Hunting

Great Debates
21

I shoot groundhogs with a rifle, and hunt deer during Archery season. The former is to preserve my land, the latter for fun.

I see no way around the fact that the woods ARE a very dangerous place to be during hunting season, and it certainly does intimidate those who wish to use the woods for other purposes during hunting season. Turkey and small-game season do not represent such an imposition around here, but deer season is something else.

Though my land is enclosed and posted, we bring the horses into the barn, tie up the dogs, and do not linger outside. I go out with my truck and check the property, and the year hasn’t gone by when I don’t have to ask somebody to leave.

Hunting has become a right, and this it shouldn’t be. It should be a privilege.

Bow hunting can be much more cruel than with a rifle. Accuracy and power are issues, and it is much easier to give an animal a wound which will fester and cause a lingering and painful death. An arrow stays within the body, is not sterile and provides a route for infection. By the time a bullet hits a target it is pretty sterile due to the friction of firing and it supersonic journey. A wound from a rifle stands a decent chance of either killing the animal quickly, or allowing it to recover.

In fifteen years of bowhunting I have never taken a shot. I would only shoot an animal withing 25 yards where I could be very certain that a shot through the ribs would penetrate lungs and/or heart resulting in a quick death. I’ve seen the results of bad/irresponsible archery shots. The meat is a complete waste and the suffering inflicted is intolerable.

I hunt for the challenge for the love of the outdoors, and the peace that being alone in the woods engenders. I fish for the same reasons. Whether I get anything or not is beside the point.

22

Scylla Thank you.

23

…Ontario, Canada, the deer population is getting too large to be self-sufficient, and they end up getting hit by cars, or starving in the winter. We have hunting to allow for “thinning” of the herd, although I don’t do it.

24

Then why not just go camping?

Sorry, I think you are being dishonest.

stoid

25

Stoidela:

Think as you will. My grandfather took me hunting in upstate NY when I was a little kid. We would camp and hunt and he would tell me to shut up because I was scaring all the deer away. It was a lot of fun. I enjoy practicing archery. I enjoy scouting my land during long walks in the late summer for a good place to put my tree stand, and I love the early Saturday Morning of Archery season when it’s quiet and alone in my deer stand.

Any fisherman will understand when I tell you that actually getting fish isn’t what fishing is about.

I’ve observed does and other deer while I sit unseen in my stand. I’ve seen an almost prescient buck lurk just aout of range for a half hour at a time.

Being a hunter is cool.

Kind of nasty of you to call me a liar though, don’t you think? Dou you claim ESP, special psychological expertise and insights into the minds of hunters in general, or will you graciously apologize?

Wring:

Your welcome.

26

You haven’t said why hunting is cool. You’ve said why being in nature, camping out, watching wildlife is cool. Why is KILLING cool? And if KILLING isn’t the point, isn’t what you do, they WHY do you call it hunting? Why do you hunt? If it’s all the OTHER things that GO with hunting that you like, why not just leave out all the weapons and death?

When you can explain that, I will be happy to retract my statement. I apologized when I made it.

Incidentally, I did not call you a liar. I said I thought you were being dishonest, and I still do. I think you are not being honest even with yourself about it. But that doesn’t make you a liar. A liar is someone who make it a practice to lie for the purpose of deceiving others, knowingly and with malice aforethought.

So perhaps I should put it more gently: you are fooling yourself.

stoid

27

Hunting is camping with a purpose. It’s about being a provider. It’s about joining the food chain instead of just sitting back in your leather chair at a distance, eating a burger, and feeling smug. There’s a real beauty involved in becoming such a part of the woods that you go unnoticed, that you belong as surely as the Deer, Mountain Lion, fox and skunk.

Standing at the summit is the goal of mountain climbing. Why don’t you ask them why they don’t take a helicopter or ride the ski lift.

It is the process.

If you haven’t done it or can’t understand it, that’s fine. I have no problem with that. I am disapointed that you would presume to know my motivations.

