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To me this shows the baser side of human nature, where we see things and want to possess them and of course it's so much better to have something stuck on your wall than have it roaming free to do what nature made it for. Or is that what humans are for, destroying the beauty of the world in their selfish pursuits? I'm sure I came to the wrong frigging planet, next time I want to go to one with intelligent life forms on it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/25/exmoor-emperor-gian...
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I couldn't agree more
The news in New Zealand has been full of another shooting/hunting story:
Wellington teacher killed in hunting accident
We've just had a public holiday weekend (Labour Weekend). Here's a young woman teacher who's cleaning her teeth in a campground when she's shot and killed by some hunters who were spotlighting deer.
It looks like the perps will be charged with manslaughter.
Pointless Slaying
Bike Resources
Bike Resources
Sorry, but I have to
Sorry, but I have to disagree with part of your post. "Wellington teacher killed in 'hunting' accident" ...
That's no 'accident'! That's something that should never have happened, and the person doing the shooting should be sent to jail for a long visit. "Spotlighting deer" is highly illegal in my country, and I think it should be illegal in every country, unless it's being used as pest control after other methods have failed.
Some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the statue
Accident?
Sorry, but I have to disagree with part of your post. "Wellington teacher killed in 'hunting' accident" ...
The only reason the word "accident" appears in my post, is that it was part of the newspaper headline that I linked.
I completely agree with you. Likewise, I don't think car accidents should be referred to as such either: they're crashes or smashes.
Pseudonymous Situations
Bike Resources
Bike Resources
Wow, and I see this so different
I am not, nor have I ever been, a hunter. I've always loved to look at the beauty and grace of a deer, without feeling any desire to shoot it with anything more powerful than a video camera. Still, I have seen instances where deer have become an enormously difficult problem due to people who believed they were "protecting Bambi". There was a problem in one of our Northeastern states (I think it was Massachusets) where people got together and decided not to have deer hunting in their area. I thought, Hooray!, but the deer quickly became overpopulated. People were being killed hitting the deer, there was not enough food to go around and the deer invaded farmers fields and denuded trees, killing the forest and causing innumerable problems. People were referring to them as "Long legged rats".
A well controlled conservation program is a much better solution, I have had to admit. I still get sick at the sight of a deer on a hunters truck, but I understand it better.
Wren
I can still vividly recall
I can still vividly recall an accident I came across many years ago. Three young women, sisters, dressed in beautiful long gowns standing beside their car looking at a dead deer they had just hit. They were on their way to a wedding on Manitoulin Island when a deer ran in front of their rented limo. Thank goodness they had rented a big car, because their regular small car would have scooped the deer up and put it through the windshield...
One thing I'd like to comment on. The practice of tying a dead deer on the car or truck so everybody can see it is 'not' because the hunter is bragging. In many jurisdictions it's actually a law that hunters have to display the animal. I think that's so conservation officers have an easier job tracking the hunt...
Some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the statue
I guessed ...
... exactly who would be the poster and what the subject was as soon as I saw the blog heading because I read the same article over breakfast and had the same reaction.
As a child I used to to shoot small birds with my air rifle. I was a pretty good shot and rarely missed but when I came across a wounded sparrow fluttering around after I'd wounded it I realised how pointlessly cruel my behaviour was. That was when I stopped being a 'hunter'. I don't eat any meat but I'm not squeamish and if my life depended on it I wouldn't hesitate to kill and eat what ever was necessary. Fortunately I'm not in that position and very few people in the affluent west are.
I can appreciate that deer herds probably need to be culled because there are no predators to do it naturally. However what I cannot appreciate is the small-minded need to display trophies like deer's heads. It's not as though the hunter was at any risk himself and the actual process of killing the animal isn't particularly difficult; it's just expensive and hence a demonstration of status which I find pathetic.
In this case, the deer was hardly a weakling and a legitimate target for a cull. He appears to have been at the peak of his powers. Moreover it seems to be the wrong time time to kill stags during the breeding season.
