On a good day, you can bag quite a bit of meat from one deer. Now, hunting for 100 pounds of meat is a little bit easier than working in a job for the same money to buy said meat. Should someone work or spend hard-earned and possibly tight money to buy meat for the family when they can legally take Grand-dad’s rifle, and, being a fully registered hunter in their state, take an animal for food? Just because there are other ways to get meat doesn’t mean that we should exclude hunting.
How else am I going to eat it?
Yes, there is a sadness and regret whenever I kill an animal. However, that is a part of hunting. I enjoy hunting. Killing is a part of that, a part that the evolved human side of me is a bit sad about (as opposed to say, cats, who seem to just love to kill and torture small creatures.)
Death is as much a part of the natural world as life is. Take Scylla’s post to heart - you and I and every human being on this planet cause death and destruction every day regardless of diet. Are you emotionally scarred for life when you think about the hundreds of animals killed during the harvest of the grains you eat?
I can’t believe you actually said that pile of horseshit with a straight face.
When I walk, breathe, etc, I am not killing anything intentionally. If you say that you hunt without intentionally killing an animal… Next, I need to eat something to survive. I am not against the concept of survival. I simply try to live the best I can, which means causing as little pain, suffering, and death as possible. Killing something that can feel and think and so on [and if you say that the level of these qualities is the same for a plant as an animal I’m going to call you an idiot] because you like the taste of it versus the taste of something else… yeah that’s pretty sick [to me].
If you can’t tell the differences here, then you are so far beyond the reach of reasoning that I’m not even going to try.
When I think about it, yes, it hurts. As for taking Scylla’s post to heart, read my response here. As for the comment about cats, they don’t understand the concept of causing suffering in others, so they don’t realize that playing with an animal like that is torture. Humans do.
Just because animals do something, or our ancestors did something, doesn’t mean that we have to do it. Lions kill antelope, yes. A male lion will also kill and eat the cubs of a previous male lion when he takes over a pride. Doesn’t mean that people should do it too.
Again, if you enjoy hunting, go on with your bad self. Just don’t expect me to like you. (yeah, I know, you’re gonna go cry now because I don’t like you. I am not saying you give a shit, just saying that is the way it is.)
**
How many times do I and other hunters have to repeat?
You can’t eat film.
If there is no option of killing, the activity is not hunting.
**
Yes, it’s a choice but then so is eating a diet of nothing but rocks. I rate a purely vegan diet barely about a rock diet.
**
I find such claims to be suspect when discussing a purely vegan diet. While people can survive on it, healthy or thriving living is best, and perhaps only, accomplished on an omnivorous diet. If you “cheat” and eat milk or eggs then you are just eating a restricted omnivorous diet.
**
Oh woe is me. Not on a “happy” list.
On second thought, I’ll do just about anything to avoid being on a “happy list”. shudders
Do I directly derive pleasure from its death? No. However, I feel good about having succesfully accomplished a difficult task, especially if I’ve done it well and it’s been challenging.
No. Very little. The only times I felt any regret were the first deer I shot, and another that turned as I was squeezing the trigger. It ran about a quarter of a mile and was still alive when I found it. I regretted making it suffer.
For the same reason I run marathons. It’s not like I’m getting some sick thrill at mile 24. It’s hard, and it hurts.
The gestalt of the experience is extremely satisfying though.
Hunting is even better because I perform a natural function, actually reduce suffering, help conservation efforts, have fun, and get a bunch of yummy meat in the process if I’m lucky.
And, if you’re curious I’ve given up rifle hunting for deer. I’ve given this up because it’s gotten pretty easy for me to get one with a rifle.
I hunt with a bow, and have been for several years. I’ve yet to harvest a deer with a bow, and have been trying for several years (I think this is my fourth.)
If it was just about killing I’d stick with the rifle, or better yet I’d just buy live mice and squeeze them to death in my hands for the thrill of it rather than going through all the trouble of hunting.
You’ve got to admit it is the quickest way to get your Man Beads from the Council.
There’s some council that will give me Men when I hunt?!? Hot damn, where did I miss this.
Oh wait, Man Beads. Nevermind, beads are boring.
And how many times do I have to repeat: I am sickened by people who hunt. I don’t care why you do it or any of the side benefits or what definitions you use. The killing part, whatever part that is, is what I find objectionable. TO ME. PERSONALLY.
As for the vegan/vegetarian thing, that is a whole other issue and I’m not going to get into it with you.