At some point I will most likely succeed in taking down a deer with a bow. I will dress and eat the deer, and most likely the next year I will increase the challenge by coming down from my tree stand and attempting a “stalk.” I will be proud and happy when I get the deer, just as I was every time I got one with a rifle. It’s the goal of hunting, but it’s not the purpose.

Any fat ass can sit in the woods on an air mattress cooking his Spaghetti O’s. It takes real skill to successfully hunt, especially with a bow, and like much in life the process is it’s own reward. “It’s not the kill, it’s the thrill of the chase.”

I think that one can become so insulated in life, that he may in fact beleive killing is wrong. As one who lives on a 90 acre farm that’s partially wooded, let me tell you that it’s a fact of life, and it’s natural. A lot of killing is going on, and man surely does more than his share of it.

Hunting is about getting back to nature and taking responsibility and actually taking yourself what you will use. It is immensely fun and satisfying, and that last is not dependant upon whether or not you actually shoot something.

28

I agree with Scylla…it’s the process.
I’ve never hunted, and I haven’t dipped my fishing line in several years, but I do enjoy the process of fishing.
Packing, loading the vehicle, calling the buddies to see if they’re ready, and of course, getting a few tugs on the line is always fun. I would hunt if I had the time. I would only hunt moose, because deer meat sucks…(the meat I’ve had anyways). Moose is delicious! Way better than beef.

Hunting skills are worth knowing. Lets say a natural disaster happens and there’s no food in the stores…what then? I better get learning.

29

Let me put it this way: I shot my last deer with a rifle 18 years ago. Every year since then except 3 I have gone bowhunting. This involves a good bit of work, scouting and practice, a rather large investment in time.

You would think that after 15 years or so I might go back to the rifle, if all I wanted to do was kill something… I don’t. I like to hunt.

30

Ted Nugent would be very pleased with you Scylla…I’m sure.

Have you ever seen his bow hunting program? Great show. The camera is usually behind him as he shoots his weapon. Very neat!
I was going to interview him for something a few yrs back…our wires got crossed and he never got back to me…I was crushed.

31

Stoidella
I think ou are confused.
It is called hunting not killing.
It is called fishing not catching.
The thrill is in the waiting, the stalk,the knowlege you have of the preys habits,your ability with your weapon(yeah a fishing pole is sort of a weapon)
and a whole lot more.

32

Stoidela said:

That’s a bold statement. Here’s another one.

If you EVER eat ANY KIND of meat, or wear or use any kind of leather, your statement above makes you a completely full-of-shit idiot.

Like you aren’t contributing to the suffering and demise of animals because you aren’t actively participating in their killing?

Vegetarians don’t get a free pass either. Just because we humans are unable to comprehend plant pain and suffering doesn’t mean it doesn’t occur at some level.

Sorry folks. We’re animals, and animals are incapableof surviving without causing the suffering and death of other living things at times.

This subject was reviewed exhaustively in an IMHO thread not long ago. (Wring’s interpretation of the thread’s conclusion was certainly interesting.)

I’ll quickly summarize a few of the points I made there.

  • I have lived my life surrounded by hunters. I have never known one who wasted an animal after killing it. If they didn’t eat the meat, it was given to friends who did, or to local charities that happily accept it.

  • Where I live, hunting is a necessity to keep deer populations under control. Deer cause tens of millions of dollars in farm and other property damage each year in my state alone. In my region, the wild deer herd is perpetuating a potentially dangerous strain of bovine tuberculosis that is infecting cattle herds and causing farmers to have to destroy their entire herds and lose their livelihood. It is a serious threat to Michigan’s livestock industry, and it could happen almost anywhere else. Little can be done, however, because there are so damn many deer, even if they wanted to kill them all to help eradicate the disease, the Army couldn’t even do it. (This was told to be by one of the top officials in my state focusing on this problem.)

