But, yes, it does.
If I am successful in my hunting, I won’t be buying steaks for about a year as a result. That means less of those horrific modern factory farming methods with be taking place. Also, as others have pointed out my hunting results in large portions of land being preserved. Additionally, my not buying meat at the supermarket that year as a result of my hunting means less large tracts of forests are destroyed to create grazing land.
Right here is the evidence that you don’t understand it at all. You’re putting thoughts and feelings into me that are not my own, and then judging me for that? I’ve not, anywhere in this thread, said that I find ‘suffering, pain and death’ to be ‘perfectly alright, even terrific’, and I never will.
You refuse to accept that there are hunters in this very thread who practically revere the animals we hunt. At the very least, we have the utmost respect for the fact that we and they are part of the natural food chain, human as the predator, deer as the prey. There’s a high level of respect for the defenses that the deer, as a prey animal, has deveopled. Its keen sense of smell, its ability to see and hear things that I can’t, the fact that it can take a standing jump eight feet in the air, that it can run faster than any Olympic record holder, that it can camouflage itself in a briar patch so well that even inches from it, I can’t see it, these things earn my respect. A deer may be a prey animal, but it’s hardly ‘defenseless’. In close enough quarters an angry adult buck can easily kill a human by goring with the antlers and stomping with the hooves.
I lack the sense of smell, sight and hearing the deer has. I don’t have a naturally camouflaged fur coat. I can’t jump eight feet in the air, and I can’t run faster than about three miles an hour over uneven forest terrain. I can’t hide myself, and I can’t do anything to counter the fact that the deer can hear me, see me and smell me.
We are two opponents, each with strenghts, each with weaknesses, and both a part of the food chain. And on any given day during deer season, the deer has all his biological defenses and home field advantage. I’ve got a rifle which is of no use to me if I can’t find a deer, which often means I’m going home without ever shouldering the rifle.
This is the dance that prey and predator do, it’s a part of nature as old as life itself, although human beings alone have the ability to respect their prey. No lion has ever sat on a savannah in Africa and thanked a gazelle for the match, nor apologized for killing it to feed her young. Human hunters have done that. You’ll find that it’s rare among hunters to like killing an animal. Many of us view this as an unpleasant necessity in the effort to put meat in the freezer, some view it with neutrality, but rare is the hunter who views death with joy. Do not make the mistake of telling me I enjoy death again, nor of even implying that I am indifferent to suffering, or that I want an animal to suffer. You have no idea how I feel about pulling the trigger and taking down that beautiful deer. You only assume I don’t feel a sense of failure or of being an unworthy predator if that deer takes longer than a couple of seconds to die.
I hunt not because I like to kill, but because I have evolved to be half of the predator-prey equation, because I am an omivore, because I eat meat, and because I think it’s more respectful to the prey part of the equation to avoid having a ‘hit man’ if at all possible. I respect those deer enough to go and meet them on their terms, and I take no joy in their deaths. It is simply an understanding of the law of nature that all meat eaters must rely on the death of other animals to live, and I am thankful to the animals who die to allow me to live.
It’s also why I’ve never felt angry or upset going home empty handed after a day of hunting. On the contrary, those are the days I am reminded of how worthy of respect the prey really is, and how nature works. More often than not, the prey gets away.
So no, your idea of what I, a hunter, thinks and feels is not accurate. Please stop attempting to cram it down my throat.
Stoid, don’t you find it a bit hypocritical that you judges us [hunters] as life takers, yet have no qualms about eating meat yourself? Do you feel the same way about the butcher? Or the farmer who slaughtered your meat? I say farmer as I assume that due to the suffering in today’s factory farms, you buy only from local sources.
I am a bit perplexed by your thoughts on this as usually they come from people who would have no more to do with eating meat as you would with hanging around hunters. I’ll wait for an answer before I judge you…
That was an exceptional post, catsix. I am afraid, however, that it falls on deaf ears.
JX… you are missing the point. The FACT of lifetaking does not concern me. It is the CONTEXT I object to. Context is everything.
** catsix, ** eloquently argued. However, I question your characterization of the need to “put meat on the table”. Hunting is a choice for almost eny American who does it. It’s expensive, time consuming, and difficult. If you do not view it as sport, and you are not so poor that you cannot afford to buy meat, I find it curious that you would undertake to do it, unless you find it pleasurable on some level other than having been personally responsible for eviscerating your entree.