Robi
Stags, "Hunting", and All That
Dear Robyn,
if I remember correctly, a stag during the Rutting season does not eat. He starts off in pretty good condition, having grazed well all spring and summer long, but he now has to concentrate on gathering as many hinds as he can and in chasing off other stags, mostly younger ones with less "points" on their antlers, so that they cannot mate with "his" hinds. Normally, the sheer difference in points, size and power exhibited frightens contenders away, but if it does not, then they can engage each other, tangling their antlers, and sometimes even wounding each other, when the weaker then quits. Another thing about stags at rutting season, they deliberately urinate all over themselves, so that they really stink. The hinds (perverse creatures!) apparently find the smell of a stinking, piss-drenched male, attractive !
By the end of the rutting season, when many hinds have been impregnated, the stags are pretty weak. Their carcasses would not be very worthwhile having for food then. IMHO they dont taste that good even in their best condition. If people are culling deer because of overpopulation and damage they do to trees ( they rub the velvety fur that protects the antlers as they grow, to rub it off and make them ready for display in time for rutting time), against the rough bark of any trees they can find, or if none, then an ancient standing stone (in the Hebrides). They seriously harm trees (and ancient standing stones!) by doing this. So just before rutting would be the best time for a cull, and probably it would be best to cull this year's animals, as thir flesh will not be quite so stringy and tough and strong flavoured. This of course does not fit in with the Trophy Hunter types, who want big heads to display. He could wait until they lose their horns after the rutting season - they have to grow new ones each year, which takes and enormous toll of their health. Cast off horns make good buttons and toggle closures for coats etc. The earlier human inhabitants hereabouts used them to prepare ground for planting seeds, to excavate caves or mines with, and as handles for stone and iron knives and axes.
In some places, deer these days are farmed. When fed by farmers their flesh is less gamey and more edible. Stag shooting is not really hunting, you just have to have a local person note where the most desirable stags are hanging out (they soon settle on a Revier and dont move from it much, the hinds wander about looking until they see a stag they like the look of, or they get chased and harassed into staying with - not all that unlike humans in many cultures really !) and then the "Mighty Hunter" rich guy flies in, bringing his gun with him, and they creep through the long grass or heather or whatever and when they see a good shot possibility, Rich Man shoots the beast. Then the helpers cut off the head, empty the guts, and skin it, carving up the joints and piling it all into a Landrover or tractor trailer or whatever, and take it back with them. Rich Man probably donates some joints to the Helpers, and flies back home with the choice bits, and the Trophy.
Apart from having an appropriate gun license and permission to shoot a stag, all Rich Man needs is some practice with his gun to make sure he does not miss entirely. Local guides will also have guns to kill it if he only wounds it, to minimize its suffering and prevent anyone getting hurt by a wounded animal, as they can get quite annoyed about being shot.
The least people can do to make up for killing a wild or semi wild animal is that they make use of all of it. It is though, not unknown for most of a carcass to be left to rot, for example if the place chosen is hard to access. People sometimes just cannot carry or drag the dead animal over steep hills, through bogs, down murrain-lined ravines, many miles to a road.
It is true, unfortunately, that there are communities that would be poorer and even unviable without the income from supporting "Mighty Hunters", but this is all tied up with the history of the Highlands and the other wild places, and with the land clearances that forced the native people to flee their deliberately set afire thatched- roofed "Black Houses", to camp on the shoreline, so that the new, incoming "Land Owners" could replace their subsistance farming way of life with Sheep, and to reduce these people to the role of Serfs. The present situation with Shooting Estates merely prolongues the results of an unhappy history of conquest, occupation, and expulsion to the New World of most of the orginal inhabitants, and the creation of the iniquitous Class System that still to this day plagues the People of the British Isles.
Briar
Briar
They call it sport, I call it murder.
They call it sport, I call it murder.
I live in a rural community with lots of farms. Guns are not unusual around here. A few years ago a large number of 4X4’s vans and assorted cars roared up and parked on the verges outside and around the large field across the road from me.
They all got out and went into the field making a lot of noises. I went outside and asked an onlooker what the hell was going on. This unwashed excuse for humanity said that I should go inside and they would be gone soon.
I had heard that these people can be pretty nasty sometimes so I just went inside, locked all the doors and rang the police. By the time the police had come whole circus had all gone and the policemen just shrugged their shoulders and said that they would file a report. I should have taken a few number plates, but I regret that I didn’t.
I won’t go into what the dogs did to the hares, but it was horrific.
