious for them. If you want to complain about the beef industry, you’d best stick to the crowded conditions in feedlots.
Pigs…well, let’s just say I really, really dislike the pork industry. Especially the giant barns that seem to be going up left and right recently. I don’t see how tail amputation is something to get worked up about, though. How is it any more cruel than castrating cats? I’d bitch about the fact that the pigs are forced to stand on concrete floors their entire lives (because the manure disposal system involves flushing the bare concrete floors with water - manure disposal in a large barn where pigs were given straw bedding would be horrifically expensive, and hog barns, like most agricultural operations, work on razor thin profit margins), and are basically crippled by the time their slaughtered because of it.
Most “the animals are suffering” propaganda is rather misinformed. Not that some of it isn’t true, but a lot of it relies on people just having no understanding of how things actually work. If you want to learn the truth, I suggest visiting a few farms in your area to see for yourself.
All that said, I submit you have no freaking clue about how wild animals live. Not uncommonly they starve to death, or die slow lingering deaths due to disease - two fates domestic animals are pretty much guaranteed to miss out on. Life in the state of nature is pretty much as Hobbes described - nasty, brutish, and short - not that he was speaking of non-human animals.
Just out of curiosity how does one person move 600-1100 pounds of anything by themselves? I assume he is moving it in pieces and I suppose this makes sense if your car/truck is within a few miles. Are hunters always able to have a vehicle within a mile or two? Are they never 5 miles or more away from transportation? Certainly someone can walk 5 miles but let’s assume the hunter can tote 100 pounds per trip (seems generous to say someone can lug 100 pounds 5 miles but this is just an example). Say you have 1,000 pounds of meat from the two elk to move. That’d be ten trips. The roundtrip is 10 miles (5 miles to the car, 5 miles back). I seriously doubt the hunter would manage more than 20 miles in a day which is again being generous considering 10 of those miles he/she will be carrying 100 pounds not to mention potentially rough country being crossed. It will take the hunter five days of back and forth travel to carry out his kill. Are you suggesting all hunters are happy to do this?
It seems only fair that you account for your time and the value that has. Part of the purchase price of meat from a market is that someone else has spent the time and effort of preparing the meat on your behalf so you are free to do other things (like post on the SDMB).
As to $5/pound you can certainly do better. Since you’re willing to store 100 pounds of venison (essentially the entire animal) then you should do the same for the cow. According to this site ordering the whole cow will get you a price of $3.49/pound. This meat will be cut to your specifications so you need not bother and they claim their beef is all raised on grass in pastures so you don’t have to feel badly about a tortured cow in a pen. Still a touch more than getting your own deer ($49 more) but then again someone has gone to the trouble of butchering and packaging it for you too which should be worth something.
This site has a whole or side of beef for $2.25 per pound if you want to get under your cost for the deer.
This quote still bothers me so I mentioned it to my roommate who used to hunt. He related a story of him and his buddies bear hunting in Pennsylvania (at least I think it was Pennsylvania since that’s where he’s from). He said that one time they shot a bear and it ran away. One of his friends, trying to figure where the bear went, crawled under a fallen tree over a depression in the ground with a pistol in his hand. You can probably see where this is going…he came practically face-to-face with the bear. Obviously startled he shot the bear in the head at point-blank range. The bullet did not penetrate the skull and instead bounced off. Fortunately the bear just wanted to get out of there and ran instead of taking apart this guy. As the bear ran, now flushed from its hiding, the other hunters shot and killed it.
This does not sound like a 5-10 second death to me and I doubt these guys are the first hunters in the world to wound their prey rather than outright kill it.
(FTR my roommate stipulated to his friend’s utter stupidity and ultimate luck in this encounter.)
I also didn’t account for the fact that the rifle will last a lot longer than ten years, or even thirty years, and I looked up current prices for a lot of the equipment on websites of companies that sell hunting apparel, because I don’t still have the original purchase information for most of it.
I’m fortunate enough to not have to pay a butcher to process my deer, although I included the cost of cutting the deer in the total cost.
As for time, I don’t consider it a ‘cost’ involved, because hunting deer for food is not ‘work’ to me. It’s something I enjoy doing during the season, thus the act of hunting my food is one of the benefits. Most people who enjoy a hobby or a sport don’t count the time the spend on that hobby or sport as part of the ‘price’, and neither do I.
