My GOD, this attitude annoys me. What in the name of all that is sensible, rational, logical, holy, and good makes you think there is any moral difference between my buying cattle steak to feed my family and my hunting deer for the same purpose?
You really can’t see the difference between killing animals cleanly in a slaughterhouse for the purpose of food and going out with the express bloodthirsty desire to take an innocent life?
Hunters (such as the guy above) don’t need to shoot an elk for food. They can just go to a shop and buy a steak. They shoot elk because they get a kick out of it.
I think the deciding factor is…how well does the animal taste if braised in a white wine sauce…?
If it tastes good then it’s worth more than a human, which is generally tough and stringy even when braised or marinated…
As for the side discussion about the supposed nobility and honor among animals…I think that the mutant moose is pulling everyone’s leg. Either that or s/he has never watched Animal Planet…
-XT
I also hunt. I’m not being bloodthirsty. I don’t kill animal I don’t intend to eat (with the exception that I reserve the right to kill an animal that is attacking me).
You might be able to make a case that persons who eat only plants are morally to meat eaters. But those people who buy meat from a grocery store or butcher have no such claim. A deer I go out and kill has led a freer and probably more pleasant life than one raised on a factory farm.
And if claiming that animals that die in slaughterhosuses die “cleanly” is sadly ignorant. Given the opportunities for research made available by the internet, it is also willfully ignorant.
Yes you are. What else would you call it when you go out with a gun with the intention to hunt down and shoot something? You thirst for blood. You are, quite literally, bloodthirsty.
You don’t need to kill any animals to eat. You can just go to a shop and buy your meat. There’s something extra involved here - above and beyond the desire for food. I assume there are shops where you live? You wish to kill. Nothing will assuage this desire until you have tasted blood.
And it would have continued to lead a pleasant, free life if you hadn’t showed up and shot it.
It’s a cleaner kill than somebody blundering around the woods with a shotgun taking potshots from 50 yards away.
And why do you want to do it anyway? Why not just leave it alone?
I’ll field that one.
I’ve been hunting for 35 years. I killed my first deer when I was 12.
It is more satisfying to eat the flesh of animal I have stalked, killed, and processed myself than it is to go to the store and buy a steak.
I enjoy the hunt.
I enjoy the kill.
I enjoy the eating.
I do not need to apologize for that or give any further justification than the enjoyment.
What does that even mean? Satisfying. It tastes the same whether store bought or not.
That’s ok then. The only factor to be considered here is your enjoyment levels. Ever wondered why you enjoy killing things? Ever considered that that may be a disturbing trait that you might want to look at?
Do you suppose he drinks the blood, raising the bloody liver in a show of triumph at his kill??
Maybe he’s a humanitarian and hunts because by not hunting he would be ensuring that deer starved to death…since there are no higher predators in the US in general deer populations tend to expand dramatically and cause the poor noble deer to die of starvation if they aren’t culled.
A job that would normally be being done by things like wolves, panthers, big foots and other such noble animals…but that are, sadly, lacking in our current eco-system. So…perhaps Skald the Rhymer is nobly trying to fill this VITAL niche, ehe? Never crossed your mind, right?
:rolleyes: Who is more humane here…you, with your noble, teary eyed sentiments or Skald…who is actually doing something useful by filling a top predator niche that is vacant in the US? My money is on Skald…
Until it starved to death or got hit by a car because the deer population outstripped the resources of a given area due to no restraint, other than food, on their population.
Let me guess…you figured that the noble deer would use self restraint with an eco-friendly can do attitude in order to keep it’s population in check, right? 
And the shot gun would be quicker and cleaner than being chased down by a pack of wolves and eaten while still alive. Quick and clean isn’t normally the way nature…though I’m sure it’s far nobler to be eaten while still alive than to be shot and bleed out because it’s teeth and not lead…
Or something.
-XT
I don’t take potshots witha shotgun.
mutantmoose, what hunters do is admit the truth that you are perversely refusing to acknowledge. Humans are animals. Like all animals, we live at the expense of other life. Moreover, we are predators, as attested to by our eyes and teeth. Our intelligence has allowed us to craft a society in which we are insulated from this truth, in which the cost of our lives is hidden from most of us, in which death is sanitized, in which most persons can pretend that their comfort is not bought with much labor and suffering.