I know that animals need to be killed for food and it’s an unpleasant fact of life. But what I don’t agree with is these so called sportsmen who make excuses like, we have to keep the numbers down or we are doing a service or even we are humane and the animals don’t really suffer, when in fact they are just suffering themselves from a form of blood lust.
I wonder how they would feel if they were hunted themselves with guns or dogs.
Sue
I wrote a long long post
I wrote a long long post about hunting. And then I decided not to post it. Only thing I'm going to say is that hunting for food is something I do, and I don't like people who hunt simply for a 'trophy'. Hunting for food, for clothing, or to control a population that has increased to a point where it is hurting the habitat is 'good' in my opinion. Killing an animal simply because you want to hang it's horns on your wall is not good.
Some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the statue
I agree with you. Hunting
I agree with you. Hunting for subsistence is fine or as a necessary form of population control but otherwise, not very fair. If you want to hunt for sport go after the animal with a knife, a blowgun or a non-compound bow. That makes it far more sporting.
Heather
We are the change that will save the world.
Heather
We are the change that will save the world.
Way down yonder in the Indian Nation, in them hills where I was
"Way down yonder in the Indian Nation, in them hills where I was born....." Sorry! In Oklahoma, school closes for deer season in some parts of the state. This is mainly in the areas with a high population of Native descent, where a fall hunt is traditional, such as the SE and NE part of the state, and coincides in part with Thanksgiving. Native Americans, in the 19th and first half of the 20th century would keep their kids out of school to join the family in hunts that would provide food for the winter larder. It was a family affair, with lots of meat processing and so on going on, and kind of a feast period with lots of dancing and fun activities as well, a time of plenty and preparation for the winter. Numerous Native Americans still have established deer camps seasonally occupied by extended families. As urban development has continued to spread, only these areas have enough woodland to provide habitat for a large deer population.
Deer populations naturally boom and crash. When forage is plentiful, weather is moderate, fertility is high, the adults are healthy, and large numbers of the fawns survive, sometimes exceeding the carrying capacity of the area, there is a boom. Booming right along with the deer comes ticks, and it is not unusual to see deer sickened and dying in the spring from ticks covering their faces, in their eyes, ears, nostrils, etc. With the ticks booming comes Limes Disease from the small black deer ticks, which transfers to people. Though many urban doctors claim Limes is not in Oklahoma, country doctors know better but it is hard to get enough antibiotics to treat the number of cases against the more numerous urban doctor's prevailing wisdom.
The population this year is pretty dense. On my trip back from SE Oklahoma from a musuem project this past weekend, I saw 8 deer alongside the road killed by lumber trucks and other 18 wheelers between Friday night and Sunday afternoon, over a 65 mile stretch of road. That large a number means usually a high density of deer. The boom and associated effects is especially so if the cycle coincides with weather that is not conducive to people getting out into the deer habitat and thinning the herds. This is one of those years, I think, as it is warm and difficult for hunters to stalk deer. The fallen leaves are crunchy underfoot and the deer know the time of year as well as the hunters and take refuge in areas where they can't be hunted when the season starts, if at all possible. Kills by bow and arrow have been light this year, as that is one technique that requires silent movement and stalking. Only if we get some decent rain and cooler temps by Thanksgiving will that situation be made better, but that is gun season. The other time that control hunting is not effective is during periods of heavy winter weather since the deer lay up until conditions improve and hunters don't want to be out either, but that is increasingly rare as the supposedly mythical global warming sets in.
I don't hunt, but I see it as a kind of necessary evil as I have seen the results of low control hunts on the deer population, and though results of bust populations is closer to a natural process, I do not like to see that kind of suffering from disease and ticks either. The fish and game people assess the population prior to the hunting seaason most years, and the number of deer tags sold try to reflect the poplulation. Some years they only allow kills of male deer, some years doe and buck, and always at least over a year old. Vehicles do cause a lot of deer deaths this time of year. Legally if you accidently hit a deer, you can take it home and butcher it, but few do so since their vehicles have been damaged and they are more concerned over that, or they wouldn't have a clue what to do to recover the meat.
