[QUOTE=jayjay]
I’m going to submit here that anyone who eats meat but rags on hunters is being hypocritical, even if they don’t really acknowledge or realize it.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t rag on them because they kill animals, I rag on them because I think they are a bit off for deriving pleasure from the activity.
Joe Miniumumwage works at the slaughterhouse killing cattle or poultry so I can have my lunch. It’s probably not that pleasant a job and I doubt he high-fives his co-workers when he downs a big one or announces his kill talley for the day nor does he take Bessie’s head home to mount on his wall. He does it for the paycheck putting in his weekly 40.
Hunters on the other hand spend their earned cash and free time to seek out and kill animals for the sheer joy of it, taking pride in bag limits and antler point count.
It’s like taking a crap. Sure everyone does it and there’s nothing inheritantly evil about it. But if you met someone who took the time and money to purposely poop the biggest or most and then displayed it on their mantle you’d think they were pretty wacked.
[QUOTE=JR Brown]
Even in the case of abundant species where artificial population control is required to prevent overpopulation, discretionary hunting (as opposed to directed culling) produces smaller, less healthy animals with more abnormal traits, as compared to populations still undergoing natural predation or directed culling (i.e., preferential removal of abnormal or sickly animals).
To be clear, I have no objection to hunting animals per se. But in the case of a wild population, the long-term health of that population should be the primary consideration, NOT the preferences or desires of the individual hunters. Trophy hunting in particular should be strictly regulated to ensure that it does not seriously disturb the sex and age structure of the population and that sufficient “trophy” animals are left as breeding stock.
[/QUOTE]
That is what the states do though for the most part. All states have a wildlife and fisheries management department. It is staffed by various types of educated people including PhD biologists who do extensive wildlife surveys every year to establish current games laws. They have a law enforcement arm staffed by game wardens who have among the broadest law enforcement powers of any law enforcement agency. They aren’t known to be nice people either and the penalties for violating game laws (aka poaching) can be severe up to and including maximum security prison.
Hunting laws generally don’t stay the same from one year to the next within each state. Not only will the date window change but also the number and method of kills be modified. In addition, the sex ratio of kills is commonly moved around to effectively manage the overall herd. A deer season for example, typically allows a certain number of doe tags that is different than those for bucks. Does may only be hunted on certain days as well to make sure that the sex ratio stays within the desired range. Sick deer are culled the old the old fashioned way. They still have predators in the wild or they just die.
Slaphead: Let’s not get into a semantics pissing contest. All I am saying regarding the domesticated dog is that from the moment it joined us around the camp-fire back in pre-historic times, it’s hunting instincts in comparison to a feral dog’s, have been on the wane, along with our own. How many people would have to worry about their dog immediately going ‘hunting’ if they let it off the lead?
Paul: All the other posters who have questioned the ethics of trophy hunting have expressed my feelings just as well as I could. Oh, and thanks for the welcome.
Everyone else, thanks for your contributions. My main aim with this thread was to get intelligent people discussing the pro’s and con’s, and you’ve helped me to achieve that at least!
[QUOTE=Freudian Slit]
I was going to say–does anyone even shoot big game anymore?
[/QUOTE]
Yes. There are even managed game preserves where animals that are hard to find in the wild are raised and people pay significant amounts of money for a controlled hunt in a restricted area. I’m still not sure how I feel about this. I have little respect for the “sport” hunters who do it, because they’re virtually guaranteed to get their kill, no matter what skills they do (or don’t) have. On the flip side, at least it’s not messing with the wild populations.
[QUOTE=slaphead]
Wolves are smaller than some dog breeds, larger than many others. They are also a different species with different behaviour.
[/QUOTE]
The question of whether they’re a different species is yet to be decided. In recent studies, they’ve found wolf DNA (and not coyote or fox DNA) in every breed of domestic dog, so there’s little doubt that all domestic dogs come from wolves. They’ve been bred by humans to have different physical characteristics. Does that make them a different species? Hmmm. The last seminar I attended the instructors couldn’t even agree on the definition of the word “species.”
