I don’t know if is in the right section…
Is it really more evil to shoot a songbird than say a crow or a pigeon. A bird (living being) who’s only/sole function is to create beauty. Or is life sacred and all birds are equal? How would you prove your proposition, whichever one, if you were a lawyer and in animal court? (assuming such a case could come to the court)
It might be more evil to shoot an endangered bird than a common one.
It might be more evil to shoot a bird for entertainment, and then just leave the carcass to rot, than to shoot a bird to bring home for food.
All birds aren’t equal in all respects.
But the beauty of the victim shouldn’t be taken into account when judging the rightness of an action. The implication would be that it’s less evil to kill an ugly buzzard than an elegant peacock. Such preferences shouldn’t be elevated to moral principles.
i agree 
Stop shooting the birds for fun… They’re more useful than most people are. =P
It’s just adding more lead/heavy metals into the environment that other birds & animals pick up. Or take care of the carcass after it’s shot.
Let them take care of bug problems instead.
A songbird has no function. Certainly not to create beauty.
It’s evil to shoot something just for the fun of killing.
If you plan on eating it then that’s one thing, but shooting birds or possum or anything else just because you don’t like them or see no value in them is the height of human arrogance and waste.
When I got my first BB gun, my Mama said so. So that was the law. At my age, she knew I killed things with a magnifying glass, fire works, my shoes, was praised for killing scorpions etc.
Oh, and the first bird I ever shot turned out to be a BLUE bird.
I said a bad word (for a little kid back then) and fessed up. It was bad.
No one was dumb nuff to kill a mocking bird like that came up to the picture window & sang while Mama played the piano.
Songbirds are less common around here than crows or pigeons. So I’d rank killing one senselessly as “worse”.
If we were drowning in songbirds but had few crows, I’d flip my value judgement accordingly.
There should have been a poll option for being against the law to shoot songbirds. Most songbirds are protected under the Migratory bird Treaty Act.
http://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/regulationspolicies/mbta/mbtintro.html
There are exceptions, and seasons for most game birds. The link is for the state of Oregon and is a huge ass PDF so don’t click unless you really want a read. These birds are considered invasive nuisance birds and there is no season or limit to how many you can shoot.
http://www.dfw.state.or.us/resources/hunting/upland_bird/docs/2013-14_oregon_game_bird_regs.pdf
There is in fact a hunting season for crows, which in my area is open all months except November and December and there is no hunting license or bag limit.
But all the little tweety birds are protected under Federal law.
As a speciesist, yes a songbird is “worth” more than a crow. That doesn’t make it OK to shoot either.
I guess I shouldn’t mention that technically crows are songbirds? I thought not :).
But hey, house sparrows are songbirds too and they’re kinda annoying little buggers with their incessant cheeping. I kinda prefer crows at the end of the day.
But, since beauty is in the eye and ear of the beholder, we perceive their calls and plumage as beautiful.
Otherwise, nothing has any “function.” Life is just a self-perpetuating system of molecules. There would be no “evil” in any action. Giant Berserker Robot spaceships will be deployed to cleanse this fungus from the pristine cosmos.
A songbird’s function is to make more songbirds.
That said, I don’t see the point of shooting birds at all, birds of any type, unless they’re causing you harm in some way.
To get my head around this, I imagined a songbird person and a crow person. For the crow, I immediately thought of Lewis Black - raucous and funny as hell to watch. For the songbird, Robin Thicke popped into my head. I would have no trouble shooting the songbird, IF I had to choose between them. It would be evil to shoot Lewis Black, imo.
Although I have to admit I do like singing along to Blurred Lines, and I love the parodies.
I don’t see the point of shooting and killing birds, animals or humans for fun either. Although I realize that culling is an important part of wildlife management. Animals and birds are rated by conservation status - killing a bird of Least Concern once in a while is not a big deal in the grande scheme of things. Killing an endangered bird, is.
I have never before in my life seen an Indigo Bunting until this spring when a pair started visiting my feeders. They are not in any way endangered, but I’m very happy to see them here. I’d be very unhappy with someone who killed them. On the other hand, I would be much less unhappy with someone who decided to kill starlings, since they are ubiquitous and parasitic birds.
The poll therefore misses an important option: It depends on the bird and the locale. I could not answer the poll as written.
Be shooting the song bird you are not only ending the life of the bird, but depriving other people of the beauty of the bird and its song. Killing a crow is only ending the life of the bird. So the songbird killing is much worse.
I disagree. Crows are scavengers and as such, play a vital part in cleaning up other dead things. They are an important part of the ecosystem. Plus freaking songbirds singing incessantly outside my window at 5am tend to piss me off.
What we call songbirds and singing is really just them calling out to each other saying “Hey Fred, my feet hurt”. “Really Sue? My feet hurt more!!”. Over & over all day long. The perch or ground is always too hot or too cold or the twigs too sharp-edged or something. The poor things desperately need birdie podiatrists yet all they can do about it is bitch all day.
Once you recognize what they’re really saying, it sounds not nearly so pretty.
Seriously the question is silly.
I’m voting that all birds are equal… but I really should stress that the evilness is not based on *what *you’re shooting, but why.
“Evil” is not a word that applies.
If you think that killing dolphins is bad because they are smart, then killing the crow is more evil because they are way smarter than songbirds. Ravens are even worse in this respect, although at least here they are illegal to hunt, while crows are legal.
A songbird’s main function is to get laid, which is why they make songs.
I didn’t vote, because killing e.g. a bald eagle is worse than any of these. But the second option fits better.
Pigeons are doves. I have tried (unsuccessfully) to kill mourning doves but would try again when legal. I would have a larger impulse to shoot songbird than crows. I’m not sure why.