Sometimes, yes, it does happen that the animal is not immediately killed by the first shot. A good hunter makes every effort to be sure that the animal dies quickly and cleanly from one shot, and if that doesn’t happen, goes out of his or her way to be damn sure the animal is out of its misery as quickly as possible.
I remember once in my first year of deer hunting taking aim on a doe that was 200 yards away, and because I was a bit nervous, I hit the deer in the upper part of the leg rather than the lung shot I was aiming for. The doe fell, I bolted the rifle and took a second shot - head shot - and that one killed the doe instantly. The time between the two shots was under 15 seconds. I can’t imagine many hunters want to cause suffering.
As for the ‘enjoy killing’ idea, well, for me it’s more that I enjoy the entire act of being a predator. Stalking the game, staying motionless in wait knowing that it can see, hear and smell me before I ever even know it is there, cleanly killing the animal (and I refuse to take a shot unless I have a very good one), field dressing it, and bringing it home.
Also, most hunters that I know of don’t carry big game out of the woods. It’s usually tied to a rope and dragged to the vehicle, which in most of Pennsylvania isn’t going to be a five mile walk. I have been told from relatives who hunt and live in areas that are much larger and much more sparsely populated that horses or ATVs are often used to reach areas that can’t be gotten to by car, so in that case, there’s some aid in bringing back the animal.
One of the reasons I eat venison is that it’s inexpensive. The other is that it contains much less fat than beef, and is in general a better alternative for heart health and cholesterol consciousness. I also think that it has a much better flavor than what’s available at the grocery store.
Hunting for dinner to most good hunters is not work, it’s something we enjoy, hence it is sport hunting.
I was fortunate to win the NH moose lottery this year. I will be (hopefully) dragging out a moose from the woods. This is about the only animal that exists that meets the rediculous amount of 1,100 pounds that you refer to.
Whack-a-Mole, It’s obvious from reading your posts that you have no idea what you are talking about. No one goes for “head shots” while hunting. Except maybe, as catsix describes to finish a wounded animal. The area hunters aim for on a deer is a volleyball sized region in the chest where the heart and lungs are.
Next month archery season will start in NH and I will be out in the woods. The broadheads on my bow will be razor sharp, as to dispatch the animal as humanly as possible. Many animals hit with a bow continue to feed after being hit, proving that the pain is minimal. The arrow passes clean through and is so sharp that the wound is clean, not jagged and the animal simply beds down and goes to sleep and bleeds to death.
I and all hunters I know always to everything in our power to make a clean kill. I wouldn’t take a shot if it wasn’t good. I would always track a wounded animal if I have a bad shot.
Compare the life and death of this animal to one raised on a food plot and slaughtered in a factory to become a 1/4 pounder with cheese. Hunting allows the animal to live naturally, and die quickly.
Also, the idea that nature killing off the deer population through starvation and disease and car crashes somehow being better than hunting just doesn’t make any sense. Besides, once New England was logged out the entire way nature works here has already been changed forever. Before Europeans came to New England the height of the trees in the mature forest didn’t provide enough food to support a deer population. It wasn’t until the area was logged out that deer came in large numbers.
So, yes you are missing something here.
Your steak does suffer far more than my venison.
Deer are overpopulated in many areas. Deer populations are carefully controlled through hunting.
It isn’t cheaper to buy meat at the store.
Your reverse darwinism argument that only the best deer are taken by hunters is just silly.
This “trophy hunting” where hunters shoot exotic animals in cages and don’t keep any meat seems to have been invented by you. I have seen no evidence that this practice exists anywhere but in your mind.
Your entire OP smacks of “I don’t understand it, so it must be wrong.” mentality.
One thing that hasn’t been brought up yet is the fact that hunters and sportsman do care about animals and nature, and we put our money where our mouth is. For every tax dollar that goes towards conservation 12 dollars gets donated by hunters. Without sportsmen, there would be far less habitat and protected areas for animals.
There are some nuisance animals hunted without being eaten. I did hunt Ground Squirrels in the LA National forest for a few years- with the blessings of the ranchers and Rangers. Seems like the ranchers had killed all the predators (they even were killing eagles to “protect their cattle”, like an eagle is going to fly off with a calf :rolleyes: ), and the ground squirrel population had exploded, with many attendant problems, including our old friend the Black Plague. Thus, they had to be controlled. The rancher way was by poinson bait- which killed many other critters other than ground squirrels, and sometimes also the scavengers. Not good. Thus, shooting with a .22 or a shotgun with bird shot was the best way to control them. Note I was an Environmental Sciences major then, and I saw the studies & such- this was the best way for a quick control of the population, and the population badly needed to be contolled.