  • For all those people out there in the woods with guns, hunting isn’t all that unsafe. In Michigan, there are many more deaths and injuries annually in car-deer accidents than from accidental hunter shootings. With regard to injuries, there are several hundred in car-deer accidents each year for every one caused by a hunting accident.

  • Hunting is a time-honored experience that grandfathers, fathers, sons and friends have enjoyed for centuries. Yeah, I said enjoyed, without shame. I don’t know any hunter that gets off on the bloodlust aspect of killing wild animals. Virtually all I know like the comeraderie and the feeling of getting back to nature to at least some extent and being a part of the natural process.

Hunting in that respect seems to me far more ethical than eating a burger from McDonald’s.

Meat doesn’t come from some magical machine that puts it into polystyrene trays wrapped in plastic, no matter how much some people would like to believe that.

33

**

Really? lets see, I DID leave out your analysis that the deer population could only be controled through hunting. Sorry. But, I also left out the part where you erroneously asserted to me that “hunting season doesn’t even START until after the color season”.

I applauded Scylla because he admitted what you and the other hunters kept on denying. That putting armed people into the woods, who intend to shoot weapons, will INCREASE risks to other people. You again, here attempt to divert attention from that, with a discussion of relative risks from deer/car accidents to hunting accidents.

Since great quantities of people stay OUT of the woods during hunting season (cause it’s not safe, remember?) the lack of folks getting hurt does not prove that it’s not a danger. If people don’t go into your pool, you won’t have any drowning deaths, either.
Again, I think it’s really nice for you that you like to hunt etc. But while you’re busy pointing the hypocrisy finger at folks who don’t like to hunt, try, please to also admit that YOUR HOBBY, while the state may benefit from it in some ways, ALSO intrudes on other people’s rights. I should be able to walk on state owned property without being in danger of being shot. The kids at my sister’s school should be able to play in their playground without the danger of being shot. They CAN in the spring. They CAN in the winter. They CAN’T in the fall.

Milo’s points:

  • I have lived my life surrounded by hunters. I have never known one who wasted an animal after killing it. If they didn’t eat the meat, it was given to friends who did, or to local charities that happily accept it.

wring’s response: again. that’s great that you and your hunting friends use all the animal etc. I don’t recall anyone complaining about that, certainly I didn’t.

  • Where I live, hunting is a necessity to keep deer populations under control

wrings response again: You quote an official’s stance that “not even the army”… this is your most valid (IMHO) point. However. other places have problem with vermin, and their responses don’t generally include charging a fee and letting the populace take over public lands to shoot them. I think there needs to be more effort into what options there may be.

Milo’s point:

  • For all those people out there in the woods with guns, hunting isn’t all that unsafe.

wring’s response: Once again, please focus. “all that unsafe”. I assume that you would agree that a place WITH bullets flying about is “less safe” than a place without flying bullets. The relative danger is not the issue. The issue is, why would a civilized society allow ONE group of people to intentionally raise the risk of harm for all people, for the sake of a hobby? And again, the numbers of people harmed in hunting accidents does NOT factor in the numbers of folks who avoid the public lands 'cause they don’t want to get shot.

Milo’s point:

  • Hunting is a time-honored experience that grandfathers, fathers, sons and friends have enjoyed for centuries.

wrings’ response: That’s wonderful for you. Really, I’m happy that you’ve been able to connect in a positive way with your ancestors. But. why should that involve taking over public lands and making them less safe (you apparently object to the words “unsafe”) for others? Public lands. less safe.

and then the rest is about the “meat doesn’t come in packages”. Fine. We are not, at this point, a hunting/gathering society. Few folks in the USA are completely self sufficient units, growing their own food, making their own energy, weaving their own cloth etc. My stance was never “I don’t eat meat, wear leather etc.”. It was about “why should one smaller segment of our society be allowed to take over our public lands for 3 months, making it less safe for the rest of us?” Your main argument seems to be 'cause we need to control the deer population. I’m not convinced that the most efficient way of doing that is to turn a bunch of armed ametures loose in the woods for 3 months.