In any case. it’s really neither here nor there how I feel about it, is it? I have not argued against hunting, I have not called for the banning of it. I have expressed my own opinion of those who undertake it for any reason other than absolute necessity.
Oh, and ** debaser, ** while I agree with the idea of “Think globally, act locally”, which is essentially what you are saying, I really don’t think your hunting is making the slightest bit of difference in how many animals are being tortured on factory farms, and nor is hunting a solution. There aren’t enough game animals to replace even the tiniest fraction of cows and pigs and chickens we eat as a nation, assuming the nation would even consider taking up hunting. However, taking your meat-eating and buying business to free-range meatsellers will make a difference. Supply and demand. If you take yourself out of the market completely, you have no impact. But if you are still part of the meat economy, just giving your business to the right people, more ranchers and pig farmers will get on board.
It’s not about money Stoid.
It’s about having enough respect for the animals that give their lives to be my food that I will look them in the eye and show them their due honor.
No animal I have ever killed hunting died a dishonorable death, ever. I can’t say the same about a steer at a slaughterhouse.
I feel I owe it to them to be a predator worthy of their station as a highly developed and extremely well evolved prey animal.
It’s saying ‘I respected you enough to do this myself rather than let some faceless machine do it and pretend that you were never a living, breathing thing.’
If you respect someone, you meet them human to human. Well, hunters like me believe that if you respect an animal, you meet them human to animal, and you don’t worry about who ‘wins the day.’ When I’m out there, it’s me and the deer, playing the same game, by the same rules. It’s not me pretending a steak was never a living thing.
I can’t look at a deer through the scope and fire a shot without feeling some amount of sadness that a life has ended for my survival, and some level of gratefulness to the deer who gave his or her life. But I feel as if I have to ensure that my prey is killed cleanly and fairly by the rules of the game, and with all the respect and honor it is due.
Pleasure? I suppose being out in the woods and feeling the cold air on my face is a pleasure sometimes. But twelve hours of standing in foot deep snow without moving, being chilled to the bone, feeling frostbite work into my toes, these are discomforts I welcome because I owe it to my prey to suffer a bit in order to catch it. Those animals I eat lived free and died honorably on a day that prey lost to predator. That’s the kind of life and death they were meant to have, not to suffer starvation and mange and be torn apart on a highway somewhere by the wheels of a semi.
So, catsix, may I assume from this impassioned explanation that you eat meat you hunted yourself * exclusively? * That you never eat a burger or some KFC or anything that you have not personally honored with your honorable killing?
Because if that is the case, well, I tip my hat to you. But if it isn’t…why do you do it only sometimes? If it’s all about honoring the animal, and making sure you don’t participate in the torture and dishonor of the animals you eat, then you should do it all the time, right?
No, it unfortunately isn’t.
I wish it were possible to never eat the meat of an animal I didn’t kill myself, but it isn’t.
But you seem to be saying that because I’m not perfect, I shouldn’t try at all.
Sorry Stoid. I make the best effort I can, and I don’t think that being unable to be perfect in the execution means I shouldn’t try as hard as I can.
Or do you only do things you’re perfect at?
You can’t reason somebody out of an unreasonable stance.
-Hunters must like killing
-They are bad people
-She doesn’t like them.
In such intractable and unreasonable soil are all bigotries and prejudice rooted.
All you need is a founding fallacy and the willful ignorance to follow it.
Sorry I’ve been absent from this thread but a few observations (partly since I’ve been absent and partly on the thread overall):
I have yet to see why an animal must be killed to achieve what catsix eloquently wrote about and others have likewise mentioned. You can stalk animals all day if you like and try and get as close as possible…the difference being pressing the shutter button on your camera or pulling a trigger.
This takes us to Scylla’s well written post that it is about understanding the cost of your own existence. I found that compelling but as others mentioned it isn’t necessary to hunt and understand this (although I’ll allow that a majority of people in western societies probably never think about it at all). At the very least why does hunting need to be a continuing thing to achieve this goal? I’d wager 90+% of the meat hunters on this board eat does not come from animals they killed themselves (just waiting for the one here to bust my chops that he gets 15% of his meat intake from animals he’s hunted).
This then gets us to the many posts detailing the almost spiritual aspect of hunting. The dance of predator versus prey (circling back to catsix’s recent post). This is belied by the almost complete lack of willingness of hunters here to take a stance on canned hunting. Scylla, in my view, hamstrung his philosphical ideals by supporting it even though equivocating that he personally wouldn’t participate in such a thing. Other hunters have questioned that it happens to a degree to be worthy of notice despite my providing cites that it is in fact a rather large business.
