THIS is why I don't support hunting, FUCKWAD.

The BBQ Pit
21

Speaking of cats and rattlesnakes. One of the most entertaining things I have ever seen is a cat find a rattlesnake. I was visitng a friend in Reno, and looked out to see the cat freaking out. Cats have three basic actions when encountering something unknown. Crouch in pounce position. Puff up and hiss with legs locked in extended position(ocasionally bouncing from side to side without bending legs). Or ears back and snarl with teeth showing and advancing. This cat was so freaked out it was trying to do all three at once. Crouching, then stiff legged bouncing while making all sorts of sounds, then a snarling rush, followed by a petrified scream and run away. It was doing pushups 4 feet into the air when it went form crouch to bounce.

I introduced Mr. snake to Mr. 4-iron, but the cat wasn’t close to normal for days.

22

I realise I should have made this more clear, because it’s that much more bizarre for the clarity. The antlers were gone, with just little nubs left, and the midsection to the back of the deer was stripped, not the head section (which, in reading your post, I suddenly realised would make LOADS of sense).

Monstro… land’s going cheap, cheap, cheap around here. You’d be amazed at what we got this parcel for. Come visit! :slight_smile:

Missy… we have a good-size coyote population out here, which is why Hermes the Cat always comes in at night and the dogs are penned (in a 2500 square foot pen, with a 4’x6’ doghouse)… I know they can be a nuisance, but it’s terrible that they are treated so poorly in your area. I bet your pup is beautiful- my oldest boy was a stray, and when I picked him up he was running with a pack whose alpha female was a gorgeous coyote cross. I would have loved to have gotten a hold of her. Mr. Kitty and I have been hyperaware of what effect our moving here has had- we only cleared a spot for the house, and another spot for a fire circle, and have left the rest of the woods as is (when we first came out to look at the land we had to go through with machetes and a bush axe). We widened a natural pond so the animals would have a watering hole, and have a bucket of corn (it’s hanging from a tree- the deer bump it and it shakes out a bunch of corn) and a salt lick about 300 feet from the house (which means we now have a deer trail running alongside the house), so we try to do our part to not have our incursion have a very negative effect on the existing environment.

Crafter… I would not seek to ban it, for the reasons I stated above- it’s important culturally for some people, for others it’s a necessity (provides meat), and certainly the ecological issues are important as well, and it would be hypocritical and downright rude of me to force my opinions on someone else. I think the best way to answer your question is to say I don’t like the idea of hunting for the sake of hunting- what has been described as trophy hunting. I really believe that if you’re going to take the life of another creature that you should make it worthwhile. Use what can be used, and respectfully dispose of the rest (I mentioned in an earlier post that the local rangers mulch the bones and unusable parts of the deer they get to use as fertilizer- while I wouldn’t really want that job, I can respect the cycle of allowing all parts of the body to be useful). Does that answer your question?

23

This ain’t hunting, its poaching,

Besides, deer are so overpopulated in most of the U.S. that they’re like a biblical plague of hooved rats.

Sorry 'bout the stench, tho.

24

Yes. And perhaps I should clarify my position as well.

I do not hunt because of the overpopulation problem of deer. While it cannot be denied that thinning the herd is a positive effect of my hunting activities, it is not the reason I hunt.

I also do not hunt to put food on the table. While I certainly love game meat (especially venison), it is not the primary reason I hunt. It is simply a positive and desirable effect.

The primary reason I hunt is because it is enjoyable.

I believe 95% of other hunters share the same attitude whether they admit it or not. (On a given day, most hunters have an enjoyable hunting experience regardless if they bag anything.)

I hunt because I like to hunt…

25

Roadkill or poaching. I’ll bet on Road kill. That kind of stripping the hide indicates whoever did it wanted the nice soft part, and I’m willing to be the other parts, are damaged or bloody.

26

You could check and see if there’s a bullet hole. And while I mean no insult, you could stop being a witness and a complainer and start being a constructive participant.