In fact, I’m sick of banging my head against the wall in this thread, too, so I’m outta here.
Was that a parting shot?
It’s a shame you feel the need to remove yourself from the natural world. I’m a hardcore skeptic and atheist, but if I were to find religion it would be in the natural cycles of life and death in the fields, forests, and savannas.
Go ahead and hate me if you will. It harms me none. Hate does however harm the hater.
The you could never be a farmer, either - so I suggest that you look in the mirror and face your hypocrisy. You don’t feel comfortable killing, so you let others do the dirty deed - and then stand before us claiming there’s no blood on YOUR hands, nosiree. Feh!
Agriculture kills on a massive scale - and the spread of agriculture has done FAR more to wipe out animals than hunting for food purposes has ever done. Plowing the land destroys habitat vital to many animals; since they have nowhere else to go when that happens (as the remaining suitable habitat is already occupied, assuming they can even reach it), they die. Harvesting the crops with mechanical combines slaughters many more innocent creatures who become caught in the thresher blades and are torn apart while still alive - at least as cruel a death as a hunter’s bullet, if not worse. And all the selective breeding humans have done to make our crops tasty and nutritious aren’t just appreciated by us - they make the crops tasty and appealing to many other creatures as well. When crop raids by hungry critters cause significant levels of damage to the crop, farmers kill the offending animals. It was farmers who wiped out the Carolina Parakeet, not hunters - because they were crop pests. And farmers today kill many birds (not to mention insects) with the pesticides they use, and they deliberately destroy other animals such as gophers and raccoons which damage their standing crops and their fields.
If you don’t wish to eat meat because you feel uncomfortable about directly taking the life of an animal, that’s your choice. But don’t get up on a moral high horse when talking to hunters, because you don’t have grounds to stand on one. Unlike you, THEY are willing to confront directly the necessity of taking another creature’s life in order to sustain their own.
**Opal, **
Do all meat-eaters cause the same revulsion in you? Anyone who eats meat basically contracts out the job of killing, right? ** Scylla ** speaks of satisfaction,not joy, an hunt's end.
It’s task he does, not for joy, but for the satisfaction of a job well done and food at the end. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, I am just asking for clarification. I’d agree killing forjoy is wrong. I don’tthink that’s his goal.
** Cthulhu**,
It’s difficult, and while man is designed to be an omnivore (note canines, digestive tract acid, etc), with careful planning one can thrive on a vegan diet. I don’t, I eat meat, but I’ve known a few, amd there were some athletes who have espoused it. it is harder to plan, though.
Are you sickened by cattle that have been ranched and then killed less than, more than, or equally to a deer that has been shot? As I figure, shooting an animal and then eating it is a lot more work than going to the store and buying a steak. Also, the animal that was hunted lived its life in nature and with freedom, frolicking and living carefree. As opposed to cattle, which have been bred to die and pumped full of chemicals.
But how many supplements (perhaps ultimately from animal sources) must they take? It also seems to me to be a diet that can only work in an industrialized country that can import fruits and vegetables from all over the world.
It is possible, though, that various people have adapted more to a predominately vegetable-based diet than others. I know I’m not in the group, however.
Opal:
Well, since you’re getting nasty, I’ll just take the gloves off:
So you agree that things die as a result of our food choices, that cultivation kills.
You seem to claim some asinine superiority out of the fact that all the deaths you cause are clumsy accidents, while mine are deliberate acts.
I think it’s exactly the opposite, and that you fucking idiots hiding from death and putting on airs of superiority from your totally meaningless little pretend moral choice are contemptible in your block headed stupidity.
When that tractor runs over a field, the moles suffocate, they get slowly squeezed to death, they get trapped. The box turtles crawl around for days with broken shells before they die and the carrion birds come and eat them. Snakes get cut in half, rabbits and rabbit warrens get destroyed. When you plow in Spring you kill the baby animals, the baby gophers, and moles and birds.
When you harvest, the whole thing happens again.
I lived on a farm for nine years. I saw it with my own eyes. Every time that field got planted animals died by the thousands, seen and unseen. You can walk across the field and see them. Hundreds of them. You could see the birds coming to eat the remains.
Every single time it was a slaughter. Every single goddamn time.
And you are trying to sit there and pretend that you are better than me because you’re a vegetarian. Who the fuck do you think you’re kidding.
It is bewildering to me how stupid and ignorant people can be, how thoroughly they can hide their head in the sand.