People living in urban areas decamp to the deer woods in large numbers during the gun season with RVs and lots of booze. Then it is dangerous to life and limb to be out there with the main dead things around them being empty liquor bottles, the occasional cow or mule, and other hunters. Thanksgiving week is the primary gun season event, with a minor one between Christmas and New Years. In other parts of the state, hunting is allowed but the density of deer is variable and kills are usually low. It is also the time of year that sightings of Bigfoot take place, but that seems to be more correlated with the quantity of booze available.
CaroL
CaroL
The Dear Deer
I look out my bedroom window from my perch on my stationary bike and watch deer snacking on my compost pile. Two to four of them sleep on my liquid waste management "mound".
My idiot neighbor "loves" the deer so she puts out corn for them. Let's forget about facilitating the spread of chronic wasting disease, shall we.
Two of my friends were killed hunting while I was in high school. Both had the backs of their heads blown off. So -- I lost my taste for it.
But I grew up on a farm and understand the utility value of animals. That doesn't mean you don't respect their rights.
The reasons for hunting have been fairly stated above. The objections to hunting stated above seem to be mostly visceral, which is okay. If you think it's murder, that's a viewpoint I can understand, but not agree with.
I allow bow-hunters to harvest the deer on my land every year. It has to be done so the herd can remain healthy.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
If overpopulation of deer
or any other species is a problem that needs management, how come one species which seems to destroy habitats faster than elephants, doesn't come into the equation? There are over 6 billion of them, with the exception of four legged rats and perhaps one or two other rodents, I suspect it's the most numerous mammal species on the planet, and where it thrives most other things don't, except rats, cockroaches and flies.
Angharad
Angharad
Malthus?
eom
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Isn't that?
What warfare is for? Most other methods of population control - disease, starvation, abortion, age, infirmity, insanity, etc. have been rendered widely ineffective or are increasingly being made so. And now a systematic effort is being made to eliminate war by the same dogooders who eliminated the other controls.
Make war, not love!
. . . .
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until they speak.
I went outside once. The graphics weren' that great.
Reduce the overpopulation of these two-legged rats!
Agreed, we need to reduce the overpopulation of these two-legged rats!
We should forget all this "healthy living" nonsense.
Plenty of good old fat meat, fried foods and gravy, that's what the rats love and need.
Instead of taxing tobacco and alcohol, we should subsidize them.
People should be encouraged to smoke like chimneys starting from childhood.
They should be taught that all water-based beverages contain dangerous "bugs" that can only be killed by incorporating generous portions of alcohol.
Cars should be prohibited from having seat belts and air bags.
They should be convinced that they drive better and have more fun while "buzzed".
Apex predators should be reintroduced. Urban and suburban bears and mountain lions would show the rats who is really at the top of the food chain.
Of course these ideas would all help reduce pension and health care costs for the elderly (there wouldn't be many), improving the government balance sheet over time.
Can we get the politicians to all drink to that?
Raising a glass,
Kris
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
Deer, Oh Dear
I stopped hunting more than 50 years ago for many of the same reasons expressed by the other commentors. I didn't need to do it. Man is a hunting animal. It is in our genetics; however, just to go out and kill for the joy of killing, and not much else is probably a vestigal behavioral trait. I am really going to catch it for this, but Bambi, and the earlier version of Smokey the Bear probably did more harm than good. As long as we allow anthropomorphizing of wild animals, there will always be a problem.
I regularly see hundreds of deer carcasses between Little Rock and Fort Smith, Arkansas on Interstate 40 during this time of year. This is on one trip. I have to suppress my gag reflex at times. I have seen road killed does in the spring that were obviously nursing. I know a farmer who in one day killed eight fawns when he was mowing his hay field. It's heartbreaking.
There are more deer killed by automobiles every year in the US than are killed by hunters. There are more deer in this country than there ever have been since we invaded this continent nearly 500 years ago. I addressed the return of the Puma in the west in one of my stories. Unfortunately, cats are hard wired to attack a moving object, and joggers, bikers, and hikers have been killed.
Urban deer are a huge problem in many areas of this country. As 'tame' as some of them have become, thay are still wild animals with all the instinctive and hormone driven behavior thay have always had. How do we strike a balance? Deer need to regain their fear of man. Something in their contact with man has to reinstill their fear. I don't have the answer.
