For the hunters I know? SO THEY CAN HAVE MEAT TO EAT IN THE WINTER! As I said, around here at least, there are still people who rely on hunted meat to make it through the winter, because otherwise they wouldn’t be able to eat meat and have heat in their house. Some, have young children as well, and children REQUIRE protein.
Who, me? I’ll assume so, since you posted a quote from me, albeit without my username. I do the same as you: I buy my meat from a store. I prefer that said meat be humanely reared and humanely killed. I’m happy to put my money where my mouth is; I’ll pay more for meat if I trust that the grocer can and has demonstrated humane treatment for my future food.
I do not draw some sort of magic line between myself and those who hunt and butcher their own meat. That’s bewildering.
What if I had a small farm, and I kept chickens and pigs, and maybe a few head of cattle, and once in a while I’d head out to the yard and pick one out and slaughter it for the table? Is that a hobby?
I don’t really feel like digging up cites because for every one I can list that tries to demonstrate that foie production is just as humane as any other meat farm, you’ll find equally vehement opposite cites that claim otherwise, with PETA of course being at the forefront…
I’m not sure if they suffer from having their livers engorged to four times their normal size or not…I do know that they start to waddle in an unwieldy fashion before their liver makes their way onto my plate though (when I can afford the luxury of eating that silken meat butter).
Fuck, even the ancient Egyptians force-fed geese for their livers, so it isn’t like this is anything new, and quite frankly, beyond ensuring a minimal amount of suffering for the birds, I could give a fuck. They are ducks/geese, not people, and dumber than the average animal. Plus there’s a lot of them to harvest, so they aren’t endangered either.
Aye, but my point had to do with debunking the idea that a creature that has lived free and died free somehow suffered more in death than one kept on a perch and fed too much. 
Or, what they said. There are enough people that do hunt to be able to have enough meat, to this day. It isn’t something they speak about much though. Being poor is hard enough, and making do with what you have takes up your energy. Those who are also poor, know how you feel, and those who aren’t may never get it.
Even well regulated slaughter houses are nasty, ugly death-traps.
Most slaughter-houses are not well regulated, because the FDA is under-funded, under-staffed, and focuses more on the D than the F.
Anyone who eats meat without ever having dressed a kill [that would be me] is a coward.
Anyone who bitches about it is a hypocrite.
However, human hunters, unlike unarmed predators, do not benefit the prey species. They are able, even prone, to pick off the best specimens, unlike a wolf, who is more likely to target and take down an ailing or otherwise less fit animal.
I am not a hunter and I am not a vegetarian; I like meat and I like it tidily wrapped in plastic on a styrofoam tray, and I am not proud of that.
No one who eats meat s/he does not kill can take a moral high ground.
No they don’t, you docile wombat. They hunt because they like to hunt.
I’m not arguing against the fact that culling sometimes needs to happen. I’m wondering why anyone would want to do it. On their spare time. Killing as a hobby. Sounds pretty freaky to me.
I don’t need to but I think humans are omnivores so animals are fair game as far as I’m concerned. They come under the heading of food and are therefore ok to kill.
I’m not some PETA nutjob but I still don’t understand it from the hunters perspective - why they would want to kill.
I know there’s a lot of poverty around in the US (eg alabama) but I’m not sure the country has reverted to a hunter-gatherer society just yet. Those people who actually need to kill to eat are a pretty small minority and (I suspect) don’t include any of the present contributors to this thread.
No, not specifically you. I was asking anyone who hunts what their justification was.
No that’s food. In examining your motivations, it would appear that you’ve got some animals around for use as food. The killing of the animal would be purely a mechanical thing for you. You’d get it over with as quick as possible. You wouldn’t release the animal and then hunt it down just for a bit of excitement.
It’s the thrill of the kill that puzzles me.
For what it is worth, I have been wanting to take up hunting for some time now because I do not in general enjoy the factory farming system even though I make use of it. I would prefer that I could reduce, or eliminate, my consumption of factory farmed meat and instead hunt for venison and buy beef/pork at the local farmer’s market. I have also been looking forward to spending time with my wife (who is a great shot) and who also objects to the factory farming system.
It is, however, interesting that this choice in and of itself will really torque off Moose.
An unexpected bonus.
As a child, yes indeed we did rely on hunted meat in order to have meat at all. And yes, I’ve shot a rabbit, and taken part in dressing it. It made an excellent stew. I took no thrill in killing, and was ashamed my Swiss Army knife had to be employed to give the mercy of a quicker death, rather than a one shot kill. We didn’t have to run the rabbit down, at least.
The only way to know is to ask them…in Heaven…
OK, look, here’s how you do it: [ quote = USERNAME ], and then after the piece you’ve quoted [ / quote ], but without the spaces. It’s traditional here that the first quote from a poster has their username, then you don’t need to use it again. Just [ quote ] quoted text [ / quote ]. (Again, no spaces.) If, later in the same post, you quote from a different poster, you should put in the username of that poster in the tag so that we know you’ve changed who you’re arguing against.
If I get a bit of an adrenaline thrill from chasing the chicken about the yard, does that make it a bit of excitement?
Some people hunt because they enjoy it as well as because they need to. Very few people hunt because they like killing.
Because you’re a freak yourself. Some people regard this environmental practice as a civic duty that they can do quite well.
mutantmoose, have you ever met a hunter, or are you just, as I suspect you are doing, simply pulling stuff out of your ass and claiming it holds true for all, or even most, hunters?
