BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?

Subject: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: fogie
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 12:35 PM

Around my rural area people are putting this notice up, on the roadside presumably in supporters fields. I have a desperate urge to deface them as it seems a ludicrous statement. I felt similarly incensed by last years notice about fearing a minority. Where on earth did the statistics for this poster campaign come from? I do not for a moment believe it. Some braver soul painted over the 5 of 59% which I would think is nearer the mark.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 02:06 PM

I've never been a hunter, but I'm all right with hunting in the abstract.

By "in the abstract" I mean that I would object to hunting of species that are under survival pressure, or which would skew the environmental balance, but fishing or shooting or trapping game is okay by me.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 02:14 PM

Maybe it depends on the kind of hunting they mean. My wife spends a lot of time hunting for her glasses. I spend a lot of time hunting for the TV remote. But neither of us are particularly in favor of it.

Other than swatting mosquitoes, I don't think I've ever killed anything, and I certainly wouldn't derive any pleasure from it. Do I eat meat? Yes. Does that make me a hypocrite? Probably. Do I favor tracking down wild animals and killing them? No. I like the idea of their running free.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 02:17 PM

Sounds like a highly spun statistic.

I imagine if you asked people "Do you think people who hunt foxes deserve to get strung up?" you might well find that 59% saying they didn't.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Beardy
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 02:26 PM

I too have seen this sign becoming prominent across the country and was surprised by the % quoted. Despite having been 'dragged' up in the country spending all my weekends with relatives who worked on a farm I am anti-hunting.

On a tangent; in 41 years I have never been asked my opinion as part of any survey/poll whether it be on politics or any other subject. In these samples of usually 2000 people do the use the same 2000 people? (OK I know they dont but I have nebver spoken to anybody else who has participated).

Stewart

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 02:38 PM

Oh, geez. Statistics on BOTH sides of this issue, at least in the US, have been skewed to get whatever results were wanted.

Now -- when you say "hunt" do you mean fox hunting (i.e., riding to hounds), or do you mean pursuing game with the intent of killing and eating it?

I was brought up hunting, and I still do it (unsuccessfully, but it does get me out of doors). Besides firarms safety, the BIG rule was and it that if you kill it, you eat it. The only other excuse for killing something was and is in defense of your or another's life, and frankly, that's damned rare.

So that leaves out fox hunting (unless the folks who do it have strange culinary tastes indeed). Wilde was right about it.

As long as the species hunted are not endangered or even threatened, I have no problem with it. ESPECIALLY if the weapons used are traditional bow and arrow, muzzleloaders, or single-shot rifles -- the hunter has to be pretty darned good to use any of these -- and no telescopic sights!

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: akenaton
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 02:54 PM

Around the West of Scotland where I live ,we get loads of "toffs" out for some weekend shooting.They will shoot anything that moves ,even hand reared pheasants ,which are so tame that they wont even run out of your way ,never mind fly.   These creatures,(Imean the ones with the guns) are a disgrace,and not at all sensitive to nature .They dont hunt for food,but simply for the perverted thrill of killing some other living thing.
Im not totally against hunting,but i would even it up a bit.
I would deposit one of these brave boys in the Amazon jungle,in the dark ,with only a spear and a loin cloth,and let them hunt for the way out ....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: greg stephens
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 02:57 PM

I wonder what percentage are in favour of gassing foxes with cyanide, which is the legal alternative procedure advocated by the anti-hunting brigade. Personally I'm not likely to practise either.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 03:03 PM

Same signs all around Salop. Also posters showing that foxhunters are "ordinary" people and not "Toffs". When will they get it? It's not their class that is objected to, it's the hunting of a wild animal for pleasure...a barbarity Britain could well do without. What I love is their arguement that if hunting is banned they'd have to shoot all the hounds. No thought of looking after them for their natural lives, having bred them solely for hunting.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 03:05 PM

