shooting animals for sport and food

Like I said. We have learned from those mistakes. If you make the same mistake today you are risking imprisonment, your right to own a gun, and losing possession of the truck you were driving when you made said mistake.

 

I agree with everything you're saying when it comes to pollution, poverty, etc. but I just don't see how it applies to hunting in America today. That's all I'm saying.

 

I see what you're saying. However, it's usually only once an animal becomes endangered, that steps are taken to outlaw their killing. Hunting for reasons outside of for food, and decimation of other species' natural habitats are the reasons why issues such as the deer population one exists today. These are things that if they are not ended, will have catastrophic consequences for us all in the end.

When you say "if you make the same mistake today..." what exactly are you reffering to when you say mistake?

 

It applies to it, because the deer population issue arose because of the exact same things that have contributed to all the other problems with endangered species and loss of animal's natural habitats and predators. Basically what I'm saying is, if the killing of deer is for food, or population control, then I'm fine with it. But not killing for fun, or sport, as that has been the root cause of so much of the destruction of the other species that we share this planet with.

 

deer don't "have to be killed". neither does anything else. their population problem is nothing compared to that of humans. but more to the point, it wouldn't exist if humans hadn't claimed some pretense of divine right to slaughter their natural predators.

 

The over-population of humans on this planet is probably the single biggest problem in the world today. But like I said, I can't imagine anyone sanctioning the killing of humans as a solution to that problem. And I did state earlier in this thread, that unless mankind stops viewing all other species as lesser, and that we have a divine right to kill them for our own pleasure, humans will suffer for that in the long run.

 

Which is great in theory except we seem to only make it worse.

Though in all honestly, this thread has given me a hankering for some Elk heart kebabs.

 

Tree hugger , animal activist and vegetarian checking in. I can sort of understand people who hunt for food out of necesssity but hunting for sport i will never understand . The arguement that it is for nature converstation is a weak one when the money really goes to the guy who organised the hunt and uses that money to buy more animals to be drugged, thrown on the back of truck , drop in a enclosed area the size of my back yard then hunted from the back of pickup truck with high power rifles and then it is skinned stuffed and mounted so he can brag about how he shot a lion/impala/zebra etc ..ok this is in africa .maybe things are different in other parts of the world

You have a over population of deer but humans caused that by hunting the deers natural enemies to the brink off exstinction.Nature know how to keep populations in check but along comes humans and totally destroy the balance of nature and then we complain about deers in suburbia yet who created this mess in the first place. Man is the trespasser here not nature.

In botswana and the other places in Africa there is a over population of elephants for excatly the same reason , how are they dealing with it -Birth control , sterilising males , putting females on the pill and its working , are they even trying the same thing in america .

 

I was referring to over-hunting, hunting of endangered species, etc. I wasnt thinking in terms of habitat destruction.....I'm beginning to see your point more clearly now. I apologize if I sounded rude earlier, it wasn't my intention.

Irresponsible hunting doesn't happen in America anymore as much as a lot of people think. It's heavily regulated and the price to pay is very hefty. Game wardens don't mess around.....there's a reason they have more authority than any other state law enforcement.

 

That is quite okay. Certainly, if you are killing a deer for food, that is infinitely better and more ethical than buying factory farmed meat. Hunting for fun though is something I don't agree with, and is to me, unacceptable.

 

+1

(if there is no other food available)

 

I agree. Hunting for only the sport of it is irresponsible, and unethical. Not eating your kill is largely looked down upon, and brings out anger within the hunting community.

I can think of one exception. I used to know a man who was an avid dear hunter, but he didn't like the taste of venison. He's hunted all his life, but has never ate his kill. Instead he processed all of the meat, and gave it to families in need. People that were going hungry because they couldn't afford to buy their own food. His reason for hunting was because he thought it was fun, but in the end hungry people had food on their plates.

 

Yep, shooting the deer for food is really the lesser of two evils. Factory farms, whether it's for poultry in the west, or animal fur in China, is an unnecessarily cruel, and at times barbaric industry which I don't support. Same as I have no problem with native inuits hunting seals for food/fur, but very much have a problem with the industrialised seal hunt done only for the greed of affluent westerners.

 

:iagree:

 

i eat a vegetarian diet and haven't eaten meat for 6 or 7 years now, but i don't have an issue with hunting, as long as the hunter does his/her best to cause the animal minimal suffering and consumes the animal rather than hunting purely for sport.

like others have said here, factory farming is the real problem. although i doubt i'll ever go back to eating meat, at this point, i don't have an issue with people who do, especially if they make an effort to eat meat from animals who have had minimal harm done to them throughout their life and when they were killed.

 

I'm really glad more people look at this like that. I have mostly vegetarian diet for a round 2 years so far and plan to totally cut out fish and meat (sometimes I don't eat it for many weeks) and I also find hunting less evil than farming in most case. Unfortunately with hunting problem are unethical, stupid, redneck hunters, at least here big part of them is like that.

Also hunting species that are not used to eat sometimes is needed when there's too much predators (along with humans hunting). But in other cases hunting for fun is idiotic.

If people would cut down meat consumption to rational amount hunting could provide huge percent of meat. Also idea of turning huge parts of world used to grow food for farms could be turned back to forest where that still is possible and use it for hunting. We would get all benefits of forests minus huge pollution and very bad treating of animals on farms.

Vegetarians and vegans can occasionally make someone decide to stop eating meat, while with most people there isn't chance to cause that. Unfortunately many vegetarians/vegans don't know shit about this and will rather try to convince few persons to stop eating meat rather than to look into idea of sustainable hunting. Only spiting on hunting is much like only hoping many people will find meat grown in meat cultures ok, which is not likely to happen as most people don't find GMO acceptable, cuz most people don't even consider to stop eating meat ever.

 

Doesn't this all depends on the matter. Like with the deer and their predators issue: there are wolves released in their former habitat etc. You can't change what has been done? What a fatalistic point of view. I'm almost sure you didn't ment it that way but it sounds like it to me. Saying on beforehand you can't change shit back is exactly the mentality we don't need.

Huh? I'm not so sure we have learned enough about that. Sometimes it seems like we can handle it with hunting seasons or regulations but at the same time we screw whole natural habitats by human caused disasters. It's only a wonderful thing when you keep your eyes closed. We do not manipulate it well at all! We've just started to learn our responsibilities on this subject.

 

of course we learn from our mistakes... hunters learned long ago that it is a mistake to try and fall a black bear with a sling shot....

 

Unless you slingshot it out of a 20 meter high tree.

 

False. Hunters only used slingshots when guns hadn't yet been invented.