Because they don’t want to eat animals who died in fear and desperation, surrounded by the blood and pheromes of their kind, tortured and dragged, crippled, to their death?
Because they don’t entirely trust an over burdened and under staffed regulatory agency?
Because they are understand, either as biologists or country folk, that photosynthesis just isn’t an option for a lot of species?
Get yourself a garden. Start some tomatoes from seed. Keep them by a nice southern exposure window. Water them carefully. Transplant them outside. Monitor the weather; mulch them, and cover them, and nurture them. Watch them be beaten into the mud and die in a spring storm, and then start again.
And, in the end, kill and eat them.
We love what we eat.
Not only does this post illuminate the hypothetical murderous lather that Moosie apparently believes hunters get into, but it also illustrates a valid point: People eat meat, animals bearing meat need to die in order for people to eat meat, ans some people in many countries all over this planet indeed do hunt for sustenance.
AND, people in the USA hunt to supplement their diet from the supermarket, whether it be from necessity, tradition or both.
There can be no argument that hunting meat in terms of food providal is any different than buying it from a store prepackaged.
Our distinguished Doper colleague however is asserting that a “grim job” that pays the wages is somehow morally superior to a “hobby”… is a non-starter.
OK, honesty time…is there a “thrill” in killing an animal? Yes, but that’s unavoidable adrenalin, which maybe your local butcher doesn’t feel. But wasn’t the carcass processed into sides before it reached the butcher? What do those guys feel? A grim sense of earning a paycheck? Adrenalin? Have you asked them?
OK, that’s all well and good, but how miserable is that compared to the perfectly legal and humane art of professionally hunting an animal for food? Being outside in the early morning, smelling the grass, dog at your side, ready to steady your weapon to bring home the quail your’e cooking for dinner that night…
Are you getting it yet? And I don’t even hunt, fer Chrissakes!
I ran through many emotions the first time I bagged a deer. Nervous that I would botch it, excited that my hunt and all the preparations that I underwent were going to be successful, eager to get the venison to my aunt who fried up some pretty frigging amazing tenderloin, proud that I was going to come back with a deer, glad my uncle would get to see it, sad that I wasn’t going to get to show my father who had just passed away, sad that I would have to kill something so pretty to do all of the above. After it was done, I was happy that the deer hadn’t suffered (she dropped after two steps, I doubt she even heard the report from the rifle, happy that I had gotten a deer on my first time out which I rubbed in the face of my other uncle who had been out for YEARS without bagging one, happy to be getting out of my sweaty smelly camo and back to some heat inside the truck. People hunt for a variety of reasons. I like the silence, the stillness of the woods in the dawn, getting to see little hidden bits of nature that most people are in too much of a hurry to notice, I like eating venison and I like the ritual and tradition of hunting in my family. I could possibly go out with a camera and just photograph a deer… that would be ok, though I am no photographer, but I like to eat venison… I am a decent shot, so I hunt instead. We all participate in death, in various ways including ultimately our own. I find it interesting to be involved closely with the food I eat and the ways I obtain it, so I hunt.
Well put. Thanks for iterating what I was not able to, as a non-hunter that supports hunters and understands the reasons why.
Humans are omnivores to the exact extent that humans are hunters. YOu could live perfectly well on a vegan diet; hundreds of thousands of people do, and vegan diets have been studied and approved by nutritionists.
If you want to take the absurd “it’s natural so it’s okay” argument about meat (many natural things are horrendous, e.g., infanticide, rape), go for it–but the natural way to get meat is to hunt it, not to buy it shrinkwrapped.
No. You eat meat because you like it, and you hire killers to provide it for you.
Monster.
Lord, are we still feeding the troll?
While I have very little belief that you actually hold the absurd positions you claim to have, assuming for the moment that you actually do hold them, it has everything to do with your cowardice. It’s perfectly fine for you to grab a steak or a ham or a chicken breast at the supermarket since you didn’t have to kill it or even think about the fact that it died so you could eat it, but as soon as someone actually does the killing as a hunter they’re evil? What about the people at the slaughterhouse killing cattle, pigs and chickens so you can have your McChicken? Are they wrong as well? Are you not wrong and more importantly cowardly for eating the results without getting your own hands bloody and absurdly hypocritical for condemning hunters while you chow down on a 1/4 pounder?
Meh, don’t even know why I spent the time to write this. Your trolling is pretty obvious, more so when both hunters and vegetarians think your position is idiotic.
After reading the thread, I’ve come to the unhappy conclusion that MutantMoose is either a complete simpleton or his brain has atrophied to the point where simple logic escapes him.
Which leads me to opine that perhaps he’s been misdiagnosed as a mutant moose when, in fact, he suffers from Mad Cow Disease. Which, ironically, he could have avoided had he eschewed farm raised beef and hunted his own meat.
The kill is part of the hunt. The kill is, in fact, the culmination of the hunting phase. The "thrill"is partly the feeling of successful pursuit, partly the pleasure of making the shot, and partly pleasurable anticipation of the meals to come.
I enjoy hunting. I enjoy it more when I am successful. That means I enjoy it more when I kill my quarry than when I do not. I am out there, after all, with the goal of taking an animal. I don’t go out hunting to not kill something.
I do go out in the woods without killing in mind though. On those days I don’t call it hunting. I call it hiking.