Having once been a serious hunter and having given it up for reasons of self preservation and not for moralistic PETA or FOE type reasons I'll say this.
   In New York state the animals hunted as part of the seasonal harvest are not endangered or in danger of being endangered. Limits of what may be taken are clearly posted in a syllabus given out with each hunting license. And generally seasons are clearly defined as to not interfere with mating and birthing seasons. (This is not true with some fish).
   In New York as in probably all states that are or were predominately agricultural in an effort to protect livestock we have done away with the predators who would usually limit the game animal populations. As a result we have significant over populations of squirrels, rabbits, white tail deer, migratory birds and now, wild turkeys. And while the animal populations grow the food supply doesn't. As farms give way to housing development and urban sprawl more animals are competing for the available food supply.
   Shooting these animals supplies food for many people in rural parts of NY. Some folks way out in the shrubs live on game most of the year and rarely buy a burger except at McDonalds.
Philosophy aside, we can hunt these animals in a managed manner that allows the herds to sustain in numbers equal to the environment.
Or we can not hunt them and allow starvatiion and illness to do the job. We have interfered with nature by making an environment acceptable for domestication to the point where we have to interfer even further to balance once again the natural system we have screwed up.
Given the size of the deer population in New York if you asked most people if they wanted Bambi to starve in the snow at least half of them would say "No, pass the currant jam please."

Don Meixner

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 03:06 PM

I'm not pro, but I'm not anti, can't see any real harm in it myself.
That'll get the libertarian, left wing, single issue, class envious,bigots jumping up and down.
The real problem with life these days is that it's too easy, people live too far from their food sources. That along with the tendency to anthropomorphise animals, blinds most people to the reality of lamb killing, dog and cat killing, which helps makes the fox vermin.

I'll get my coat......Giok

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: akenaton
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 03:16 PM

Don... thats the old argument for hunting...We need to keep down numbers
If numbers need to be kept down,it can be done by National Park Rangers who see this unpleasant task as part of their job.
What I object to ,are the people who do it for "fun".
Pesonally if I happen to accidentaly run over some small animal on the road I feel bad about it. I could no more shoot an animal for "fun" than shoot my own children.There is something very wrong in the minds of these "hunters"....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,Midchuck, in Montana at the moment
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 03:45 PM

Given that most game animals are as doomed to die sooner or later as we are, although they have the advantage of not being aware of it, can anyone tell me of a way in which an animal (in the wild) is likely to die, that involves less pain, discomfort, or fear for the animal, than a well-placed shot with a sufficiently powerful firearm, by a hunter who knows what he's doing?

Of course, a lot of hunters don't know what they're doing, or don't care, but that's another issue. If we judge all hunters by the behavior of the worst specimens, then we can't disagree with doing the same for racial or ethic subgroups, can we?

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 04:05 PM

As farms give way to housing development and urban sprawl more animals are competing for the available food supply.

I'm not too sure about that. Foxes, for example, seem to be doing pretty well in towns - I believe it's been estimated that there are more of them here than in the country. The predator that keeps their number down is the motor car. No need for Tally-Ho.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 04:11 PM

Ake,

The old argument? Does that mean that only a new argument would be valid? What is wrong with the old argument? Especially when it is correct and accurate?
There aren't enough park rangers in the country to manage the wild population of New York state let alone through out the country.
Are you against killing animals in general? No farms or farmers anymore that produce steaks and chops and roasts and legs and thighs and bacon and cutlets. This would make you a vegetarian which is fine with me. But don't wear leather shoes or belts, or use some cosmetics, or have your car painted with metal flecked paints. Or use some oil painting brushed. There a few medicinal components that come from animals like heart valves and burn treatments.
Or are you against shooting animals, period. If thats the case and you are anti-gun thats fine with me too. I can support an anti-gun stance.
But to call all people who hunt as having something wrong in their minds is a little unfair. Jimmy Carter has been an avid hunter and fisherman and of all the living presidents he is about the only one who has ever acted presidential or even christian like. My Dad was a great fisherman and hunter. And no one I know was more right in the head than he was.