That cultivated field is unnatural. That field causes vast suffering in a wholesale, and indiscriminate fashion, and you are a part of it, and there’s no escaping it.
The only goddamn time in my life when I can tell you that I have caused as little suffering as possible is when I eat an animal I have killed myself. That’s because I have made the effort to ensure that it is so, instead of hiding in my stupid little world pretending that my vegetarianism alleviates suffering.
I don’t eat meat because of taste. I eat meat because an omnivorous diet is the surest and most efficient way to maintain health and strength, and I am under no stupid, and ignorant self inflicted delusions that vegetarianism alleviates the suffering of animals.
If you can’t tell the differences here, then you are so far beyond the reach of reasoning that I’m not even going to try.
You have to be careful,especially with proteins, since not many plant-based proteins have all the right amino acids. You won’t need animal based products. ovo-lacto people have it easier. It is a possibility, but you need access to a variety of foodstuffs.
FWIW, I’m not in that group. Admittedly, I balance my steak by putting French fries on the other side of the plate. Not as healthy, but more fun.
As someone already said it isn’t just the killing it is the entire process. Anyone who enjoys a turkey this Thanksgiving is going to be enjoying the process as well.
Marc
I have waded through this entire thread so that I wouldn’t inadvertently repeat anyone’s argument. Waded is the word. In hip boots. With a shit shovel.
The OP (if anyone remembers) was regarding your thoughts about killing for sport (in the title…and for fun in the body of the post), not for food, nor to cull overpopulations, nor even to test one’s skill in tracking an animal just to get close enough to photograph it.
The thread degenerated immediately (and predictably) into a rant against deer hunters on one side and justification by hunters on the other.
Among the pro-hunting arguments is the assertion that it is our primitive nature to hunt. But (arguably) the most primitive people still extant, the Bushmen of South Africa, hunt only out of necessity, and actually appologize to their kills for taking their lives and thank them for giving up their lives so that human children could be fed. Sport doesn’t enter into the equation.
IMO, killing for food is completely justified. Killing for fun (or sport, if you prefer that word) is barbaric. To say you derive satisfaction from stalking a wild creature and getting very close makes perfect sense. But adding that you “can’t eat film” is simply disingenuous. Admit that the killing is as important an element in your satisfaction as the stalking. Making excuses is demeaning to you.
I’m surprised at you, Scylla. Your “every breath you take kills” post was unworthy of you. The whole subject of the OP is about intent, not the fact that the life of any one creature necessarily involves the death of some other. Opal is not a hypocrite because she breathes.
I am a meat eater myself, but I don’t regard myself as hypocritical because I think killing for sport is abhorrent. Food is necessary, the thrill of the kill is not. I’m sure Opal wouldn’t share my choices in food, but I doubt that she’d call me a hypocrite because we differ on those choices.
Some time ago I visited the Roy Rogers museum in Victorville, CA, and I was appalled to see the stuffed carcasses of animals like elephants and lions that he had hunted, not for food (and not to protect helpless villagers), but for sport. My childhood hero degenerated before my eyes. I don’t hate him for it, any more than I do an uncle who has a den full of stuffed heads. But I don’t have the same regard for either of them that I once did.
Hunters are not bad people, but most of them are kidding themselves that they are conservators of nature at least as much as they are thrill seekers. I think if there were no killing in it, most hunters would just stay home.
Some might, maybe. But I’d wager most would not, because there is so much more to the whole thing than killing. No hunter is guaranteed even seeing a deer, much less getting a shot at one.
There is simply something ineffable about the whole process. I’ve never shot any animal personally but am an enthusiastic if inept angler. It’s the whole thing, the preparation, the anticipation, the peace that seeps into your bones after hours spent in the (relative) quiet of the bush or on the water. It’s the patience and endurance one must learn to have any success. It’s the sense of focus, the sharpening of the senses and concentration which might be a form of meditation, in a way. It’s the satisfaction of attaining a measure of self-sufficiency, the opportunity for which many of us have become far removed in the urban environment. And the enjoyment of a delicious meal, provided by one’s own hand, from start to finish.
All so, so far removed from killing for the joy of killing. Where’s the patience and endurance in bear-baiting or picking off bison from the safety of a train? No hunter that I know of would get any enjoyment from this and in fact would call it out for the bullshit that it is. Maybe that’s the difference between a ‘hunter’ and a ‘killer’…?
So what is the opinion on people who fish, from the anti-hunting crowd? Opal? Ice Wolf? Desertgeezer?