From canned hunting we get the contention that most hunters are people who respect nature and take what they need. Trophy hunters are supposedly a rarity (those not interested in the meat). I had asked previously for this notion to be reconciled with a $100 million dollar canned hunting industry in Texas alone (not taking into account other states that allowed it). No answer to that that I remember.
I then suggested the possibility of a national organization that imposed ethics on hunters and had teeth to enforce those ethics while at the same time supporting and protecting their sport. This is not a governmental organization or a tree hugger organization but an organization OF hunters with their interests at heart. Again there was nothing but resistance from the hunters here. Mind I proposed an organization OF hunters, akin to what the NRA is to gun owners. Hunters here nitpicked the details of why it wouldn’t work but nothing was a show stopper that couldn’t be overcome. After all that was written my opinion is that the hunters here realize that the hunting community is nowhere near as noble or homogenous as the posters here would have us believe. They realize that such an organization would devolve into bitter in-fighting and damage their sport.
At least that’s my take on it so far.
I forgot to add I saw no reponse to my question about a bullet from a rifle being as lethal (i.e. ‘relatively’ painless to the animal by ensuring a quick death in most instances). I provided video links to lions having to be shot multiple times. It also occirred ot me later that in war many more people are injured than killed (I have a sense it’s very roughly a 1:4 ratio of dead to wounded). Granted there are all sorts of things in war injuring people (bombs and so on) but I think it is fair to say a lot of those people are shot and by fairly serious weapons (we’re not talking about pea shooters here). I would think torso shots would be most common for those inuries…head shots being fairly lethal in most cases and extremity shots being unlikely (torso is a bigger target…IIRC training tells students to aim for the center body). If humans can survive such shots with some regularity why not deer (not to mention bear, moose and other considerably larger animals)? Even if the shot is ultimately lethal I still wonder at the time needed to expire and the pain the animal (human, deer or other) may be in waiting for the end to come.
Scylla has a thread going on suffering and that may well play to this point but I’ve read the other thread and so far I am not convinced that inflicting suffering is ok in what amounts to a sport (or in most other circumstances for that matter).
But wait, Whack, it’s not * sport! * It’s a spiritual communion!
Regarding the economics of the thing, and meat vs. trophys, I recently read an article about the booming business of taxidermy in this country. A visit to taxidermy.net leaves me speechless, wondering just how many hunters there have to be in this country supporting this industry if only a meaningless fraction of them are interested in trophys?
'scuse me, think I need me some waders…
Well, let’s see. For one, a hunter can perfectly well be interested in both the meat and the trophy. I argued that ``pure’’ trophy hunting where the meat is not used is rare, and in fact illegal just about everywhere (unless you know of a jurisdiction in which there are no game wastage laws on the books). But certainly many meat hunters will also mount the head, and some claim that they do so not to prove they have a big penis, but as a continued reminder of where their meat came from, and to give their worthy opponent a form of immortality, out of respect for it. Now, you may scoff, and you certainly may say that this is an odd form of respect, but you may not tell me that this is a product of the other end of the deer unless you have something to back you up on that.
Also, taxidermists are often used to tan the hide for leather if the hunter wants to use that but doesn’t want to tan it himself. Brain-tanned buckskin represents a couple of days hard labour, and I don’t think chrome tanning (for a more water-proof leather) is feasible in the backyard.
I see no particular difficulty reconciling the supposed rarity of ``pure’’ trophy hunters with a handful of $100,000,000 trophy hunts; in fact the heady price tag would suggest there really aren’t that many people on this green earth who engage in that for a weekend’s entertainment.
Hunting bullets are designed to expand on impact to give as lethal a wound as possible. Military conventions forbid hollowpoints and maybe even softpoints, so the bullets tend to hold together and penetrate the body, leaving a much smaller wound channel. There may be both a humanitarian and tactical logic here: a wounded soldier needs care, which takes more opponents out of battle, and drains the enemy’s resources. Also, soldiers tend to have access to care, so there’s a reasonable chance that they can recover if wounded. In hunting, you want the animal dead as quickly as possible, so the bullets are designed around that.
IF the hunter is going for the meat then keeping the head to mount at a later time doesn’t bother me so much. While I personally don’t groove to dead animal heads on my wall it’s not as if the head was much use for anything else and if that is someone else’s bag then so be it.