[QUOTE=JR Brown]
In general, human hunting of large game is biased to healthy adult animals, and trophy hunting in particular is biased to larger (and therefore older and healthier) adult males, particularly those with unusually pronounced secondary sexual characteristics (bigger horns, larger mane, etc); in other words, the prime breeding stock. Furthermore, preferential removal of males leads to distorted sex ratios among the remaining population, which can have seriously deleterious consequences in and of itself.
[/QUOTE]
I agree with the first part of this. Even subsistence hunters look for the largest animals and the big antlers, although they’re likely to take the easy kill when they can - which won’t be the elusive canny old alpha male.
The second part is certainly not true in Montana. There are quite a few more tags issued for female animals than males, and tag issuance is carefully managed for gender and geography (a permit isn’t good state-wide - it’s for a particular zone).
People are just animals. We’re part of the cycle of nature just like any other animal is. Animals get killed by predators in the wild, so if there’s nothing morally wrong with that, then I don’t think there’s anything morally wrong with us doing it too. I’m in favor of using the animal for food after it’s been killed, but even if you just kill it in order to mount it as a trophy, what’s one single animal compared to all the animals that are killed in the normal course of nature?
The only things I’m against, are canned hunts, and poaching endangered species. Canned hunts are just…lame and artificial. Ask yourself, would one of the great hunters of history, like Teddy Roosevelt, have participated in something like this? If the answer is “no,” then I think it’s safe to say that anyone who considers himself a true outdoorsman wouldn’t be proud of it. As for endangered species, or over-hunting, no animal should be hunted to extinction, so I think vulnerable species should be left alone.
Aside from that - as long as the ecosystem is not harmed, I think it’s fine.
Cruelty to animals, ie. killing them, and setting fires, ie. cooking them, are two of the three indicators for serial killers. I wonder how many of these hunters are bed-wetters??
There is a big difference between torturing an animal, the way serial killers and sadistic psychopaths do, and dispatching it with one well-placed bullet.
[QUOTE=ivan astikov]
Cruelty to animals, ie. killing them, and setting fires, ie. cooking them, are two of the three indicators for serial killers. I wonder how many of these hunters are bed-wetters??
[/QUOTE]
Ha! Good job, you almost had me thinking you were serious.
[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
There is a big difference between torturing an animal, the way serial killers and sadistic psychopaths do, and dispatching it with one well-placed bullet.
[/QUOTE]
I agree, and I accept that my previous post was probably not appropriate for GD. Sorry about that folks.
It comes back to what Paul asked me about whether I was more troubled by the intent than the actual act. I can accept that millions of animals die each day to cater for our food needs, but I cannot get my head around the concept of a trophy hunting mentality.
If a hunter was required to kill a rogue tiger that was terrorising villagers, I’d accept that as a reasonable response. But for a person to go deliberately into a tiger’s territory, simply to ‘bag’ it, just seems alien to me.
[QUOTE=Bobotheoptimist]
Are you willing to accept that hunting game animals that one intends to eat is less cruel overall than buying a pack of ground beef?
[/QUOTE]
Yes, and I do have a sneaky admiration for the likes of Crocodile Dundee, and other famous survivalists.
But seriously, I do realise there ARE people who have a respect for the animals they kill, and that are providing a utilitarian need, and that they probably vastly outnumber the more sadistically inclined hunters.
Being able to kill a bigger animal (like a tiger or bear) reinforces some images and stereotypes of what it is to be such a person. Not everyone can hunt, and not all of those can hunt big game.
In some cultures, there is value placed on a person who can put food on the table, protect the community from predators. It also signifies strength and/or manhood.
[QUOTE=ivan astikov]
How many people would have to worry about their dog immediately going ‘hunting’ if they let it off the lead?
[/QUOTE]
EVERYONE, quite frankly, unless they own Lassie the wonder dog or one with no legs which has to be dragged about on a little trolley. Or do you have some different definition of ‘hunting’ than ‘finding and killing something’?