If you live on decent acreage, like me you probably have a compost pile. Dig a hole in your compost. Throw in the carcass, throw some lime on top, and it will be ready for your garden by Spring. Even the bones will dissolve.

That’s what I did 5 years ago when some asshole wounded a deer with a bow. After I saw it, it took me about two weeks before I was able to shoot it. It was basically walking around in an infected festering daze. The carcass was useless for anything and my neighbor told me to compost in this method and it worked fine.

I started a compost pile as soon a we moved. You never know when it might be useful have to a good body disposal method at hand.

27

We’re lucky to still have vultures around here, so we don’t have to throw corpses in the lime pits. They just get reduced to bones with alarming speed, and then critters drag the bones off. You gotta push 'em way off the road for the vultures to eat undisturbed.

Lazy bastards get the winter off in S. America, though.

28

Are you sure the marks were saw marks and not gnaw marks?

Critters seem to love antlers, which is why after rut when the deer lose their antlers, you will still likely never see any in the woods.

29

I should also say that in some places the heads of deer are taken to be tested for bovine tb or other diseases. In some cases the bodies are left on the roadside for another agency to pick up.

30

I have absolutely nothing informative to contribute to this thread. But I thought I’d point out how many animal SNs have gathered here to discuss hunting.

31

Remind me not to piss off Scylla any time soon. I never knew bones would dissolve so quickly.

32

You know, for the most part, I just don’t think that hunting is the most practical method for the poor to obtain food, not in today’s society. A good deal of rice and beans could be purchased with the money spent on licenses, guns and ammo, orange vests, the care and feeding of the dogs that help so much in small game and bird season, and all the other accoutrements of the hunt required by law and common sense.

That said, I’m not against hunting. I feel that it’s far more humane than today’s factory farms, and I’m all for organizations such as the one you’ve mentioned. But for the overwhelming majority of people the hunt is no longer a means of support; it’s a hobby, and it should be treated like one.

33

I’m from England, now living in the US. And am now aware of hunting here and how much it’s enjoyed. Can’t say that I, myself could ever condone hunting as I think it’s inhumane and many hunters seem to go out with weapons of mass destruction semi or full automatic, and can’t wait to shoot anything moving, including one another.

Now I realise I’m being somewhat generic, and that is unfair, but that’s how most hunters are. They want to kill for the thrill of killing, and rarely do they ever act responsibly. For those that do, well I still find your pastime hard to understand, but I do acknowledge the way you responsibly pursue that pastime.

As a required skill of people in general, I think that to a degree hunting and living with the land is a necessary one to keep alive, but with that skill comes great responsibility, that seems to be rarely used.

Sorry to hear of what happened Bobcat, as has already been suggested, a lime pit is a good idea, although the idea is somewhat abhorent. Still, the option is open. Or you could just dig yourself a firepit, and cremate the remains, if no one else will do anything about this.

Best of luck,

Logic.

34

I see we hunters need to do a beter job of public relations and education…sigh.

35

Down here in Tejas, I see deer carcasses on the road fairly frequently (mostly in hill country area). I’ve always assumed they were road-kill, but I’ve never really looked because dead animals that have been rotting generally creep me out.

I don’t like hunting, but I’m all for it if done responsibly. I lived for a couple of years in the UP of Michigan and the deer outnumber the people. It is necessary to cull to herd. However, I never supported the folks that would lure the deer to their deer camp so they can be close to their beer and crreature comforts to hunt. Deer apples and deer corn in the UP are unfair and ridiculous–there are a ton of deer to find if you are even halfway enterprising.

Bobkitty sorry this upset you–sounds like you really like animals and it’s sad to see any animal die and go to waste…

36

Yes, you do … and report anyone who you know is doing things they shouldn’t. Right now I get awakened every 3-4 days by shotgun blasts in the middle of the night. It is illegal to hunt game at night here, and yet that sure doesn’t seem to discourage some folks. If I could find 'em, I’d report 'em in a heartbeat. Also, a nearby neighbor has had problems with people hunting on their property without permission, even after posting no trespassing/no hunting signs.

