I can understand needing to thin a population, blah blah blah.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t feel sick at the thought of people enjoying that process
What about people who enjoy hunting for the sake of hunting?
I don’t understand why it makes you sick.
Marc
Bear baiting. Pathetic.
Hunting requires a great deal of skill.
Unless you’re involved in it, you don’t see it too much on the shows.
Hunting with a rifle often involves a camping trip and a good degree of comeraderie.
To successfully hunt and kill a deer usually requires you to do things like scout the area and learn about the deer’s habits from various clues that you learn to look for. You need to be a pretty adept woodsmen to find the scrapings, analyze the scat, tracks and the terrain. Once you think you know where a nice buck hangs out and when, you have to plan a way to get there and into a good position so that he doesn’t notice you, and deer are very good at noticing you. You need to find a vantage point that will afford you a good clear shot. Harder still is trying to attract a deer with a deer call, or by knocking atlanters.
Do all this right, and the deer will still often you find you first. But those moments where the hard work and planning pays off are well worth it.
It’s a pretty difficult thing to do.
Why do people play golf? Why do they climb a mountain?
This just happens to put food on the table as well as control excessive herd populations.
Hunting requires a great deal of skill? That depends on what is being hunted.
Drive in to a campsite, and leave a pile of rotting meat there. Repeat this for a few months. This trains the bear to go to there to feed.
Then bring in the hunters to sit and wait for the bear.
When it comes to bear baiting, skill is not part of the equation.
In many places, it is illegal to kill a doe, and can bring fines for doing so. You may be thinking of bucks, the male deer. The way I see it, hunting a fox for its pelt and discarding the rest is a colossal waste. If someone wants to hunt a deer for a head to put on the wall, many cleaning/tagging stations can have the meat donated to a food pantry. I can understand hunting for sport in that sense; at least you don’t let the meat go to waste, and you may help a few people eat. Plus, it is usually tax-deductible.
In other places, the Doe licence is easier to obtain than a Buck licence.
The first year my father and mother lived on the forty acres of dense woods they own in central minnesota, Dad got his buck licence and was thrilled.
He watched twenty-nine does walk under his stand. Never saw a buck.
We don’t talk about that season.
Some of you are talking about the intrinsic need for humans to fulfill their evolutionary ‘imperative’ by hunting and killing.
Haven’t we gone past all that now? To claim that it is ‘natural’ denies the fact that we are well beyond the time when having to stalk and kill a wild beast is essential to our survival. Just admit that you enjoy killing for killings sake, and desist with the excuses…there aren’t any for such behaviour.
I abhor recreational killing of any kind.
Defend it as you may – a cull is one thing, hunting for food when you have no other options is another.
But recreational killing of animals as just another of humankind’s leisure activities – no.
First let me say that I am a hunter (by design) and that I consider people who can’t (or won’t) accept that fact to be brainwashed bleeding-heart liberal pussies. We as a species would not exist to this day except for the fact that our intelligence and opposable thumbs made us great hunters. Throughout our evolutionary history, to hunt was to live, to hunt well was to live well, and to abhor hunting was to die. Our genes were selected for a predisposition to enjoy hunting and living, inextricably. To love and enjoy the hunt increased your odds of survival. To deny this is ludicrous.
Now then, I’m not the kind of guy to traipse off to Asia and shoot a tiger strictly for a head to mount on my wall, but for people to say that “no hunting should ever be fun”, and that “it should only be done when absolutely necessary for survival” really tans my hide. I think they are denying their own fucking evolution.
The people who decry veal because the animal didn’t live a full, free, joyous life - all the while eating cleanly butchered beef or chicken - are the same who oppose “shooting a defenseless deer”. Make your damn minds already!
That said, a minor nitpick, if I may:
I lived for a while in arguably the ruralist of Arkansas, and at the age of 15 I had my first deer, a trophy 8 point white tail, stolen by a man who genuinely needed it to feed his family. I shot the deer dead, but failed to track it 100 yards, and this guy had obviously shot it as it lay dead (12 gauge group of 1 inch and powder burns on it’s neck). But my father taught me to respect his plight and let it go in the name of charity.
This may have changed recently, but when I lived there it was stictly county by county. In Garland county, we were allowed two deer tags - bucks with at least 2 inches of antler IIRC. “Buttonhead” bucks would exact the same strict poaching penalties as a doe.
OpalCat said:
You do know that there’s more to hunting than killing, don’t you?
kambuckta wrote:
Haven’t we gone past the need for sex now? With all the tecniques for artificial insemination there’s absolutely no need for people to have sex in order to secure the future of the species. Get rid of it immediately! It just sickens me to think of people enjoy such a nasty, primative act when there’s no need for it.
We have an evolutionary imperative for procreation. We fulfill that imperative by the act of sexual intercourse. Haven’t we gone past all that now? To claim that it is natural denies the fact that we are well beyond the time when having to engage in intercourse is essential to our survival. (In vitro fertilization, surrogate mothers, etc.,etc.) Just admit that you enjoy sexual intercourse for intercourses sake and desist with the excuses…there aren’t any for such behaviour.
You don’t want to hunt? Don’t hunt. See how simple it is?
Most areas that I am familiar with have wanton waste laws. To kill an animal and leave, or even just take the head, is illegal and the penalties can be pretty harsh.
Sex is with mutual consent. Hunting is not.
I don’t see how that is relevant. Cows, sheep, pigs, and chicken don’t exactly have the ability to consent either. Unless you’re a vegetarian for ethical reasons then the consent arguement makes no sense.
Marc
I am a vegetarian.
I found out awhile ago that I don’t particularly care for hunting.
It baffles me that others have different likes than I do. I mean, what’s wrong with people?
You have the right to restrict you diet in whatever way you desire.
However, that does not negate the fact that humans are omnivores and hunters. Hunting in our species is as natural as in any other predatory species.
“Consent” is meaningless in predator/prey relationships. I’m sure that deer would rather not be snacked on by Mr. Mountain Lion.
And dynamiting fish at the base of a dam, is somewhat different from fly-fishing.
And, in point of fact, taking a bear down with even a very high powered rifle is not a thing easily accomplished.
I don’t see what your point is, Bear baiting is about as indicative of your average hunter, as throwing blood on people with furs is indicative of your average vegetarian.