34

wring:

Your argument is clear to me. Public lands, hunters, guns, unsafe. “This land is your land, this land is my land; you’ve got a shotgun, and I ain’t got one,” as it were.

(Sorry.)

Please show me some statistical data that indicates hunting is riskier than, say, driving or playing football.

Here, let me help:

“Oh c’mon. Hunting involves guns! Bullets flying around!”

Yep. Now then. Please show me some statistical data that indicates hunting is riskier.

I’ll show you data (as I already did in the other thread) that it isn’t.

And hunting is more than “a hobby.” There is a problem with the size of some wild animal populations in particular areas. Problems, as in, causing property damage, causing imbalances of the ecosystem, creating natural food supply shortages that will cause many animals to starve to death over a winter.

Society and its representative governments have deemed it prudent or necessary to manage those animal populations. In most cases, any solution other than hunting would be unwieldy, way too expensive and impossible. If you can’t get all the deer doing something as simple as killing them, how are you going to give all the does Norplant? Or, should we put up a few hundred million dollars worth of 15-foot fencing to keep deer out of where we don’t want them? Wouldn’t that look pretty?

Hunting, on the other hand, not only helps solve the problems, it generates revenue for communities. And people enjoy the pastime - not ‘killing things,’ but ‘capturing their own food/meat’ and ‘participating more actively in the natural process for a change.’

And GD Mods: My apologies for my earlier brash response to Stoidela’s quote. It was unsuitable for this forum, and I shouldn’t have sunk to the level that he/she did with his/her statement.

My point, however - that if you eat meat or use leather and attack hunters as repulsive, you are a misinformed, flaming hypocrite - stands.

35

Absolutely not true. The line now forms at the northern borders of North Carolina and Tennessee.

36

** Milo ** Please compare the risk of a person walking in the woods during non hunting season to the risk of a person walking in the woods during hunting season. all other stuff is irrelevant. My point (again) is that ** hunting ** increases other peoples (other than the person choosing to undertake the activity) risks. Not how risky is it compared to underwater basket weaving or anything else.

more than a hobby, it’s a lifestyle. ? don’t I know it. Remember, I was married to a hunter. My son hunts. Hell, I live in mid Michigan. I get that y’all take it seriously.

what I’m looking for is the kind of admission that ** Scylla ** made : Hunting, all by itself, causes risks to people other than those who choose to hunt. Your continued insistance to compare the risks to other things does not address the point. When YOU play football, you’re generally NOT risking the death of the person watching, or walking along the side of the stadium.

Is it fair that the 2nd grade kid can’t go outside during recess in the fall? Is it really necessary (to achieve those lofty goals of which you speak) that the entire public wooded areas become too dangerous for us other folk for 3 months every year?

37

Hunting is a natural function of our species. Omnivores, carnivores and insectivores must hunt, in most cases, to survive (I employ the qualifier, “in most cases,” because some species scavange and some members of our species elect not to indulge in an omnivorous diet). In light of the natural aspect of hunting, I have no problem with it, provided it remains “natural.” Our species and our ancestors have utilized technology for hundreds of thousands of years. In my opinion, hunting with the technology of guns provides an unfair advantage. As Scylla stated, archery is a much more difficult form of hunting. I believe that our hunting should be limited to forms such as archery, spear hunting, netting, et cetera. I find hunting with a gun to be analogous to fishing with dynamite.

I think that hunting is the preferred method of obtaining meat. Anyone can walk into a market and grab a pound of hamburger without having to actively associate the ground flesh with ol’ Bessie. I believe that having to make such an association through the activity of hunting would instill in individuals a healthier respect for other species. Moreover, I believe that acquiring one’s subsistence is a privelege and that one must endure the rigors necessary to obtain that subsistence.

I disagree with hunting to protect agriculturalism or pastoralism. Hunting is natural in the sense that one animal kills another for food. It is not natural to kill another animal for “just being there.” The animal hunted must be utilized in its entirety. I also disagree with the argument for hunting from a population standpoint. To offer the argument that hunting deer is okay to keep the population in check is analogous to stating that murdering humans is okay to keep our population in check. “We kill deer/homeless people to prevent their starvation in the winter,” is not an acceptable argument.