Did you even look at that link I put up above? In the UK alone, domestic dogs killed or badly mauled 24,000 sheep, and og only knows how many rabbits, chickens, cats, foxes, otters, cattle and other animals every single year. And owners who labour under the same misapprension you do are pretty much entirely to blame.
If you let your dog off the lead without at least pausing to consider the situation and the possible consequences for any other animals or people in the area, you are grossly irresponsible and you shouldn’t own a dog.
JR Brown - can’t find a cite at the moment but I remember reading some articles a while back that apparently African elephants are rapidly evolving towards smaller tusks as a consequence of generations of ivory hunting, which I think is pretty much what you are talking about.
[QUOTE=Hampshire]
I’m with you on this one.
I grew up hunting in Wisconsin and shot my first buck with a bow & arrow when I was 14. I didn’t feel remorse or sadness when I killed the deer but I remember thinking I don’t really get why this is supposed to be enjoyable. In fact it’s kind of creepy having people congratulate me on killing an animal. It’s like finding an exterminator or guy who works at a slaughterhouse not out of necessity but because of the thrill. Kind of sick.
I haven’t been hunting in over 20 years but still have relatives that do and still have to wonder what kind of mentality it takes to take pleasure from it.
They opened a huge Cabela’s here a few years back and I went to check it out just for fun. While there it just kind of struck me as eerie that everything in this massive store was dedicated to the destruction of wildlife. And not just tools to get the job done, but thousands of items to make it easier for you. If the fun of it is the challenge then why seek out accessories to make it easier?
Again, I don’t condemn killing wildlife and in a lot of cases it is a necessity to control population and it’s probably a good solution to the problem,
however I just don’t understand the mentality of the hunter and find it morbid that they find it pleasurable and something to pat eachother on the back for.
[/QUOTE]
At least in the case of deer hunters I know, there isn’t much thrill in the actual kill, it’s in the anticipation of eating venison in various forms and having a nicely stocked freezer full of fresh meat for the entire winter.
[QUOTE=slaphead]
EVERYONE, quite frankly, unless they own Lassie the wonder dog or one with no legs which has to be dragged about on a little trolley. Or do you have some different definition of ‘hunting’ than ‘finding and killing something’?
Did you even look at that link I put up above? In the UK alone, domestic dogs killed or badly mauled 24,000 sheep, and og only knows how many rabbits, chickens, cats, foxes, otters, cattle and other animals every single year. And owners who labour under the same misapprension you do are pretty much entirely to blame.
If you let your dog off the lead without at least pausing to consider the situation and the possible consequences for any other animals or people in the area, you are grossly irresponsible and you shouldn’t own a dog.
[/QUOTE]
What are you talking about now? Are you telling me than whenever someone lets their dog off it’s leash in the local park, s/he is allowing it go hunting? All the dogs I’ve ever owned have been quite content to do their business, mark their turf, and rely on me having done the hunting, when I feed them at home. You must live in a part of the UK that is completely unrecognisable to where I live. Do you live in a rural area, perchance?
Slaphead, I’ve just noticed your location. Are you telling me every time someone lets their dog off it’s leash on Streatham Common, that they all go looking for something to kill? Or do some sit alongside their owners happily, while others chase balls, and frisbees, and children, with no other purpose than to play, and without a care in the world for hunting?
[QUOTE=ivan astikov]
Cruelty to animals, ie. killing them, and setting fires, ie. cooking them, are two of the three indicators for serial killers. I wonder how many of these hunters are bed-wetters??
[/QUOTE]
Deliberately insulting other posters and deliberately posting false statements about other posters are grounds for banning. I wonder how many more rules you intend to break in order to see how the Mods will react?
At least in the case of African big game- elephants, rhinos, hippos, buffalo- the hunters are taking a real risk of getting killed. Anything less than being an experienced hunter with good bush instincts is asking for a Darwin Award.
So you would be OK with shooting hippos (Africa’s most dangerous mammal*) but not (say) giraffes? Why? It seems if we are approaching this from the morality side of it, taking life is taking life.
*Except for people of course.