Barring a catastrophic pandemic, this land wil never return to what it was. Mankind continues to blindly stumble forward, ignoring nature and trying to ignore the fact that they are irrevocably part of nature. Ignorance is not bliss. It is destructive and deadly in its results.
We are going to have to work at restoring/repairing the balance of nature, and it will have to be done wisely. I won't say humanely because that word is an oxymoron. Modern manknd is probably the least humane and cruelest of all of natures animals. Obviously, there are exceptions; however, they are still in the minority.
Portia
Portia
Hunting
The only Hunting I've ever done, has been with a Camera and the only blood it ever drew was because I tripped and feel down into a wild rose bush. Richard
Richard
Angother wild guess
And I too got both story and poster. You are all missing the point, which is a simple one. Unless the mighty hunter has the biggest set of horns, how can he prove he has a huge penis?
Pssst: Mr Mighty Hunter: wearing horns means you are a cuckold. Shall I fetch the dictionary for you?
Deer, wild hogs and other
Deer, wild hogs and other game animals normally don't need predators to keep their numbers down. Their population doesn't outgrow what the -natural- food supply can support.
Should you run across feed stations in the woods, those are -not- there to help the animals survive. They are there to boost the populations so hunters "can take care of the excess". A side effect of the unnatural high populations is excessive damage to the woodlands, which has to be cared for more (more often than not, on the tax-payer's expense) and between the damage and it's repair, other species are pushed aside.
I disagree!
Deer can and do overpopulate. Just like us two legged rats, they will rather quickly overwhelm an area. As I said, I do not and will not hunt.I can get all the meat I need for a year for less than the price of what my friend spends on one hunt.Still, I appreciate the need for "Well Managed Conservation". The bunch of intoxicated idiots who drive around looking for "sumthin' to shoot" should be (and in our area , they are!) hunted themselves. Our DNR sets up traps and decoys just to catch these dumasses. My neighbor's kid, who goes out with his father and grandfather, is a "good" hunter. They hunt to fill their freezer, and they understand and support measures for controlling and regulating the hunting here, and it is considered to be prime deer area. They still spend too much money on it, but I keep losing the arguments. Anyway, I'll do my hunting at the grocery store!
Wren
Predators and ecology
You might want to read this, and perhaps reconsider your position. The damage of unregulated populations of large grazing animals is extensive, devastating to other animals and plants, and goes way beyond just their clashes with humans.
Deer, wild hogs and other
The predators aren't there to control herd size but to maintain the herd's health. They take the old, sick and diseased animals from the herd. Reintroducing predators and then hunting them is abhorant to me and I would just as soon shoot the shooters.
It depends on the reasons for
It depends on the reasons for hunting said predators. Just like the deer, the population can outgrow the resources available, which then leads to starvation, movement to other areas, or attempting to find other sources of food. Both of the latter can lead to direct threats to humans.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Untin'
Hi Angie.
There was a progamme on Radio 4 yesterday, (Mon 25th Oct) concerning the damage that deer are doing to our countryside.
Some conservationists had been doing some tests to creat some coppiced woodland in a forest in England, (don't know where cos I switched on halfway through.) Anyway the foresters cut down some trees to create a coppiced section to encourage bushes and shrubs including making suitable habitat for rare species. (Dormice were specifically mentioned because some of the coppiced trees were hazel.)
Anyway the experiment was destroyed because deer took over the area and ate every young shrub and shoot down to the ground. They didn't get their coppiced woodland instead they got poor pasture and braken caused by deer easting every new shoot in sight.
The only solution would be to erect very expensive (and ugly) deer fences to protect the woodland and create anachronistic glades of hazel shrubs and other trees suitable for coppicing. The red deer browsed out the shrubbery whilst the Munjack deer destroyed all the rare orchids and stuff. (It's all on the radio.)
The poor dormice never stood a chance, the deer destroyed their habitat before it even got started. However they had some wonderful examples of large blue and other wildlife that they had not been expecting. The problem of course is that there are no natural predators of Red deer in Britain.
Now perhaps, - if we introduced a few Siberian Tigers. They'd also keep the wild boar in check. (keep the 'Great white hunters' on their toes as well.)
Grrrr.
Beverly.
Are Deer just big Goats?