I don’t have problems with folks hunting - there’s probably more deer killed by cars here in a day than the hunters will get all season long - but the stupid, unlawful and irresponsible ones piss me right the hell off. And of course, those are the ones you hear about on the news, not the ones who do what they are supposed to do.

37

I now live in rural south-central Virginia (aside: get me out of here!), and have encountered ‘both kinds’ of hunters, the majority being responsible ones, and the absolute titwanks.

My house had sat closed up for 8 years in the woods when I bought it, and over that time, during hunting season, the property became a popular campground for a group of ‘out of town’ hunters (I found out these guys were coming from North Carolina, etc). This group would shoot at anything that moved, and when I once got so fed up with them I went out and asked them to leave my property, they informed me that they’d been using my land for years and to ‘deal with it’! I used to put orange X’s on my sheep to keep them from being shot – I ended up ringing the sheriff once from the floor of my upstairs hallway – the only place in the house not near a window – because these guys had got drunk and were shooting towards the house and garden.

I would call the guys from the local hunt club to come out, give them written permission to be on my property, and ask them to protect me from these other guys – the hunt club guys were very responsible, honoured ‘No hunting’ signs, and were very good about educating these irresponsible folks who came out with guns and took soundshots.

The last I saw of that group was one night, about 11pm or so, a few years ago, my dogs were very agitated, and when I looked out of the window, saw that they’d set up a campsite with bonfire in my back garden within site of the house…they were perhaps 50 yards away :eek:

Yes the area around my house is cleared, and the house is extremely visible now and was at that time. There are five sets of floor to ceiling windows on that side of the house, and I had every light blazing – either these guys had that ‘mum, we’re camping down at the end of the garden’ mentality, or they were used to camping within site of a massive landed UFO, I haven’t a clue.

So anyway, I waited until I thought they were snuggly down inside their sleeping bags, then turned my amplifier to the opened window and played Beethovan’s Ode to Joy a la Jimi Hendrix on my Flying V guitar at volume 9.5 (10 would wake the neighbours.) They’d cleared out in about 5 minutes, and I think I’m the stuff of legend at the hunt club…

38

PS – for clarification, I meant above, that I think the majority of hunters in this area are responsible, and the other percentage are the titwanks…

39

Oy, the titwank hunters. I freely admit that I don’t “get” hunting (the joy of getting up in the dark in freezing weather so you can sit still in a tree all day tring to shoot something completely eludes me), but I don’t have a problem with smart, ethical hunters. Unfortunately, a lot of the hunters I’ve come into contact with over the years are of the titwank variety, and oh god how I fucking hate them.

The fuckers I especially hate are the trigger-happy titwanks-- the morons who shoot at anything that sounds big enough to be a deer. These people are the exact reason we quit trail-riding from September to January, even when the weather was nice; someone once took a shot at me and my pony. Sure, the pony was brown, but he was far too fat and horse-shaped to pass as a deer and had a rather disappointing lack of antlers, and very few deer carry children on their backs. And at least once a fall, someone will shoot and kill another hunter, who generally looks nothing like a deer and is furthermore wearing blaze orange. We won’t even get started on the guy who shot his buddy’s beagle in the face while hunting this weekend–unless that dog was leaping for the deer’s throat, this guy is either too stupid to live, or the worst fucking shot I’ve ever seen. Really, the face on a 10-inch beagle is nowhere near the heart on a deer, not even a fawn.

40

Welcome to the boards LogicinMotion, and to this country. Hopefully you’ll be here long enough that you’ll become better educated on firearms and hunting in this country. I doubt any self respecting hunter is going to hunt with a full automatic weapon as you have pointed out. They are tightly regulated in this country and many hunter’s do not consider the cartridge and caliber of many full auto’s as adequate for deer sized game.

Emphasis mine. This is a gross misrepresentation of 90% or better of people who hunt. If your only experience with hunting is with someone like this then I suggest you report them to the proper authorities posthaste. Otherwise, you may wish to retract this statement as it is blatant hyperbole. My .02 cents.