That said I am still not convinced that a significant amount of hunters aren’t just out there for the trophy. I hate to keep harping on it but I once again go back to the canned hunting thing. Hunters who do that are spending a LOT of money to get their kill. So much that the idea it is for the meat would only pass the most credulous of people. They may well take some meat home but that is obviously not the reason they are there. It is either for bloodlust or the trophy as near as I can determine.
Partly see just above for an answer to this. As to game wastage laws I really don’t know the bottom line to this. You are posting from Canada whose laws don’t apply to the US. Further, even within the US you may find different laws between states (unless this is a federally mandated thing but somehow I doubt it although I am prepared to be corrected on that as I really don’t know).
The prcie tage may be high but you have 600+ such places in Texas alone accounting for $100,000,000 (leaving 49 other states to account for although I have a hunch Texas is the largest…just a hunch though). Your insinution that only the rich can afford such things either leaves us to suppose there are a LOT of rich people in the US who like to hunt in this fashion or there are even MORE people of moderate means who enage in it. At a $100 million in one state alone I would think it would take a sizeable number of extremely wealthy people to account for it all (actually I think I provided price lists earlier…anywhere from $1,000 to $20,000 depending on the animal with the bulk seeming toward the low end and ‘special’ orders constituting the high end).
I don’t know enough to disagree with this but from previous discussions I suspect you’re close to the truth about the bullets. Always seemed odd to me that people could go to war with the intention of killing the enemy but can only do so in some ‘limited’ fashion. Nevertheless this doesn’t completely answer the amount of time one might expcet an animal to take to die which goes to its suffering. Further, we keep talking about deers here which have roughly the body mass of an adult human but how does this relate to moose, bear, elk, bison and so on? Do they go down as easily as deer? I know the case has been made here and elsewhere on this board that maybe it doesn’t matter but for me it is a critical point. It’s no secret how I’ll respond depending on the answer but I hope people will be truthful nonetheless if the honest answer is not favorable.
[sub]I forgot to mention before that while I think Scylla’s wager with me was pretty damn cool (that he’d take my word and pay me $20 on my say so) I have to say the money is safe in Scylla’s pocket. As I was reading my brain was thinking, “Wow…easy $20!” Then Scylla had to go and invoke honor and honesty and he’s right that I won’t abuse that and if I ever take up hunting it won’t be for $20. However, maybe someday Scylla can buy me a beer if we ever meet to reward my honesty so it’s not a total loss ;-). [/sub]
Your suspicions are correct. Viking gave a very succinct overview of bullet types and terminal ballistics. As far as how this relates to bigger animals then deer? As the size of the animal rises, so does the size of the bullet used to take it our cleanly. Bottom line, bigger animal = bigger gun = clean kill.
I’ll get to your other points later.
Might we have something of a city/rural division in this debate? I think my attitudes are heavily influenced by family’s modest roots and my upbringing in Nebraska. In rural areas, lots of people hunt and fish, and most of them eat what they kill. It was just normal to me; I didn’t know anyone who spoke of hunting in a bloodthirtsy way, stuffed their game for trophies or flew to Africa to kill something more exotic.
If nothing else, it perhaps influenced me to believe that the most objectionable kind of hunters–the wild ones, the rednecks who get off on the thrill of firing off their guns, and the folks who pay big money to kill stuff from other continents–are few in number. They may not be, I don’t know. It’s just when I think “hunter” I’m biased to think about guys like my Dad and uncles, who shot mostly pheasant.
Taking them on one at a time…
I think it has been mentioned several times. Not only is their pleasure in the hunt, but the meat tastes good as well. To say that you can’t eat a photograph sounds corny, but it is still the truth.
What you suggested was some sort of nationwide org responsible for the licensing of individuals to hunt with the power to not allow some to hunt based on their actions. By doing so you completely usurp the State’s authority to do the same. I say that the state of Iowa, Pennsylvania, Texas, Lousianna, et al. are doing a fine job managing their game and their hunters. And there is no way, repeat NO WAY the states would ever give up their authority to manage hunting. So basically you are talking about a pipe dream that has no chance of ever happening, hence the lack of discussion.
