Hunting: your opinion.

hunting is fine
its [probably] the most humane way to kill an animal... the animal lives in its natual habitat, and isn't bothered by humans, the death may be fast or slow, I don't know, I've never hunted. but I bet it's just as bad as being killed by any other predator.
I mean, unless people hunt just to get a kick out of it and don't use the animal for anything, that's bad. well, that just goes against my philosophy

at the moment, hunting and fishing will be the only way I'll get meat.
I'll also eat seafood, though.

 

I'm sorry, I didn't read the whole thread but when I got to this I had to comment.

Yes, I agree, young children should never be given the opportunity. The trouble is that in the real world young children are given the opportunity but often not by their parents but by their peers. So the question is who would you rather have teach your children about the use of firearms you or some young punk at school?

 

I like to comment on this.

I was not raised a hunter but as a child I ate rabbit and squirrel (not generally considered trophy animals) to provide meat for the table to help us stretch a dollar. I would assume that there are still people hunting to stretch their dollar. Because they do so doesn’t mean that they don’t also stop at grocery stores and purchase these 'tainted' products, simply because hunting can’t provide for all the needs of the family. But at the same time it lessens the need for such 'tainted' products.

Also as has already been asked where do you draw the line between hunting out of necessity and recreational hunting? If a person is hunting out of necessity does that mean that he has to hate hunting for it to be okay? Or can he enjoy it as well? If a person likes to hunt and considers it to be recreational but yet his family benefits from having a healthier source of meat for the table and it saves the family money as well, because he enjoys it does that suddenly make what he’s doing wrong?

Last what is it about considering hunting as a bonding experience makes it wrong? Yes, sitting in an alcoholic stupor and just killing things does not sound like much of a bonding experience but then it doesn’t sound much like hunting to me either. Learning to be a good hunter means learning more about your intended prey and the whole outdoors in one day than most non-hunters will learn in a lifetime.

 

:toetap05:ah hem'.. excuse me.. ?

Im a trophy..

 

I'll cook you up with some dumplings, yum.

 

Well I ah hemmmaa, what can I say....
:leaving:

 

I hunt for recreation and neccesity.
when we do hunt for recreation we try not to waste anything though.
If we kill it, we clean it and eat it.
I'm not gona lie though, killing stuff is fun.

 

they should legalize people, city, and endangered animal hunting. damned fascist government. i need a cigarette.

 

Filling a shopping cart doesn't feel nearly as conscious and sustainable as filling kids bowls with elk stew.

 

well there is people ruining it for people that use hunting for living like some inuits up north or other cultures that need hunting for living

then all of a sudden there is people that dont use it for that they use it for trophies and what not

these are the people that should be stopped

the trophy people

 

I'm against it, however I could also never kill an animal.

 

Ok, look...I don't usually get involved in arguments like this anymore, but I just have to add my two cents.

First of all, supersmashbrothers, you rant and rave about people only using anecdotal evidence, yet I haven't exactly seen YOU use any statistics, sociological studies, or provide any other evidence other than your suburban assumptions. You, my friend, started this argument (thread). Therefore, you are on the affirmative and thus have the burden of proof (ever study debate?).

If you want some statistics, (even though I'm on the negating side and therefore don't technically have to prove anything), here are some interesting facts for you (from the NSSF):

--"Hunters contribute $30 billion to the U.S. economy each year, supporting more than 986,000 jobs."

--"Each day, sportsmen contribute more than $3 million to wildlife conservation efforts. This amounts to more than $1.5 billion per year. (Includes state hunting & fishing license sales, excise taxes and other income sources)." (Hmmm...wonder how much money PETA has raised to help wildlife??)

--"Fish and wildlife agencies are facing critical new problems related to climate change. This legislation will provide $125 billion for state and federal fish and wildlife agencies during the first 19 years it is in effect. Forty percent of this money would go to state fish and wildlife agencies to help mitigate the effects of climate change."


I also find it absurd that you try and use stereotypes to support your position:

[QUOTE/] Generally, communities with a strong hunting influence are a bit more old fashioned and conservative. There are a lot of areas who still hold true to more traditional mentalities such as it is a woman's job to care for children. Of course the father will be involved w/ the kids, but a lot of times there are certain boundaries that he will not cross. It is not fitting, and in the small town communities everyone knows more than they should about everyone else... There are certain expectations of both a man and woman in that society. An example is if the woman is the bread winner and the man is a stay at home father, that would be far less acceptable in said community. I'm not saying this applies to all hunters, but it is not uncommon.
Now, when it comes to something like hunting, driving, sports, or working; it is perfectly acceptable for a father to be closely involved (again, in said old fashioned society). Hence the "only w/ a beer and rifle" gag (ie. things closely associated w/ men). I am not saying this is how it should be, but it is very often the case. These are people who would stay clear from a hippie message board, so this obviously doesn't apply to anyone here."[/QUOTE]

And you criticize others--who don't even have a burden of proof--of using anecdotal evidence? You're almost comical.