But life isn’t like that. Animals on factory farms live miserable lives in "unnatural’ conditions. (I put unnatural in quotes because slaughterhouses are artifacts of man and have as much claim to being natural as beaver dams and bee hives.) They cannot run free. They cannot attempt to escape their fate, or defend themselves. Frequently they die in misery.
Now don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean to get on a moral pedastal because I hunt; I eat meat from the supermarket too. But when my cousins and i go out with our bows, when my cousin Sam butchers the deer we have killed and we divide it up to put in our freezers, we are at least being HONEST with ourselves about what we’re doing, about what it means to be a meat-eater. If you eat meat from a butcher or store and think that makes you somehow morally superior to a man who hunts for food, you are not being honest with yourself.
When she was about 10 or 12, one of my nieces was watching a nature show about the African savannah. She was quite enchanted by the lion cubs, and equally so by the young gazelles; but she was dismayed and angered by the adult lions’ hunting gazelles, saying angrily that they were “mean” to kill gazelles as they were doing. She was being foolish, of course, but she had the excuse of being a child. What’s your excuse?
Since I don’t buy into your asinine beliefs concerning animals, my enjoyment levels are what matter.
ok maybe you use a high-powered rifle or a bow. They’re still potshots.
Well, well done you! You can all congratulate yourselves for being HONEST with yourselves. Round of applause called for, I think … clap, clap
I’m being equally honest with myself when I buy a steak from the supermarket. I know it came from an animal but, unlike you, I don’t need to actually go out and shoot the poor thing myself. You’re not being honest, you just like to kill things.
We all know what it means to be a meat eater- it means you eat animals. There’s a difference between that (a necessary evil, best done in well-regulated slaughterhouses) and actually enjoying the job. Volunteering to go out on your own time.
Equally, you’re not on some higher level because you like shooting things.
When you leave the house, you leave with murder in mind. You want to see blood before the end of the day. If you don’t get a kill before the end of the day you will consider the day a failure.
What other walks of life are there where you would leave the house in that frame of mind? Where you must kill something or the day is a failure?
Food. I covered all this above. That’s one of the (two) reasons they will attack something. So what? Likewise with a snake biting a horse or a person - self-defence. That’s the other reason they fight.
So because you don’t agree with me about animals, you think it’s ok to execute them? Seems pretty rough justice to me.
…yeah… a depressed lady would find it so much more convenient and painless to be mauled by a bear opposed to downing a bottle of pain meds and chasing it with a bottle of wine… that makes so much sense.
only she knows what her motives were… maybe she was coping with her depression by going to the zoo and admiring nature… she seemed pretty happy before she started getting attacked.
…although perhaps she was hoping to win a lawsuit. Whatever the case may be, you totally missed the point of my post.
Perhaps he appreciates the fact the animals nourish his body? His mother also once nourished his body. I love animals myself and I seen nothing wrong with hunting to provide food for yourself or for your family as long as you don’t kill more than needed.
Animals have to hunt and kill to survive, and humans are literally animals themselves, so as long as you’re hunting to survive there should be absolutely nothing considered wrong about hunting and killing animals. Some people are too f’ckin’ crazy about protecting and preserving animal life.
p.s. Those food markets you mentioned… yeah… they won’t be around forever… eventually humans will have to once again learn the basics of hunting and farming to provide their own food. Just like I hear on the Discovery Channel and the History Channel about the fall of our technologically advanced societies… “it’s not a matter of if… it’s a matter of when”.
Hunting is considered a sport. Sports are fun. A skilled and noble hunter enjoys the hunt, appreciates the animal, and values life. Native American Indians hunted animals and respected their kill because they relied on that animal to provide nourishment for their tribes and recognized that without that animal they couldn’t survive. Good hunters are still like that today.
I think there is more honor in hunting your own food than buying a steak in a grocery store. Have you seen the movie "Fast Food Nation? Are you aware of the way your beef tenderloins and t-bones are mass produced?