It was also a chance to get out in the great outdoors, get some excercise, etc. I did not particulary enjoy killing the squirrels, but there was some small challenge to it. And no- one did NOT try & eat the meat, in fact one did not get close to the dead rodent- in case plague bearing fleas jumped off.
Thus, here is a perfect example of hunting without eating the prey that is justifyable. It was nessesary to do so to alleviate starvation & suffering amoung the squirrels, and also a potential human health problem. I am sure there are other cases.
Those cases where you tell about caged animals being shot I have heard about- but never verified. By the hunting community those “hunters” are beneath contempt. You will notget an arguement by condemning them.
In general, AFAIK, unless hunting is done for depredation reasons (like the rodent killing above), every hunter I know used the meat. Thus, your OP of hunters killing perfectly good game animals and not using the meat is a non- issue. Does not occur very often at all.
Don’t take me to task for the 1,100 pound figure. It was the number (actually a range) that MGibson said his dad would bag on a hunt (300-550 pound elk x2 elk). I used 1,000 pounds in my example just to keep the math easy and it was within the range specified.
What about a Kodiak Brown Bear? They can weigh in at well over 1,500 pounds (and a 10 day hunting tour for one will cost around $12,000/person…that’s some pricey meat). What about buffalo or bison? The point is it isn’t too hard to hit a 1,000 pounds in meat when big game hunting.
I never suggested I was an expert on hunting. So hunters go for the chest shot…great. By your own admission they still miss and wound the animal (“I and all hunters I know always to everything in our power to make a clean kill. I wouldn’t take a shot if it wasn’t good. I would always track a wounded animal if I have a bad shot.”)
I only have your word for this but till I hear backup from other hunters I have a hard time believing it. I simply can’t imagine that an animal who just had an arrow pass through it will just stand there and then continue feeding as if nothing happened. If you mean the animal is injured by the arrow, probably runs for awhile and then starts feeding again maybe but I don’t see how that is indicative of the animal not being in pain. Animals have high constitutions and feeding is necessary and a high drive in all animals. What else is it going to do anyway? Assuming the arrow wasn’t lethal would you expect the animal to just stand around and starve to death?
I’ve seen cattle ranching in person (my parents have friends who are ranchers and I stayed there for a week once). The cattle seemed rather content to me with I don’t know how many thousands of acres they had to graze on. Regardless, you haven’t convinced me that animals that are hunted die painlessly or quickly. I do believe this is the hunter’s intent and hope but by no means a sure thing.
The idea that anything is willing to be shot instead of maybe facing starvation doesn’t make sense to me. Lots of humans in the world who die from starvation and disease and I have yet to see it suggested those people would be better off shot. I’m not trying to suggest a deer is on the same plane as humans but it is an example of the absurdity of the argument.
At $2.25/pound for beef as cited above your deer meat, if cheaper, isn’t much cheaper.
Why is it silly? Do hunters skip a healthy looking deer and instead wait for a clearly starving or diseased deer? Maybe state rangers will try this when they have a specific goal of making the herds healthier by culling them but I seriously doubt sport hunters, who hope to eat what they kill, wait for the scrawny and sickly animals. This is indeed reverse Darwinism.
I can go on and on with the links. Clearly most hunters revile such a ‘sport’ but given the huge number of links and stories you can find on it clearly there are plenty who participate. Enough to make it a business for some and to prompt legislation in many states against it.
That is great but it reminds me of an adage that went something like: “Definition of an environmentalist: Someone who already has a house in the woods.” The idea being is that hunters aren’t necessarily noble in their intentions towards conservation as that conservation benefits their goal of preserving hunting. Don’t take that as overly cynical…I have no doubt that hunters do appreciate nature and want to see it protected but neither can you suggest pure altruism in their motives.
As to my statements on ‘eating’ versus sport hunting let me clear it up as it seems I may have been unclear about where I was coming from.
If you are hunting to feed yourself and/or your family because you can’t afford to buy food or you’re too remote to have easy access to markets then I have zero problem with it.
If you are hunting in a specific attempt to cull a population that has become unhealthy and/or dangerous to humans I have no problem with that.