Of course tradition doesn't make something right, but it doesn't make it wrong either. And, it could be argued, that it's not even about tradition, it's about instinct. Humans are animals too, and you can't expect something our species has done in the last 100,000 years to suddenly disappear from our limbic systems because somebody invented Tofu.

I personally don't hunt. But I have a hell of a lot more respect for a man (or woman, whatever) that hunts respectfully than a pansy city boy that eats boca burgers and plays video games all day. Think about it: when the next great depression hits (which will likely be sooner rather than later), who will be better able to take care of his family--the man that hunts, or the man that thinks he's a badass because he can push a few buttons and pretend like he's killing. I would think that pretending to kill would actually make you even MORE insensitive because not only are you killing for pure entertainment (vs the other possible reasons for hunting), but you also are never confronted with what you have killed. Instead, you gain a few points and the game moves on. Also, in video games, you pretend to kill actual people, whereas hunting is strictly about hunting animals.

And you claiming that "why can't they just shoot it with a camera instead of a gun," is a rediculous and unfair comparison--Masturbating will probably give you the same end result as having sex, but are you going to suggest that everyone stop having sex and just masturbate? After all, some people that have sex use it as a weapon. Some men are even rapists. I guess we should all quit having sex and protest men because some of them might rape people.

Finally, you rant on and on about people killing for recreational reasons, because if its not for absolute necessity, than it must be for pleasure. There is no in between, is there?

What about people that go to church? I'm not going to bring religion into this argument, but think about it--people that go to church willingly and get joy from the experience, still wouldn't consider it a "recreational" experience in the same way that playing a game would be. It fulfills a spiritual need, one that is neither physically necessary nor purely recreational. There is such a thing as a third option here.

I don't buy any of your position about how "most" hunters are a certain way, because all you've done is provide stereotypes as though they are scientific fact. And why are you holding the fact that some hunters are assholes against the people posting here? I hate to break this to you, but there are assholes that abuse their power in any profession/hobby/group. Some doctors are pompus assholes, some police officers commit police brutality...so what? That doesn't mean that we should declare them all evil and make all doctors and police officers explain these people to us? Responsible hunters don't have to apologize or account for the actions of irresponsible ones.

Perhaps you should pick a topic you know more about.

-Kate

 

photo-hunt is good

 

:cheers2: funny guy that Viking is..

PHP:

Kate


very good writer you are. Kate.

 

Kate- Well stated and well thought out.

 

I've never really been attracted to hunting myself, and never tried it. Which gets me a lot of crap where I live. But I can't necessarily say I'm against it either. If we are going to stop hunting then we will have to reintroduce predators to keep deer, elk, pronghorn, and other species from having population explosions beyond what the land can support. That has its setbacks as well, as we have seen here in Wyoming with the reintroduced wolves from Yellowstone moving out of the park and supposedly chowing down on ranchers livestock. But I am also not on the side of the ranchers either, they collect large government subsidies which I don't think are deserved. They also graze their livestock on public land to the point of severe overgrazing which reduces the rangeland to sagebrush and thistle. This is all from the perspective I have locally, it is probably different everywhere else.It is a difficult situation, but I guess if it were up to me I would say get rid of the hunters ( around here mostly out of state sport hunters, not subsistence hunters) and ranchers around here, then set some wolves loose. Not a popular opinion around here.

 

Agreed.

 

I think a lot of good points have been made on both sides of this debate. Unfortunately a lot of the pro-hunting bunch, with their often vociferous reactions, have revealed in themselves exactly the same kind of prejudice that they accuse Smash Bros of - ie, in making the assumption that he's a "suburban city boy who knows jack-shit about what the 'real' world outside of supermarkets and suburbia is like" and therefore apparently isn't allowed to have an opinion on hunting, they are unwittingly pandering to the whole "disgruntled country yokel who thinks he knows better than those ignorant city-slickers" stereotype. Thus, anything he says is read through a filtered "he's a dumb city-slicker" lense, which means that a lot of good points he has made have simply been ignored or taken completely out of context.

Ironically, those accusing him of stereotyping hunters in a certain manner do exactly the same things themselves; except they, generally, provide a positive stereotype of the hunter. There's also a strong undercurrent of the typical "he's just an ignorant suburban tofu-munching bleedin' heart" type thing which seems to be coming through, which again unfortunately weakens the pro-hunting lobby's comments in terms of a position of objectivity. I do, however, realise that approaching a topic such as this entails a great deal of subjectivity, simply because of the whole heavily weighted cultural and emotional links.