I am also a member of the NRA, obviously you are not. Other than a powerfull lobby group, the NRA has no say in who can or can’t own a gun anymore than the “Million Mom March” can. Once again however, either you are ignoring me or just not getting it. A group of ethical hunters banded together would be a great idea, and THESE GROUPS ALREADY EXIST!!! Ducks Unlimited arguably has done more to preserve habitat than the Sierra Club or Greenpeace put together. How? With their wallets. A portion of the dues that are paid each year go to buying wetlands and nesting areas in order to preserve them and protect them from development.
If you don’t like what you call “canned” hunts. Form a grass roots org in Illinois and get the legislature to legislate them out of existance. If you do a good enough job, you will see hunters such as myself will probably help you out. Be careful though, as I don’t think that a guided 10,000-acre hunt is canned anymore than fishing in Lake Michigan in a rowboat is a fishpond.
As JXJohns said, bullet weight and size is a part of it. Another part is the way the bullet is constructed. Without going into too much graphic detail, which is not pretty, a deer bullet will expand much more readily than a moose bullet. Heavier bullets also have special features built in to prevent them from fragmenting, which more lightly constructed deer bullets don’t need. You have to pick a bullet that will stay in one piece to penetrate the skin and ribs or maybe a shoulder, then open up in the vitals and cause a fatal wound. The details beyond that require a bit of study and thinking about what animal(s) you’re after.
You don’t need to hunt to get meat for you to enjoy and the picture will last longer. A guy I went to college with told me that the venison he would get from hunting would vary noticably in its tastiness/toughness/texture from one animal to the next. On occasion he said the meat was excellent and other times he didn’t think it was all that great. Assuming what he told me is true I’d think you are better off with farm raised meat for a more consistent meat eating experience (you can find meat that was raised naturally and not pumped with hormones and so on if that is important to you).
Of course the states wouldn’t give up managing hunting. States don’t give up having laws controlling the legal profession either but that doesn’t stop state bar associations from existing and having rules of their own. You also have the American Bar Association tying together the state bar associations. I’m not saying this exact model is correct but clearly such things exist and work. Maybe hunters don’t want such an organization but that isn’t the same thing as saying such an entity is impossible.
Maybe it’s just me but I have a problem with something like canned hunts being legal in one place and illegal in another. To me it’s like saying slavery is ok in Georgia but not ok in Illinois. Either it is or it isn’t ok. Make the practice illegal in a dozen states and the problem just moves to where it is allowed. The fight has to be fought 50 times which is silly not to mention it gets harder as this business consolidates in a few locations and has greater financial and political leverage. If hunters had a national organization (or some means of debating amongst themselves across the nation) they could (and should) hash it out among themselves and offer their final opinion to the states or federal government. At that point everyone else can weigh in and a law of some sorts gets passed (or no law at all) but they will be consistent across all states whatever comes of it. A consensus from the hunting community would go a long way to swaying how the legislation is written.
Citing a 10,000 acre game preserve is disingenuous. If you want to take it to its logical extreme all the animals are confined to the planet earth. Canned hunts are distinctly different. These are businesses that advertise “no kill, no pay”. Do you think they leave a lot to chance in this regard? No way…otherwise all you have is the equivalent of a famer allowing you to hunt on his property. At the least the animals are habituated to human presence and all the talk here of deer possessing fantastic senses giving them a chance against the hunter goes out the window. In reality, if you read about canned hunts, the proprietors of these businesses go to much greater lengths to ensure a successful ‘hunt’ for their customers. I even provided a quote earlier from a supposed avid hunting supporter and writer of hunting books who says the animals in canned hunts have zero chance against the hunter (I suppose the avian animals have a chance but the deck is still stacked against them where possible). It seems to me that participating in a canned hunt bears about as much resemblance to hunting as the guy in a slaughterhouse with a captive-bolt pistol might be considered a hunter.
You finally get it!!! The canned hunts bear no resemblance at all to the hunting that most in this thread have described. So if we truly agree, why do you continue rag on the legitimate hunters of the world to clean up the problem? If anything your ¡§canned¡¨ hunt is simply a drawn out purchase of an animal carcass for consumption or a trophy for the wall. This would be similar to someone paying the farmer to go out to the pasture to shoot his own cow or the guy who picks his own lobster at the seafood place. None of these acts have anything to do with hunting yet each provides the same result: money exchanged, animal flesh consumed.
Maybe now that we agree we can put this canned hunting BS behind us and get you to take up Scylla¡¦s challenge. Iowa isn¡¦t that far from you. I¡¦d be glad to take you hunting this fallƒº