People who consider animals an equal to human life are greatly confused. Animals are an important part of our ecosystem, they’re beautiful, and great care should be taken to preserve the wildlife that we still have… but humans are the gods of this earth, and animals are our servants. Deer, elk, and many other legal game animals have a large enough population to be safely hunted without fear of wiping out the species.
I’m against animal abuse, but hunting is not animal abuse, nor is it unnecessary. So what if someone enjoys hunting and killing an animal? Not only is hunting a thrilling experience, but their is a pride in being able to provide natural and healthy organic food for your family.
This is a man who has never been in a slaughterhouse.
Do you eat meat? Do you go to the shop and buy a steak and cook it up and eat it? If so I’d say you’re just as bloodthirsty… but at least the hunter is getting the better meal. Trust me… fresh game tastes so much better (and is by far more healthier) than supermarket meats.
Hunting also can save thousands of dollars a year. One full grown buck could provide enough meat to last a family of four through a winter provided it wasn’t their only food source.
I would so much rather live in a time when hunting and farming was absolutely necessary to provide food. I hate the luxuries we have today, although I probably would have a hard time living without them now because I’ve depended on them so much my whole life. I’d rather depend on myself (and God above all) than depend on all the things I do depend on in today’s time.
Your posts show no understanding of where our current society came from and what life was like before the convenience of a grocery store.
Eating meat from the shop is still eating an animal that has been killed… so yes, someone needs to kill the animal before you can eat it. At least the hunter loves the animal and gets enjoyment from hunting.
Your posts make it sound like it’s wrong for a hunter to enjoy the thrill of the hunt while appreciating the animal, but it’s ok for the bloodthirsty slaughter house employees to mercilessly kill thousands of cows a day without the appreciation for that life. In the slaughter house business it’s all about profit, not nourishment.
How do you know the animal wasn’t depressed? Animals supposedly get depressed. What if this animal had just watched his family get mauled by a bear? Now, although it is just an animal, it must realize it’s alone and feel a sort of loneliness. It’s not like that animal instantly forgets. Animals are VERY familiar with their surroundings. So what if this animal wanted to die? The hunter would be putting it out of it’s misery.
…but that’s all just silly… that animal is just an animal. There is nothing perfectly unique about each individual animal life like there is with human life. No two human minds are exactly the same… but all elk minds are exactly the same, give or take a few minor exceptions (which don’t attribute to it being perfectly unique). Animal life CAN thrive and provide man with food, but man first must learn to live harmoniously with that animal, and that is what a hunter does.
You’ve obviously never hunted. There is a thrill to hunting, and there is a satisfaction. What is so wrong about being satisfied? Most all grocery stores guarantee their loyal patrons satisfaction. Some people are more satisfied by doing things on their own. If you can provide your own food by hunting and farming and put all the money you saved (which would literally be thousands of dollars) from not having to buy meat and vegetables towards your child’s college tuition, WHAT THE F’CK IS SO BLOODTHIRSTY AND EVIL ABOUT THAT!? That’s smart and intelligent living. There should be nothing considered wrong about earning that personal satisfaction. Especially not “bloodthirsty”.
Being suicidal isn’t especially connected with sensical thoughts.
And thus it is not honour.
You can’t ascribe honour or ethics to acts which have no understanding of honour or ethics behind them. Consciously formulating a code is precisely the factor that makes an act honourable or not; intention can mean great difference in range, and lack of intention removes it altogether. Animals do not intend to live by a code; they do not deliberately select it out of the options they have avaliable due to a conception of honour or nobility. And so their actions can be neither.
The difference is that that which is required is not present. That which is mandatory is absent. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and is fourteen foot tall and bears live young, like as not it’s not a duck.
OK, mutantmoose, you’ve had your little spate of threadshitting.
Now, that you have had your fun, knock it off, unless you have something to contribute besides name calling. If you have nothing more than name calling, take it to the BBQ Pit or hold your peace.
= = =
EVERYONE ELSE, if all you hunters cannot tell when you are being baited, you are going to lose all my respect for you.
Stick to the topic and ignore the cheap shots from the peanut gallery.
[ /Moderating ]