If you are able to feed yourself and your family with no problem by buying food at a market and hunt then I do have a problem with that but less issue if you still go ahead and eat what you kill (or more generally make the best use of the animal you can…pelt, meat, etc.).
If you are a trophy hunter (e.g. you only want the head on your wall and leave the rest to rot) who has no intention of eating what you kill I have a BIG problem with that.
If you engage in ‘canned’ hunting for trophy purposes (shooting caged animals) then IMNSHO I think you are beneath contempt.
I missed that you were responding to that post. However, you were throwing around the number and seeming to claim that hunters must just be leaving the carcases in the woods. This simply isn’t true at all.
Yes, it is. 1,000 pounds is huge. I am hunting the largest animal in New England, the Moose.
So, I am one of 485 people out of 15,000 that gets the opportunity to take the biggest animal in the woods. If I get a 1,000 pounder that would be within 40 pounds of the largest ever taken.
Regardless, you can rest assured that the hunters are finding a way to get the meat out of the woods. I will have a hunting partner to help me. We have already arrainged to borrow two ATV’s from a family member of his. Also, we plan on bringing a chainsaw into the woods to quarter it if needed. We might be there all day and into the night, but we are bringing out all the edible meat, the lower portion of the jaw and a section of the liver, as we are required to by law.
Glad we got that out in the open. You never suggested you didn’t know anything about it either.
Rarely. And everything possible is done to avoid this. I have not taken shots at large bucks because it was a bad shot. The fact that some animals are wounded and escape isn’t enough to condemn the entire sport.
It’s your argument that is absurd. If you care about the animals so much why don’t you have a problem with them starving to death? Why is a slow death from desease or starvation preferable to a hunters bullet?
I’m not going to respond to your comparison of deer starvation to human starvation because of the obvious silliness of it. Clearly human beings starving should be treated a tad differently than wild animals starving. Unless of course you really are a card carrying member of PETA in disguise.
Our choice to make.
A friend of mine caught a tuna this year on his boat. He sold it for several thousand dollars. About the cost of gas for the boat for the summer. Unless he catches about 3 dozen more tuna fish then he won’t recoup the cost of his huge fishing boat and many rods and other gear.
Since it’s obviously impractical should it be banned? Or should my friend be free to spend his money how he wants?
OK. Prove it.
Show me a cite that proves that deer populations have somehow suffered from their finest being killed every year.
Hunters shoot the first deer that they see depending on the law where they hunt. If I am hunting in an area that only allows antlered deer be taken I take an antlered deer.
Only 8% of the deer hunters in NH are successful every year. It’s not like we have the option of being picky.
However, even if your initial claim was true that the finest deer are being killed and only the weak and sick ones are spared, it’s still a bunk argument. Most deer hunting takes place after the rut when deer have already mated. So that big buck that gets shot already has passed his seed on that year.
This talks about hunting in acres of privately owned land. In Canada. Hardly shooting them in cages. Unless you meant cages that are 100s of acres big. However, I do join you in denouncing this practice. It’s unsportsmanlike and I disapprove of it.
jeniegirl27 over on geocities claims to have seen it for herself. :rolleyes:
http://www.ncsl.org/programs/esnr/Hunfish.htm#canned
This site lists 10 states that have banned caged hunting. Good for them. My only wish is that the fish and game folks who make these decisions, not the legislature. Hunters know what’s best for hunting.
Well, I think it gives anti-hunting folks much needed ammunition. IMHO, its a tiny portion of the 10% of American’s who hunt that participate in such unsportsman like activity.
I wouldn’t object if the legislature in my state (MA) and the states I hunt (NH, ME) if they were to ban this practice. However, this is very tricky. I would imagine a ban could also have consequences on other legitimate hunting activity.
I do think it’s dishonest for the practice to be called “caged” hunting where in some areas we are talking about cages of 1,000s of acres. Just because the land you are hunting on has a fence around it doesn’t make it shooting fish in a barrel.
So what if the motive is to preserve hunting. We enjoy hunting. There isn’t anything wrong with us trying to preserve it. I don’t see how this blemishes the motives of spending millions of dollars on conservation where non-hunters spend no where near as much.
Of course. Otherwise farmers would be included.
Good, this means I can hunt cayotes and leave them to rot. Also this means that if hunting deer were banned then within a few years deer would be so overpopulated that they would be unhealthy and dangerous to humans. So, basically you shouldn’t have a problem with hunting deer.