Don Meixner

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 04:15 PM

McGrath,

I'm not British or have I ever been to the UK.   You situation and environment is unique to your side of the pond. I couldn't or wouldn't comment on whether or not hunting is appropriate for you
area.

But we do have foxes and they do seem to get hit by the odd Buick now and then.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 04:41 PM

Ake, please don't confuse killers (and just damned fools) with hunters. Hunters take game and see that it's not wasted -- that the life of the animal wasn't taken (or given) frivolously. The US has trash that calls itself "hunters" too -- unfortunately. Some try to do something about it:

A damnfool from Chicago went "deer hunting" in downstate Illinois; he managed to put a 12 gauge (bore) shotgun slug (a single chunk of lead) through the wall of a local house, nearly hitting a baby. He was arrested and brought a hot-shot big-time Chicago lawyer to his trial in the small town. At the advice of his lawyer he pled guilty, with a smirk on his face, pointing out that he was there to kill a deer and thereby help the farmers with their crop predation program.

The judge didn't buy it. Instead of the fine of $500 his lawyer had assured him he would get, the damnfool was assessed $5,000, loss of all hunting equipment involved in the incident (which included his brand new pickup truck, his two Bernelli shotguns, and other things of value), loss of hunting privileges for five years, 90 days in the local jail, and 1,000 hours of community service -- AND he had to both apologize to the homeowner and repair the damage he'd done. In other words, my old friend, "Hangin' Dave," threw the book at him.

Dave has the "rank" of Distinguished Rifleman. His father taught gun safety for years. His brother and sister were and are Distinguished Riflemen. Dave don't take no crap about hunting -- and especially carelessness wth firearms -- from anyone.

Would that there were more like him!

Oh, yeah. Don't bring a bigcity attorney to a small town court -- you just might lose big. Better yet, if you can't *hunt*, get your meat at the supermarket and join the army if you want to kill something.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 04:43 PM

Don, there's another solution to animal overpopulation.

We can reinstate the predators. Mountain lions (a/k/a panthers, painter, catamounts, pumas, etc.), both types of bears, wolves (the coyotes are already back). Let them copulate and populate and eventually we'll restore the balance that was there before we messed with it.

Of course, this solution brings a few problems of its own with it, but heck, it'll cut down on the number of joggers!

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,pdq
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 04:57 PM

Please note that the NRA was started to promote safe use of firearms. It conducts classes in safe and responsible use of all types of guns. Also note that this issue crosses typical political lines, except for the ultra-left "gun grabber" crowd.

59% of people have no problem with sane and responsible hunting, to answer the origional post. Actually, that figure may be a bit low.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 05:06 PM

What kind of sign are you seeing? What does the text say? (As the saying goes, there are "Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics")

Akenatan, That's as hair-brained an idea to do with "excess" animals as I've had the displeasure of reading since I began participating in the discussion of the ethics of hunting and the environment.

If numbers need to be kept down, it can be done by National Park Rangers who see this unpleasant task as part of their job.
What I object to, are the people who do it for "fun".
Pesonally if I happen to accidentaly run over some small animal on the road I feel bad about it. I could no more shoot an animal for "fun" than shoot my own children. There is something very wrong in the minds of these "hunters"....Ake

As one of those National Park Rangers, I can't see any good reason for rangers to go shoot animals (would the carcasses just pile up, or would we be required to bury them or move them to slaughter houses or cremate them?) if there are hunters who are interested in the hunt and taking the meat home to eat. Whether they get pleasure from hunting or not is incidental. Do you think none of these animals would ever die of other causes if no one was out there shooting them? Many people feel bad when they accidentally kill an animal on the road. But don't translate your grief at your vehicular homicide to what hunters should feel about the necessity of or desire for fresh meat from the wild.