I am happy that I will not live a lot longer because I grew up in another world, and miss it badly.
This is one of those "old foggie comments", so those who are NOT old foggies can just skip it. I was raised in very rural 50's Oregon. It was a half mile to our nearest neighbor, and an all day trip on partly gravel roads to town and back, if the car did not break down. We were extremely poor, and Deer meat was part of what we lived on. We killed them and ate them. Not a bit was wasted. In Eastern Oregon, even more "Bush like" than where we lived, it was even more of a subsistence existence. I totally abhore trophy hunting. The kill has nothing to do with food.
Living in Ohio for the time being, I shudder for the rest of the US to get this populated. Inshallah, I will be gone before then. I will consider it to be an act of mercy.
Much peace
Gwendolyn
Yes Beverly Taff Yes & Why Is This Discussion Allowed
The DNR in Minnesota has established fenced areas that keep deer out to show the public just how much actual damage is done to the forest by deer. It is amazing. I spend quite a bit of money on "Liquid Fence" each year, because if I don't the deer eat the flowers in my front yard just as quickly as they bloom.
I assume the only reason this topic has survived so long on this forum is a nexus to the TG state. I'll propose that in some minds there is a more masculine/more feminine side to this argument. Let me say that I find that nexus troubling. Shouldn't those of us who are TG understand that feminine and masculine aren't two sides of the same coin? Can't we ever just understand that all of us have multiple facets?
Is that too complex for some to understand? Seems to be.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
The pointless killing I've never understood.
Yes, there are good and valid reasons for hunting. It does maintain population control, disease control, ect.
I've just never understood the enjoyment of killing another creature. And I certinally don't understand poaching.
Several years ago in Estes Park there was this great big elk called Sampson. He was huge. He used to walk about town and raid peoples gardens and there was an understanding that he was a treasure to the area. One day a poacher shot and killed him. The poacher was fortunately caught and had the book thrown at him but it couldn't ring Sampson back.
Connie
Wow
First, I for one am grateful that this post has not degenerated into wildly opposing camps of rabid eyed tree hugers on one side and red neck gun totters one the other side with flames shooting out of each other's mouths.
I have been deer hunting, vastly overrated if you ask me, hot smelly and if someone in the party does get "luck" it is hard work getting the carcass out of the brush and into the truck.
I've never shot at a deer, though there was a period of time when the only meat my family could afford was rabbit. My dad's rule was one shot one rabbit. Over the course of that 6 month period I shot probably 5 or 6 rabbits., and felt guilty each and every time.
I suppose my position is things within moderation. It is true New England became overrun with deer, and recently with Bear. This was the direct result of having banned the taking of deer.
What I can NOT stand can NOT fathom, totally abhor are the "hunters" - which I believe is a false appellation - I'd rather call them something that manifests the utter contempt I hold for them are those who are hunting solely for trophy's.
I would certainly uphold anyone's right to take game for food. But to stick the head on the wall is truly obscene.
If a person truly wishes to "hunt" let them come to the southeastern states where the population of wild pigs, boars if you will is truly becoming destructive. There at least they take their chances. Instead of sitting in a comfortable chair up in a tree and shooting the first thing that comes your way to the convenient feeding station you just might have been filling for a month or so before the season begins; you can face off with a 300 pound boar who is anything BUT domestic. Meaner than hell and equiped with tusks that will rip you apart. Instead I suspect the rather effete tree sitting laser pointing telescope equiped .30-.06. trophy hunters will continue, legally, or illegally.
And for the record I HATE the taste of venison though rabbit is rather tasty. I am a shooter to this day (probably from my days as a cop and competition shooter).
Have I ranted? I rather hope so. This is a terrible practice.
Beth
My thoughts...
First off, I'm not a hunter. I have zero need to hunt for meat, and I don't particularly like stuffed animals...that is, stuffed and mounted.
Second, I am a rabid gun nut, and own quite a few.