38

wring, I suspect that being in the woods during hunting season is a little more dangerous than being there while it’s not hunting season. However, I also suspect that the difference is extremely slight. Is there really a need to stay out of the woods during hunting season, or is it just people being overly careful because “there’s guns out there!”?

Plenty of people go into the woods during hunting season (the hunters at the very least) and don’t get shot. To get a good idea of whether the difference in injuries was significant, we would need to figure out how many people are in the woods during hunting season and how many of them got hurt, and then the same for non-hunting season. The difference could turn out to be the same as driving 45 mph or 50 mph.

Besides all that, I believe hunters deserve to get their time on public lands. When I hunted and fished regularly, it cost me $32 a year for a license (haven’t had much time for it the last few years). That money went into supporting those public lands; should I have been barred from them? (I have heard that ammunition is sometimes taxed for that purpose as well, but I’m not sure about that.)

PeeQueue

39

** PeeQueue** sigh.

I don’t care if the risk is only minimal(and I don’t agree that it’s minimal). My point is that why is it allowable that ANYONE’S risks be raised by some one else’s actions?
You have a hobby. You fish. When you fish, other people can swim, fish, boat etc. Your fishing does not impact them. this is as it should be. Some one who bowls - heck, I wouldn’t even KNOW it. I have hobbies, too. You won’t even KNOW when I’m doing them, because they don’t intrude on anyone else.

Hunting. on the other hand. as I noted, my sister’s school could not send the kids out to play. I can’t walk in the woods and take pictures of the lovely trees. The birdwatcher is now in danger. The hikers need to take precautions. all of this so one other group can ply their chosen hobby.

and, as far as the $36 (funny, in the last thread I speculated that it was about $40, and was lambasted as "no, we pay much, much more than that), show me where I can sign up to pay $36 and be allowed to make public lands dangerous for others for three months. Our state charges more (relatively) for camping spots (and in those cases, the camper is not making the area unsafe for others). I can “rent” out an area of a local park (a pavillion for example) for a fee much more (relatively) than the annual fee you quote, and all that gets me is a couple of hours to use a PORTION public lands for my private use, as long as I don’t create problems for the rest of the folks who are there. $36 for 3 months of public land usage? $0.30 per day???

40

wring:

Says you.

Driving causes risks to people other than those who choose to drive. But society has decided the benefits of driving outweigh the risks, just as it has with hunting.

If hundreds and thousands of people were being killed and injured by hunting, you can bet hunting would be dramatically modified, curtailed, or banned. That isn’t happening, however, so the point is moot.

Yes. Do you have a better solution? The one we have now seems to be working rather well.

Nen:

Congratulations. That doesn’t make it any less necessary.

We live where we live. Our farms are where our farms are. To let the forest creatures run willy-nilly over and through these areas and partake of them as they will may be a nice idea in an idealistic sense, but in practicality, it costs a lot of money, and it causes a lot of problems.

No, it’s not at all analogous to murdering humans. Humans are humans; deer are deer. Over-population of deer in isolated areas causes disease and damage to the ecosystem that not only leads to a cruel death for deer but other animals. That is a fact, not a pseudo-moralistic opinion.

Are people aware of how out-of-touch they appear when they make such statements? Oppose it all you want. There is a situation, however, that needs addressing, and it’s being addressed by hunting.

None of the opponents I’ve heard so far has any realistic proposals for dealing with regional wild animal over-population and the problems it poses to communities and farms. In fact, Nen dismisses the issues out-of-hand.

Wonder if you’d have the same view if you owned a farm in Northern Michigan?

As as for the unfairness of humans using rifles - deer have extra sharp sight, hearing, smell, and are very fast. Humans don’t; but they do have big brains and can build and use things such as firearms. We’re both using what nature gave us.