There is nothing wrong in the "minds of hunters" who are out there to hunt to eat or to thin overcrowded populations. There are macho factions who are out there for a lot of other reasons (the Ted Nugent approach) and those who hunt irresponsibly, whether maiming animals without killing them or who are less than "sporting" about it (this is a twentieth century concept, by the way--not something the mountain men and Daniel Boone and such would have had a clue about. Whatever worked with the technology available was how hunters worked up until the years of land management and privilege working to crowd out hunters who didn't "play by the rules.")

I find it terribly sanctimonious for anti-hunters to make all of their pronouncements about the evils of hunting, as if the world were not "nature, red in tooth and claw" under any other circumstances.

SRS (standing out in the open on this one)

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 05:12 PM

The (dodgy) 59% statistic mentioned was in the English context. Hunting for food is a very much less prevalent pastime over here than it appears to be in the USA. Even fishing tends to be coarse fishing where they catch 'em, weigh 'em, and bung 'em back to grow a bit bigger.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: akenaton
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 06:18 PM

SRS....Im sorry you find my ideas "Hare Brained".
Iv lived in a remote part of Scotland all my life,surrounded by animals of all kinds. Only last week on my way home from work ,I saw for only the second time in my life, a pure white Red Deer twelve pointer.It was a magnificent sight and I can assure you I understand nature very well.
The Forestry commission in this area employ Rangers to cull deer as required and I suppose this is acceptable.   The commission have also discovered that its very profitable to allow groups of "hunters" to shoot on its land.These groups are usually from foreign countries,and according to the Rangers have very little idea about how to shoot properly.They just have plenty of money and an overpowering desire to kill an animal....Something akin to the big game hunters of old.
When I saw that beautiful White stag and thought about those morons,
I knew which I would like before my sights.....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Peg
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 06:25 PM

re: NY State deer population. I believe there has been a recent effort to donate venison to food pantries for hungry families. Hunters are given special permits to get more then the usual limit, provided they then take the extra kill to a butcher who has donated their services. The meat is cut and wrapped and distributed at food pantries.

This seems to me an excellent idea and much more sportsmanlike than the "lotteries" held in Massachusetts where "hunters" are allowed in semi-confined areas like the Quabbin to shoot the plentiful deer...talk about shooting fish in a barrel.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 06:58 PM

The sign that began this thread is a British poster supporting foxhunters against government legislation to ban their "sport". It has nothing whatever to do with hunting for food or keeping numbers realistic. it has everything to do with the ritualisation and pleasure taken in the chase to the death. Think bullfighting. Think tails cut from animals torn apart by hounds so the blood can be smeared in the faces of young hunters. I've seen it.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 07:14 PM

Ake, the US, and especially Alaska, has the problem of foriegn game killers as well as the UK. We've had them for years -- the Russian nobility, the British nobility, the French, and many others -- shot the abundant game in the US throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. And some still come, especially (as I noted) to Alaska.

I believe that it's illegal here to knowingly take a white deer or other albino animal; I'm certain that it is in the States I've hunted in the past. Moreover, you don't take the biggest stag in the lot -- first of all, it's the does that have the babies, and secondly, you let it live to improve the breed.

Catch-and-release fishing is quite "big" here, especially with fly fishers. Some fish -- sturgeon on the Snake River, for instance -- cannot even be taken from the water; you have to release them without lifting them from the river.

Hunters here are very often very knowledgable about the environment, ecology, animal populations, and other related information. Check out the websites for such groups as Ducks Unlimited and you can see that hunters often put their money where their mouth is -- EVEN when they can't hunt the area or the species.

To tell the truth, I wish that it were necessary for everyone to grow, gather, or hunt what they eat. But the human race tried that a little while back, I seem to remember....