Ok, to throw in my two cents: Well, this certainly is a thorny issue. In principle, I'm against the killing of a sentient creature when other options exist to sustain myself. Now, before you jump on me and accuse me of being a hypocrite, consider that I used the word "sentient"; ie, a living entity that has what biological science classifies as a central nervous system and a brain, and can thus experience emotions (in however base a manner) and make decisions (however rudimentary). Plants do not fit this definition; and while they may feel "pain" on a level beyond our sphere of experience, I still consider it to be a "lesser evil" than taking the life of something which can experience pain, terror and the fear of death in a similar biological manner to myself, as a mammal. And yes, if we want to go down to a biological level, I have canines. But so do gorillas, and they are almost exclusively vegetarian, and much larger than the average human. Also, it is unquestionable that a human can live a very healthy life both with and without the addition of meat to the diet. Do I have an instinct to hunt? I certainly have a strong instinct to procreate, but I lack the claws or talons or night vision of a true predator, and the killing instinct, perhaps. It's a difficult question though.

Now going back to culture, perhaps one would now want to blame me for industrialised agriculture, as some in this thread have ludicrously suggested vegetarians are to be held accountable for. The glaring ignorance of the modern Western post-indrustrial model that this reveals aside, please consider the cultural position you are approaching this topic from; one in which vegetarianism is, in the context of the Western conservative mindset, considered to be a liberal suburban lifestyle "fad". this is to bow to your own prejudices without any form of truly objective approach. This too is to completely ignore the fact that sustainable vegetarinaism has existed for thousands of years in the East (far outside your own sphere of cultural and historical experience, yet none the lesser in terms of human history and philosophy) and has nothing whatsoever to do with the crass middle class sentimentalism that many of you are all too willing to immediately label it as.
So... with that bit of background info off my chest, let me add my 2c to the hunting debate. Some of my friends are hunters, and they are "suburban" types, as am I (are your prejudice gears beginning to turn? Am I to be held accountable for the fact that I was born into a suburban existence and you a rural one?). That said, they have had extensive rifle training and rarely go otu to hunt; when they do, they bring home the carcass and make biltong out of it (jerky, I think it's called in the North America). While I would not do this myself because of my personal beliefs, I do not judge them for this, and I certainly have far more respect for someone who goes out and kills an animal by themself to eat, than someone who buys meat from a supermarket and supports an unsustainable and barbaric system of both environmental and animal exploitation.

That said, I knew a fair number of guys in school who were given air rifles as children (and yes, trained how to use them), who took the most terrifyingly sadistic pleasure out of killing or maiming every living thing they could take a shot at, usually leaving the carcasses to rot. One cannot deny that in some hunters, there is an element of gratification and power-lust in the killing of another living thing. Note I say "some"; not "most", or "all".

Also, living in South Africa, we have a history of "big game" hunting which, by the turn of the twentieth century, had decimated many, many populations of wild animals to virtual extinction point. Now in terms of the modern era, of course one could argue that controlled hunting brings in the money to maintain the game reserves in which what is left of the once thriving populations of these wild animals is preverved; while I will concede that point, this is to overlook the glaringly obvious point that it was hunting that completely and utterly decimated these populations in the first place!

Then, and I'm not sure those of you outside of South Africa may have heard of it, there is the whole scanadalous business of "canned hunting", wherein animals, usually lions, are raised from cubs by people, that they may develop a trust for humans and thus provide easy targets for trophy hunters. Those of you who have been saying that trophy hunters are a tiny minority within the hunting community have perhaps not been to South Africa and seen the enormity of the presence of the trophy hunting industry here.

That said, hunting DOES provide conservation agencies with masses of much-needed capital so that endagered species may be better conserved, and our national parks properly policed and maintained.

What's the point of all of this? Generalisations, whether pro- or anti- hunting will inevitably be tainted by the speaker's cultural background and inherent set of prejudices. The debate on the ethics of hunting can ONLY be in shades of grey. Those of you who lean toward either extreme should try to re-examine your views in the light of your own cultural prejudices... And as with any other major moral issue you are confronted with in life, don't accept anything at face value; always dig deeper, and question EVERYTHING.

 

Not to pick on you but I wanted to talk out the economics of hunting. Per capita Americans eat about 134 lb of beef and pork a year. Let’s say that per lb they pay $5. That is about $670 dollars a year per person, some might say that's a little low but I'm trying to round down.

Now orison says:

That’s $276,30 and one large animal will dress out at over 134 lbs, that means even if you bought everything again every year, you would still be ahead by about $400.

In reality, after the first year, you already own the gun and gear, so you don’t have to buy them again so, except for maybe the box of ammo. That would mean that after the first year, every year after you’re ahead by $600.

If you combine that with a vacation that would mean the vacation would pay for itself.

That’s for one person, if you consider a family of 4 with 2 teenage sons, you could be saving as much as $2500.

I don’t know many hunters that make $2500 a week at their day job.

Also remember if the economy goes down the tubes and nobody has a job and people are begging for food, a hunter can still put food on the table for his family.

 

nuthin' wrong with tofu, though.