A little perspective: For months a mouse in my house has been the bane of my existence. (Well, he was never my only bane, or even my #1 bane, but a bane nonetheless.) I’ve spent fortunes and missed work to meet the exterminators trying to get rid of him, and whatever cohorts he might have wandering around, to no avail. I hate this little sucker in a very up-close and personal manner.
Last week I caught it a mousetrap. The mouse was completely unharmed by the trap, and struggling to get out.
I thought long and hard about how to kill it. My conclusion was that I really didn’t have anything in the house which would do the job quickly and humanely. The closest thing I could think of was either freezing or flushing, neither of which sounded sure to be quick.
So I loaded the Celtling and the mousetrap into the car, and we drove down to the no man’s land by the railroad tracks to let him go. I dumped the trap, the mouse bounded off joyfully. It was galling. I was galled.
If I’d had some ether on hand I would have popped both into a ziplock bag without a second thought. But there’s no way I could have dropped a living creature, however obnoxious, into the toilet when a more humane option was available.
And whatever I did, I wasn’t going to grin and film it.
I think that getting away with physically assaulting another person because you don’t agree with what they are doing (and it’s not like they were torturing birds - they were shooting to kill, and taking the birds home) isn’t a good life lesson for a little kid. I had a natural tendency towards bullying as a child, I’m glad my parents stayed on top of it.
I don’t necessarily see it as cruelty. She grew up (presumably) knowing that this was the accepted way to get rid of unwanted pups. (And, apparently, some people in that neck of the world just bury them in a ditch.) So that’s the way she got rid of them. Yes, she needlessly had it taped and put a little “style” into the execution, but I chalk that up to teenaged stupidity. Like I said, given the circumstances, I can imagine myself doing something that stupid in such a scenario and, so far as I know, I’m not a psycho- or socio-path.
I know you didn’t ask me, Nzinga, but I’ll throw my two cents in anyways. I have no problem with hunting, either for sport or food. I think it is a legitimate sport (well, it can be, as long as you don’t use a ton of cheats). Most hunters I know (and I know a lot, growing up in the deep South) are very respectful and knowledgeable about nature, and many of them are conservationists. Also, animals can only legally be hunted in season, and many of the hunted animals are pests and hunting is a form of population control.
Most relevantly to this debate, hunting is not cruel to the animals (well, you could argue that killing overall is cruel, but I have stated that that is not part of my, or most people’s, definition of animal cruelty). Most hunters take one or two shots to take the animal down and try to ensure it’s not in pain.
Gestalt, I understand your position. I directed the question to TruCelt because she seemed unhappy with the idea of boys shooting at birds until she figured it was for food. So it was really kind of a hijack question from the issue at hand in this thread.
To even sven, I don’t think I would be having a different conversation if it were a boy. I try not to let my emotions do my thinking. As I have said, when I first saw this video, my gut reaction was that the girl must be psycho. That was my emotions talking. After being educated a bit by those on this board in another thread, I am much slower to judge.
There are many good reasons to hunt. Food is the number one, and the only reason I would accept for hunting myself. Herd control is another good reason. I’m too tired to come up with all of them tonight. But there are other reasons I can respect as well.
Even someone who does it because there is no mechanical means by which one can get the same level of shooting and tracking practice (i.e. developing skills one may really not ever need) is less OK to me, but OK in general.
Someone who just gets a thrill or a control rush by killing things and giggles at the opportunity would still be a sickie though. And I do object to the “I’ve never killed a rhino/walrus/etc, I need to check that box . . .” mindset.
The vast majority of the many people in the USA who hunt do it because they find it fun, entertaining, and a rush. Many of them take outright joy in shooting and killing an animal, and almost none of them are ‘sickos’. The free meat is just a bonus, and many hunters don’t eat a lot of what they kill. They’re not grimly donning their camo to dutifully provide population control. It’s a fun and exciting sport that happens to involve stalking other living beings and killing them, something humans and our ancestors have engaged in and thoroughly enjoyed for millennium.
I don’t think you’ll get an answer that aligns with your own moral code. Most people who kill animals on a regular basis don’t fuss much about the fact that killing causes pain, they feel it’s necessary and that animal pain, death, and ‘rights’ have little to do with people’s. Although most are decent people and do their best to avoid causing pain that is excessive or unnecessary, their definition of both is probably way different than yours.
Well, I wouldn’t say they were getting food. Most like eliminating pesty small birds with very little meat on them, and taking the bodies home for what I don’t know. Feeding the barn cats? Making fertilizer? Taxidermy?