Buying it at market is no better than killing it yourself from a moral standpoint. There is nothing wrong with doing it either way. Do you want hunting banned for those that don’t need it?
This basically doesn’t exist. I have known many hunters and have never heard of someone killing an animal and not using the meat. Unless you are talking about pests like coyotes.
It’s good to know that you find Bill Clinton and GWBush I beneath contempt.
In passing, it seems to me that the “reverse Darwinism” argument is missing one aspect. The animals that survive the hunt are those most able to avoid humans, which is not an entirely useless skill. While it is true that hunters are less apt to kill the smaller animals, it does not necessarily mean that larger animals are genetically superior in all aspects… and those that are weak and sickly are not particularly likely to survive and breed in any event. Certainly it’s conceivable that in some limited circumstances the culling of strong individuals may create temporarily localized genetic declinations, but it seems to me that population pressures throughout the entire habitat would eventually bring in stronger, more wily animals from other areas so long as the species and environment is properly maintained.
I don’t think it’s immoral. I don’t have any moral issue with folks who shoot a deer and eat it.
But I greatly question why anyone would enjoy killing an animal.
The hunter’s I’ve tlked to all mention getting out into the great outdoors, getting fresh air, walking great distances, etc. But this doesn’t make any sense to me. You can get the same advantages out of going hiking and camping, without any killing involved.
So it’s the killing that’s the attraction.
I can certainly imagine killing an animal if I had to feed my family that way. But to do it for fun, as a sport, is something I just don’t understand.
Sport hunting–that presupposes some sort of sporting element. Generally, modern hunters are not sport hunters. They are either getting some food or grabbing some decorations for their home or man-cave-room. No real sport, though. Now, if you’re talking about pistol-hunting for grizzly–no laser or telescopic sites, or hunting bucks with nothing but a bucknife, that’d be a sport!
(Actually there are some guys who do hunt bear armed only with a pistol.)
Debaser:
First, the whole deal about a 1,000 pounds of meat was first based upon someone else’s number who does hunt and second does not necessarily mean you get your 1,000 pounds in one animal. Two elk, one or two moose, one large Kodiak bear, etc…
As to my not mentioning I was NOT an expert in hunting I would think the very nature of this post would imply that I do not hunt. Sorry I didn’t spell it out for you but I do not think I was misleading anyone.
Maybe it should. How much pain and suffering is ok? Seriously?
As to meat costing $2.25/pound it was in response to what you posted. Never did I suggest that people couldn’t spend their money as they wished. The number is merely to have a basis for comparison for those who might say they can feed themselves and their family cheaper by hunting than by shopping at the market.
As to deer dying of starvation that is largely human’s fault anyway. We restrict their range and kill off their predators. Now that we’ve done that our answer is to shoot them for their own good. Nice… As to ‘reverse Darwinism’ I have no idea on the ultimate effect and the fact is neither do you. On the face of it hunters gathering the strong certainly does not speak to clearing a herd of its sick and injured as most predators do. Can deer as a species survive this? Maybe. Maybe there are enough to not have this be an issue. Unortunately your insistence that I prove harm is being done misses the point. Your way would be that till proof exists there is no problem. Of course if that proof presents itself the damage is already done.
Finally, about the canned hunting, you can pick apart my cites all day…it doesn’t matter. I just cut-and-pasted a bunch of links from a Google search. The point was that you said it was all in my mind implying I made it up. Clearly you were wrong. It does exist, in the fashion I described. That it exists in a somewhat ‘lesser’ fashion by shooting animal in an enclosure is hardly better. Do you think shooting a buffalo in a one acre enclosure is in the spirit of hunting?
autz:
You beat me to it. While I was out and about I wanted to say much the same thing as you.
If it is the outdoors that is the attraction why kill something?
If it is the thrill of the hunt why do you have to kill something? You can still stalk the animal but at the end of it why not take a photo?
If you like shooting what is wrong with targets (as in the paper kind)?
Ultimately it seems to come down to killing for pleasure. I kill bugs but I do not do so for pleasure. Is your fun really enough reason to kill something?
If you’re going to complain about hunters, who will occasionally (Rather rarely) not get a clean kill, I’m surprised you’re offering buying the meat at the supermarket as a better alternative. I dunno about you, but being shot and bleeding out over the course of a couple minutes sounds a lot better then being bashed in the head, gutted, and skinned while still concious. Sure, hunters may not always make a clean kill, but the same can be said of slaughterhouses.
