[sebastian]

Is it just me, or is hunting really really really stupid? I mean, what is wrong with these people? They feel like "men" going around shooting and maiming innocent deer and rabbits who are going about their merry business of trying to live inoffensive, quiet lives on God's green Earth?

Awhile back, my Mommy heard some gunshots and called the police. Now, my family's estate (i love calling it an "estate"...sounds so aristocratic) is basically a house surrounded by forest and floodplains, with plenty of wildlife around. We found out that the shots were from some hunters who had trespassed on our property to get their rocks off by slaying some wolves or something. Naturally, my Mom had the police throw them off our property, and they were given a warning not to trespass in the future. Ever since then, every once and awhile, around my Mom's house, i hear gunshots off in the distance. And I know it's these damn hunters killing some animal or another.

Awhile back again, I had the opportunity to meet an American who expressed shock when i told him that i didn't hunt (I'm not trying to single out Americans here. God knows, Canada has it's share of lunatic hunters as well). He said, "You're Canadian, and you don't hunt?" I forget what i replied, but i remember it being something far less caustic than it should have been. Almost in the same breath this guy was going on about how he was a Christian and went to church every Sunday (Not trying to single out Christians here. I'm sure all religious affiliations have members that are equally hypocritical). Anyway, he was talking about how he liked to go out to the woods with some buddies and hunt for deer (Not trying to single out deer here. I'm sure all animals are equally attractive to hunters).

But, of course, there's the paradox. How can a human being, who claims to be a rational, caring, member of society, then go out and murder an animal in cold blood?

And of course the unimaginative retort by these idiot hunters is always: "Well...what are you, a vegetarian or something?" Ooooh...good comeback. And so original. Like you've caught me on that technicality...never considered that. But the thing is this: I can accept that people kill for food. Society has been doing that for thousands of years, which is how hunting started in the first place. I can even understand hunting for clothing...leather hides, etc. Or even things like ivory from elephants, or crocodile skins (I don't condone it but then i really don't know much about the situation. Basically i wouldn't condone killing an animal for anything other than food). But even poaching and things like that i can understand to a certain degree. The motivating force behind them is money. These poachers in Africa or wherever, as reprehensible as their actions might be, at least have the motivation of providing for the family as an agenda.

But these backwater simpletons in their pick-up trucks, and their laser guided assault rifles that go out and kill for "sport"...what kind of blood-thirsty animals are they? What do they have, an insatiable appetite for death or something? Have we not evolved enough as a species yet to universally frown on this kind of mayham? I hope the next hunter who goes out to shoot a deer simply for the pleasure of having something to do on a sunday afternoon, accidentally trips on a barbwire fence and decapitates himself. How's that for sport? Drunken idiot hicks...

Anyway, any comments...

s.

 

[Guest]

It's the american way, what are you, some sort of commy pinko hippy beatnic?

:wink:

 

[Guest]

I have to catch you on your technicality... there really is no difference between killing an animal for the pleasure of eating it, and killing it for the pleasure of hunting it and then eating it. In fact, the wild animal probably suffers less because it has not been kept in a pen barely larger than its body size for its entire short life. And chances are a deer shot in the woods has lived a much longer life than your average chicken or cow that is killed in the meat industry for food. I've read that some chickens are 45 days from hatching to slaughter, given hormones to increase growth. chicken are kept in small cages so crowded they can barely move-- I've seen them.

If I had to choose between being a wild deer shot in the woods, and an animal born in a cage to be killed shortly thereafter, I'd pick being a deer in the woods.

You can't skip over that technicality-- if you eat meat, there's not a whole lot of difference between you and the hunter or fisherman. Just a different method of killing, and having someone else do it for you. Both involve killing and the consumption of a carcass.

One of the greatest causes of water pollution in the US is the beef industry..

 

[Guest]

 

[sebastian]

Point taken Crocodile. And you're quite right.

But the problem i have with it is not so much the death of an animal, but the pointless death of an animal. If an animal is going to die so that a human can feed on it, and live, well, that's just all part of the circle of life. Certainly, there's a huge argument to be made that we should have, by now, evolved enough as a species to have cast aside our carnivorous predelictions and feast instead on the sensibility of a vegetarian diet, but that is widely not the case. And the horrors that are committed in abbatoirs across the western world are unspeakable, and should be condemned.

But the major problem that i have with hunting is that it serves no end, other than to give hunters some sort of primordial thrill at the act of killing something. It's barbaric. It's bloody. It's bloody barbaric, is what it is. I just have to wonder about breaking bread with someone who sees nothing wrong with going out and slaughtering another living thing for no other reason than their own twisted amusement.

 

[dakotajo]

I dont like hunting either. Trapping is even worse because they suffer so long before they finally get an ax or bullet in the brain. Im from the woods of Minnesota and hunting here is a very big. Populations are monitored and seasons are adjusted to help thin so these animals dont slowly starve and suffer. I guess it helps a person somewhat understand the cruelty. Regardless Im a believer of "live and let live" and I myself have no interest in hunting. I do fish some, but I alwasy catch and release. As crazy as this sounds, I look at life as equal. I dont put humans any higher than any other life form on this earth.

Joe

 

[Guest]

sebastian, the hunters you know don't eat what they kill? The hunters I know do, in fact they will even go pick up a deer that has been hit by a car and hack it up for the freezer. :shock:

 

[sebastian]

No, No. They're "game" hunters. I don't care if someone is going to eat the animal. Hell, that's part of the whole circle of life thingy. I just don't like the ones who do it just to satisfy a blood lust.

 

[Guest]

that is weird! I don't know any hunters who don't eat what they kill.

Another thing, it should be illegal to drink while hunting. A lot of shooting accidents are caused that way. Usually when a cow is found shot on a farm, it's because some drunk guy was out hunting and was too drunk to realize the cow wasn't a deer. I even heard one story of a hunter who showed up at a weighing station with a cow, he was still so drunk he couldn't tell the difference.

 

[agentcooper]

i think that even here in "bloodthirsty america" it is illegal to hunt without eating the animal you killed. i know some hunters that have thought out the philosophy behind hunting (such as the benefits to the environment, and that it is much cheaper for your family) and i can respect them. but even though i can understand and respect their reasons, i still can't even imagine killing an animal. i would cry and cry...of course, i am a vegetarian for the most part, as well. ( i do eat fish, but for some reason fishing seems different than hunting.)

 

[berlin]

The issues surrounding vegitarianism and the like are called a 'slippery slope' in philosophy. Its difficult to argue your stance and support it without retort and seeming like a hypocrite further down the line. However despite the crude commercialism of factory farming I believe there is a big difference between that and hunting. And unless the hunters need to do so for sustanance then they are doing it for pleasure.

 

[Guest]

I believe there is a big difference between that and hunting. And unless the hunters need to do so for sustanance then they are doing it for pleasure.

About meat eating in general though-- most people do not eat meat for a meal because they would starve otherwise. In fact, meat tends to be more expensive than other kinds of food. People, in non-starving cultures like the US where even poor people are fat, eat for pleasure. I just can't see the difference between eating game or factory meat-- other than that I find eating the factory meat somewhat worse, because the slaughter and condition of the animals are hidden from the eater.