I don't think that I'd hunt if I lived in Britain. Too many people in too little land for safety.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 07:24 PM

akenaton: I envy you for seeing that magnificent deer. And I pity you that it's only the second time in all your years of living there. But you live in Scotland, where the deer were hunted indiscriminately from ancient times until quite recently. Please understand that there are more deer in America now than there were when Columbus landed. For many of us, seeing deer is not a rare event. In many suburban areas (not to mention rural) they come into people's yards and gardens. They are often quite destructive. And there are a host of reasons why natural predators can't be introduced into many areas. For one thing, many of them eat people, too. Where the deer are not hunted they breed to the limits of the environment, and then beyond. Without predators of some kind they destroy the woods and meadows. So try to set aside your emotional reaction to that wonderful animal you saw and think of it in terms of ecological balance. If we did not hunt the deer, we would eventually be forced to exterminate them.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: akenaton
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 07:31 PM

Rapaire....Thanks for that informative post, I wish all discussion with hunters was as reasoned.
I agree with much you say but must always come back to the basic point that to take pleasure in killing is wrong.
I also agree that the"golden age " for man must have been the "hunter gatherer " period where we lived within nature, not outside it.
Our supposed "civilisation" leaves a lot to be desired.
       Best Wishes ...Ake

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Dave Wynn
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 07:35 PM

I don't like the idea of bullfighting. But it's not my heritage or culture. I would not intrude on another persons culture.

I don't hunt fox but it's been a "sport" for many hundreds of years. Both on horseback and on foot (as in the lake district). Because it's old doesn't make it acceptable but it is the culture of the people who do it. The associated industry behind it is also part of their culture. If there were no foxes then there would be no hunt. For a "sport" to have existed for so long means that there is no immediate danger of hunting out the fox.

If we turned to gassing or shooting and all the issues behind these controls (think that when you gas a fox-hole you also gas the other mammals who use these runs) we could upset the ecology.

It's an emotional subject and I am not up to supporting or vilifying the hunters but I do like to support freedom. It may be too unspeakably cruel for some people to tolerate but it is a way of like for others. I would be annoyed if someone tried to alter my way of life.

Spot (who is not a fox hound or terrier) the Dog

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: akenaton
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 07:45 PM

misophist...Thanks for your reply, I realise that things have changed in the natural world, and that we now need to kill magnificent animals to make the lives of gardeners farmers ect easier.This does upset me, but I know, that is the cost of modern living.
That we have to take these steps is a tragedy to me,and I fail to see how any one can take pleasure from it....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 09:58 PM

Ake, an old hunter once told me that you are able to call yourself a true hunter when you can look down the barrel of your rifle, your sights dead on, and say, "Why should I kill that (fill in the blank)? I've got food in the freezer." and you let it go.

It is not NECESSARY today to kill for food. To hunt correctly you do not rejoice in the death of the animal, but in being part of a natural cycle of life and death in which you are part of the predator/prey cycle.

And as two folks found out in Alaska very recently, just because you're human doesn't make you any less prey. The sorrow is that two bears had to die because of someone's failure to recognize "red in tooth and claw" really does exist.

The anthropomorphizing of wild creatures which has taken place in the last century or so is just as bad, in its own way, as the wanton slaughter that preceeded it. There's good reason why it's called the "balance of nature" and we need balance badly -- "which in our case we have not got."

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 10:07 PM

Another thought, related.

Without modern agricultural methods (and I include "organic" farming) and distribution means, vegetarianism and especially veganism would be impossible.

By the way, I had a lovely bowl of buffalo (American bison) stew for dinner.

No, I bought the meat at the local supermarket. It's far less fatty than beef and free of antiobiotics, etc. Tastes very good, too -- as long as you treat it with the respect you should treat ALL food. Buffalo are farm raised, but allowed to graze freely on prairie grasses and slaughtered (by shooting) where they graze.

My favorite breakfast sausage, availabe only in Alaska as far as I know, is reindeer (domesticated caribou). Low fat and delicious -- and farm raised by the Yupik.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Padre
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 10:20 PM

In Alleghany County, VA, the percentage is closer to 75% - deer season starts in about a month. Yum!!