That said, I've known trophy hunters, and I've known food hunters. I've only ever known (I think) one trophy hunter that hunted JUST for the trophy. However, he didn't _repeatedly_ hunt for the same thing over and over again. He was interested in the hunt, the kill, and the evidence that he did it. Going after two deer in a row, or two elk, wasn't his thing. It was the challenge. I also have a customer who has done a lot of hunting, including big game hunts. (he has a number of predators as well as prey stuffed and mounted in his house. His taxidermist did a FANTASTIC job. They're better mounted than the ones at the Museum of Natural Science). Everything he's hunted, he's tried eating. What he didn't eat, he gave to people who WOULD eat - that includes the predators. Not sure I'd really want to eat lion, but what the heck. The hunts he's been on were sanctioned hunts, done through the appropriate agencies in the countries involved. I'm pretty sure he's done repeated hunts, but not for trophies.
As for poachers? There are mostly three kinds of poachers. The easiest to understand are those who 'poach' for food. This includes people that hunt deer ON THEIR OWN PROPERTY, who do it out of season. These are mostly only poachers because the law doesn't recognise the right of people to eat something that's living on their own property. Those that I've known who did this took great care to NOT kill fawns, nursing females, and so forth - and they used just about everything other than the bones. Unfortunately, there are too many of these who don't take that care - often because the law makes it really hard to take the time to observe them long enough to not violate those reasonable limits. The next easiest to understand are those who deliberately violate the various laws so they can kill the animal, and usually do it by adding trespassing to their transgressions. They're also doing it for food, but aren't willing to put any effort into understanding what/why they are doing it - they're doing it for purely selfish reasons - but they at least eat the meat. The last group are almost identical to the worst of 'regular' hunters - pure trophy hunters. They're doing it because they CAN. Some of them even do it just because they want the thrill of a kill. (I've known of a few hunters that were like that, but they generally took someone with them to use the meat. They knew they liked the hunt and the kill, but weren't willing to completely waste the meat, and weren't doing it out of season.)
Frankly, I want hunting to continue, on a sustainable basis. Deer are destructive to property, AND TO LIVES. I watched a deer jump over a fence, run into the freeway, get hit by a car going at least 55 mph, roll over the top of the car (destroying the car in the process), hit the ground, get up, and jump the fence again. I've also seen pictures of the racks going into the windshield, and have heard of people dying not just from the impact, but because of the deer entering the car - or just pushing the engine block into the driver. When I was growing up, we had to also watch out for horses and cows. My father had part of his car destroyed by a horse, and then nobody would own up to owning it (they'd be responsible for the damage, since it was on the road). I once had to chase a steer off of the main road until the neighbours could corral it again, because it broke through their fence late one night.
Deer are pests. Rabbits are pests. They are pests mostly because we've killed off the predators which are supposed to keep down the population. If you don't want hunters - even trophy hunters - then you'll have to push for reintroduction of the predators, such as wolves, large cats, coyotes, and so forth. Then you'll have to live with the people that complain about their sheep, goats, dogs, cats, and small children going missing due to those same predators. Cease hunting, and you'll have the boom/bust starvation/overpopulation cycles - which will destroy the land just as well as a herd of sheep might. The vegetation won't even be given a chance to re-establish itself, because they'll destroy everything edible before they start to die off. The remaining ones will keep stripping any vegetation that starts to grow, leaving everything at a pure subsistence level. Eventually, the vegetation will give up.
BW
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
hunting?
Hmm, I have killed and slaughtered to eat, not a fun thing by any means but I felt it would be hypocritical to baulk. So a spitted Roo on the fire. Lamb or calf I have watched. Sure there's cases for control and need of the critters and the two legged type. Thing is most of the problems are caused by the greed and stupidity of said two legs. Sport? The idea repulses me. Necessity is a long way from some ego driven blood lust and I have seen wanton destruction and slaughter more than once, not pretty or flattering if you consider human beings a cut above. I am no dewey eyed Bambi( or skippy) lover, but cruelty and senseless destruction make me sad.
Curiously or not I read on another forum today in the US a Motorcycle rider, 40's, married with kids a mile from home, wiped out by a deer. dead and a sudden organ donor. Bambi's revenge? Sigh, I doubt it, just one a those things. Not sure there's a moral but the human race does need to take account...yeah right...sigh...
Kristina
Angharad, I say that hunting
for sport is reprehensible. Any hunting or fishing should be for food, or using tranquilizer darts if for sport, or to tap and release to keep track of them.
May Your Light Forever Shine