What are your thoughts on hunting?

[xSilverPhinx]

Disclaimer: I didn't know if this is the wrong forum to post this topic so, if not then please move it to where it's more appropriate.

I started thinking about this topic after reading Tank's reply (post number 94) in this thread.


While I was growing up, my father liked hunting wild game for sport, everything from birds to antelope, basically anything that he could pay for.

Being the type with, for as long as I can remember, an intense interest in animals, I would at first try to convince him to stop doing this, but he always came up with arguments that I couldn't really refute. For one, the animals were kept in large private reserves, and that the income obtained from selling licenses would revert to the reserve. Endangered animals were obviously protected. With the money, new measures could be implemented to try to ward off poachers, a huge problem in huge reserves...they're the ones who cause the most harm.

Secondly, licenses were sold depending on the number of animals available. In some cases population control was necessary, since there were some animals who ultimately unbalance the ecosystems they're in. Between having to kill part of a population of one type of animal and controlled hunting, better to sell a hunting license.  

He told me that he only hunted the old and sick animals and so put them out of their misery, but I don't believe him.

Thirdly, hunted animals were not left to rot (except for the carnivores, but vultures make short work of them) but instead sold as meat to either the hunter or the local population.  

What are your thoughts on this? Good arguments for controlled hunting?  

[Guardian85]

As long as the hunter is competent to get it done right, and the animal is not endangered, I see no problem with regulated hunting for food animals.
If the hunter is some city slicker who has never shot a gun before, I would have a problem with that, as he very well may not have the training to take the animal down without causing undue suffering.

I also have a problem with people who shoot animals just for sport. If you can't eat it, don't shoot it.

[OldGit]

I always did a lot of what we Brits call rough shooting.  Wandering round the farm with a 12-bore, shooting either vermin or for the pot.  These two often coincided, as with woodpigeons, which were a serious pest in my home area; also rabbits.  I have never had a moral qualm about it at all.

I do agree about suffering; you shouldn't take casual shots where the probability of wounding is high.  That mainly means judging the range, in the case of a shotgun.  And if you do wound, you should go to considerable trouble to find the beast and kill it.

[Sandra Craft]

As long as the hunter is competent to get it done right, and the animal is not endangered, I see no problem with regulated hunting for food animals.
If the hunter is some city slicker who has never shot a gun before, I would have a problem with that, as he very well may not have the training to take the animal down without causing undue suffering.

I also have a problem with people who shoot animals just for sport. If you can't eat it, don't shoot it.

I agree with this, with the additional proviso that the animals being hunted truly are the old and sick, as they would mostly be in the wild by other predators.  I don't mind going along with nature, but screwing with it unsettles me.  Which I realize is a very hypocritical stance for a modern, first world human to take, but there you are.

[DeterminedJuliet]

My husband is a vegetarian, and I work with animals, but I don't really have a problem with hunting.

What a hunted wild deer goes through is probably way more humane than what our factory farmed cows/pigs/chickens go through.

[Xjeepguy]

I personally dont hunt, but I have no problem with those who do. As long as it is for food. I see no purpose in hunting down an animal and shooting it just for kicks.

[OldGit]

I personally dont hunt, but I have no problem with those who do. As long as it is for food. I see no purpose in hunting down an animal and shooting it just for kicks.

The other good purpose is to keep down vermin.  If you had ever seen what a crow will do to a newborn lamb, you'd shoot every crow you saw.  Then rabbits: they eat large amounts of grass which the hard-pressed farmer wants his for stock.  If you keep chickens and a magpie is forever stealing your eggs, you'll hide in the barn door with your shotgun and wait for the beggar.  When a friend's ducks were being slaughtered by a fox and a mink, we killed both (in the end, after much trouble).

On a bigger issue, I feel no need to apologise for shooting things "just for kicks", as you put it - there is nothing wrong in enjoying the killing of vermin.  It's the skill of the chase,  and learning the ways of the animal.

[Ildiko]

On a bigger issue, I feel no need to apologise for shooting things "just for kicks", as you put it - there is nothing wrong in enjoying the killing of vermin.  It's the skill of the chase,  and learning the ways of the animal.

I'm glad you said that. I've only been shooting once - rabbits, for the reason you mention - and yes, it was fun. The farmer who took me out spent a lot of time beforehand teaching me to shoot accurately, so as to kill and not just maim, and there was the satisfaction of "a job well done" about it. It was a lot more humane than the alternatives and what we didn't eat that night went into the freezer.

I'm a bit uncomfortable with the idea of "amateurs" paying to hunt old and sick animals.  Surely that's the game wardens' job?

[Asmodean]

In this reagard, I am Asmodean the Typical.

For those who don't know what that is, it means I simply don't care. I don't hunt, but as long as you don't start firing large caliber weaponry from my parking lot inwards (Within my domain, that is) without permission, you can hunt all you want and for whatever reason pleases you. None of my business.

[Xjeepguy]

I personally dont hunt, but I have no problem with those who do. As long as it is for food. I see no purpose in hunting down an animal and shooting it just for kicks.

The other good purpose is to keep down vermin.  If you had ever seen what a crow will do to a newborn lamb, you'd shoot every crow you saw.  Then rabbits: they eat large amounts of grass which the hard-pressed farmer wants his for stock.  If you keep chickens and a magpie is forever stealing your eggs, you'll hide in the barn door with your shotgun and wait for the beggar.  When a friend's ducks were being slaughtered by a fox and a mink, we killed both (in the end, after much trouble).

On a bigger issue, I feel no need to apologise for shooting things "just for kicks", as you put it - there is nothing wrong in enjoying the killing of vermin.  It's the skill of the chase,  and learning the ways of the animal.

I should have been more precise, I support the killing of animals for a purpose, what I was referring to is a practice I have seen here in the states at least a dozen times is where someone went into the woods and headshot a deer (sometimes very young), only to leave the whole deer there to rot. Personally, I think that if someone were to shoot a deer they had no desire to eat, they should have brought it out and given it to someone who would. I have shot rabbits and squirrel and the occasional groundhog to keep the garden from being destroyed.

[Tank]

Did any of you know that there is a safari park in South Africa where you can hunt elephants with paint ball guns!

[Ildiko]

Did any of you know that there is a safari park in South Africa where you can hunt elephants with paint ball guns!

Please tell me you are making this up? That is just mean and so embarrassing for the elephants. Though I expect they would enjoy the baths afterwards.

[DeterminedJuliet]

Did any of you know that there is a safari park in South Africa where you can hunt elephants with paint ball guns!

I tried to Google it, but all I got were jokes!

I don't imagine that PETA would be pleased with this.

[Tank]

Did any of you know that there is a safari park in South Africa where you can hunt elephants with paint ball guns!

I tried to Google it, but all I got were jokes!

I don't imagine that PETA would be pleased with this.

I'll see if I can find a link. I would have thought PETA would have approved over killing them?

[DeterminedJuliet]

Did any of you know that there is a safari park in South Africa where you can hunt elephants with paint ball guns!

I tried to Google it, but all I got were jokes!

I don't imagine that PETA would be pleased with this.

I'll see if I can find a link. I would have thought PETA would have approved over killing them?

Oh no, animals should never be used for human entertainment! Or food. or research. or anything. Ever.
(FYI I am not a PETA fan)