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 10:20 PM

fogie:

Not sure I understand this thread... you're original question was whether 59% of people could possibly be in favor of hunting. You made no mention of fox hunting, and yet there were a lot of responses that singled out fox hunting. I too question the percentage. If you polled people in many rural areas, the percentage would probably be much higher.

When I was growing up, we were poor and didn't have food stamps or government support to fall back on (which I am in favor of, too.) Half the food we ate came from hunting, fishing or harvesting wild plants, from asparagus and several different nuts, to mushrooms. Most families I knew back then survived in the same way. Hunting wasn't a "sport," and in most rural communities, it still isn't.

Living in built-up Connecticut, I wish there were MORE people hunting deer. I'd rather somebody shot one than hit it with their car (for their sake, and the sake of the deer.) I've seen deer hit by cars who die a slow, agonizing death in the woods. We've also had a rabies epidemic the last few years and that would probably have been less of a problem if raccoons were hunted in season.

I don't hunt, myself, and have no desire to. But, I see many benefits of hunting, in controlling wildlife populations. You can put me down as one of the 59% or higher of people who are in favor of hunting... not as a sport, but as a means of putting meat on the table, and in a controlled way, keeping wildlife populations in hand.

On Mudcat, the percentage is probably 2%.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 10:29 PM

Some families garner more from hunter's fees than they do from their crop-planted lands.

Because you are plebian...the source of your angst is obvious.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 10:44 PM

DEER SONG (Leslie Marmon Silko)

Storm winds carry snow
to the mountain stream
clotted white in silence,
pale blue streak under ice
to the sea.

The ice shatters into glassy
bone splinters that tear deep into
soft parts of the hoof.
Swimming away from the wolves
before dawn

        choking back salt water
        the steaming red froth tide.

It is necessary.
Reflections that blind
from a thousand feet of
gray schist
        snow-covered in dying winter sunlight.
The pain is numbed by the freezing,
        the depths of the night sky,
        the distance beyond pale stars.

Do no think that I do not love you
if I scream
        while I die.
Antler and thin black hoof
smashed against dark rock--
                        the struggle is the ritual
shining teeth tangled in
        sinew and flesh.

You see,
        I will go with you,
Because you call softly
because you are my brother
        and my sister
Because the mountain is
our mother.
I will go with you
because you love me
while I die.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 11:30 PM

Well I suppose that it was typically United Statesian(Thats American but specific to the US and not Canada or Mexico) of me to assume that this thread was about hunting in the US. I never once considered that it could be about hunting in the UK. Or anywhere else for that matter. So I appologize for that.

But I am still going to defend my stand on hunting and fishing as a neccessary function of wildlife management.

Don Meixner

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 11:34 PM

Not United Statesian at all, Don... the thread Only asked about the percentage of people who would be in favor of generic hunting in a generic country... could be turtle squashing in Guatemala. (Which I am strongly opposed to, by the way.)

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 11:46 PM

Jeepers Jerry, I've never tried Turtle Squash. How are they prepared?

Don

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Oct 03 - 11:50 PM

I remember hearing a lecturer a few decades back who described standing on the rim of a volcanic crater on an island in the South Pacific and seeing, two-hundred feet below him, lava glowing and roiling. He returned to his hotel, and from his room he could see the volcano. About two hours after he had been on the rim, he saw the glowing lava spill over the rim and begin running down the sides of the mountain. He thought about the power it had taken to lift that immense weight of molten rock two-hundred feet and begin to eject it. Being of a poetic bent, he thought, "Wondrous indeed is the power of Nature!" Some months later, back in the States, he heard a commercial on the radio for Carter's Little Liver Pills. The company slogan was "Help Nature Along." The lecturer said that if these pills actually had the power to help Nature, he wondered what might have been the effect if he had dropped a few of them into the volcano.

This is by way of introducing what is probably a dumb question:   How did wildlife manage itself before we came along?

Just curious.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 12:11 AM

Don,

Humans were part of wildlife up until the time that the Greek philosophers decided Man and Nature were two separate things. We ate, and were eaten.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: LadyJean
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 12:13 AM

Frick Park is a wooded ravine in the city of Pittsburgh. I'm not sure when the deer moved in, but they're there. I've seen them galloping across Forbes Avenue, and adjacent streets. I've met them while visiting the family plot in Homewood Cemetery. I don't mind them. But I understand that Frick Park can support only so many.
This having been said, the last thing I want to see in Frick Park is a drunken fool with a gun, and this is what many hunters are.
One of the reasons the deer population is so large is that the State Game comission has for many years made it easier for drunken fools to take their guns into the woods and kill a nice, big buck.
Tom Leher's song about the hunter who bags two game wardens and a purebred Jersey cow, sums up the kind of idiots who give hunters a bad name. My sister bought land in rural West Virginai, where locals hunt for food. She intends to "Post" her land. (Which means prohibit hunting.) To protect her property from trigger happy idiots who would just as soon shoot her poodle as a deer. (Her poodle isn't a dog, it's a barking rodent, but she adores the beast.)
Kudos to the judge in Illinois who put that trigger happy fool in his place!

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 12:18 AM

The secret is, SRS, that whoever thought that up was wrong.

What I think is so cool is that after death the first thing that starts feeding on people is their own digestive tract flora (assuming that external fauna don't eat 'em first).

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 12:31 AM

Ladyjean, drunken fools with guns must be a New Jersey/West Virginia phenomenon.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,Chip2447
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 12:49 AM

The deer population in Missouri is estimated to be over a million animals. This up from next to nothing at the turn of the last century. Until the Mid 1930's deer hunting was banned because of low population. Now the annual harvest is 200,000+ animals, much of which goes to food pantries.
deer history in Missouri

I don't see much of an alternitive to hunting.

Chip2447

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: katlaughing
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 12:52 AM

We've had them out here in WY and CO ever since I can remember, DOn and they usually came from back East or California!**bg**

I support the right to arm bears and abhor the loss of natural habitat to human enclaves. It's just another way that humankind mucks about with Nature, then uses violent means to deal with it.

If we did not hunt the deer, we would eventually be forced to exterminate them too bad the deer can't say the same thing about humans, imo!

Bring on the BocaBurgers!!:-)

kat

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 01:54 AM

Those brave, brave plum-in-the-mooth "aristocrats" who gallantly take to the moors each August have the same effect on me as the smell of vomit. If only somebody could find a way to fit the grouse with guns and train them to fire back---now wouldn't that be exciting. Rapaire and others---damn' right; if you want to kill it, be hungry enough to eat it, or know someone who is. "Trophy" hunters? They were all real nasty little kids---and haven't grown out of it.
Hope you found your coat, Giok.......

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 02:01 AM

katlaughing: I am astonished to find myself quoted. I meant that very seriously. And I agree with you. Very seriously.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: harvey andrews
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 04:03 AM

The posters are put up by the "Countryside Alliance" an ad hoc group trying to prevent the British Govt from banning fox hunting. As to believing in freedom, Britain has over the years banned bull baiting, and badger baiting the equivilant torturing of animals for pleasure enjoyed by the poorer section of society in the past.Would we now, in the name of freedom want to bring these "sports" back?

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: gnu
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 05:26 AM

My apologies for not having enough time to read this thread before heading off to work (I will get to it), BUT, the fact of the matter is that my hunting does not affect you tree huggers so sod off. As far as the "sports" where animals are tortured or run to death, I am as appalled as you are. Just don't compare apples with oranges when it comes to real hunting. And don't judge hunting by what you see on the TV. Those assholes on TNN who hunt just for the "trophy" and "score" the kill based on the rack are giving the rest of us a bad name.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Beverley Barton
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 05:38 AM

equal rights for vegetables.That's what I say!!!9