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

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 05:53 AM

I do not understand it when people say that a way of life will change if fox hunting is banned. Hardly. There are alternatives if one wants to prolong the spectacle including drag hunting. This would avoid the bloodied mess they call their trophy . Foxes should be culled by humane methods in areas where they are considered a threat to wildlife or a spreader of diseases. Personally, I thnk the only vermin are the one's on the horses. I witnessed a foxhunt many years ago-if someone would like to tell me the difference between that bloodythirsty frenzy and a pack of football hooligans, then I would love to be enlightened. If foxes continue to be a problem, which no doubt they do, then deal with it, don't make it into an excuse for savagery.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 05:55 AM

Well fox numbers (especially the urban variety) have got rather out of hand, so we have to find some way to cull them. OK, I know that many foxes die an agonising death - many are left writhing in pain for hours, but should this stop us from continuing to kill them in the most efficient way that has ever been discovered. After all we are about the only predator that the fox has. Fox Hunting ? - no that only kills very few - I'm talking about the real thing - road kills with the motor car ! Come on - jump in your car - a 4x4 is even better - let's ALL hunt foxes.

Seriously, the number of foxes killed by hunts is less than 0.1% of the number of fox killed by cars. I don't particularly support fox-hunting, but then I'm even more pissed off by that other money-making, media filling, violence creating, time wasting, bloodsport - football - and I stop short at advocating a ban on that. It's strange that very few people seem to voice one of my reservations about fox-hunting, the injuries/deaths caused to the horses and hounds. Isn't angling a cruel form of hunting - recent research has shown that fish do feel pain. What's the difference ? - Fox Hunting is seen as a minority sport (rather like pistol shooting was) and even worse it's seen as an upper class one. What people shut their eys to is the fact that the people who will be out of a job if hunting is banned will definitely not be upper class - still if they have to move out of their cottages they'll be plenty of "townies" waiting to buy them !

How many of you people who so vociferously oppose fox hunting would be willing to accept a 20mph speed limit on all urban and suburban roads during the period of the year when the young foxes are first having to fend for themselves ? Even with the size of the current fox population, the food supply is inadequate and many are dying of hunger. I suppose if we help it to grow any larger, we'll all have to start buying "Fox Food" from the supermarket to put out in the garden.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 06:12 AM

All the foxes I've seen round Harlow - and more times than not when I'm out late I'm likely to see one - seem fairly healthy.   A combination of rubbish bins and rabbits and suchlike I imagine. And a good few people do indeed put food out.

Yes, and cars do indeed serve as predators, and don't need to be supplemented by Foxhunters, who in fact kill relatively few foxes, and who could have just as much fun draghunting.

As for other hunters who see it as getting back to nature, wouldn't that be done far more effectively by dispensing with the modern technology, and relying on knives and spears? More especially when it came to hunting animals that might put up a fight. "Guns are for wimps".

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 06:31 AM

Kevin, the trouble is that many modern foxes are not learning to kill rabbits, the numbers of which have risen alarmingly in the last fifteen years. They generally find it easier to live on the remains of take-away fast food, dusbin contents etc. and because of this haven't the strength, stamina, skill, or inclination to chase fast moving prey. Further in to London, many of the foxes we see seem to be in very poor condition with a sizeable percentage of them appearing to be extremely undernourished.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 07:35 AM

I sometimes wish there was a law prescribing that for any survey data to be cited there should at least the following informations be given:
(1) the date of the survey
(2) the population from which a sample was drawn and
(3) the exact wording of the question
(4) who has payed for the survey
(5) who has actually made it

The better newspapers do most that most of the time.

Just to put an end to all the fancy speculations about how this research was done and what might have been the question:

The survey of which a single figure was cited here has been commissioned by the Committee of Inquiry into Hunting with Dogs and been done by a university and an independent institute which before has also done surveys for anti-hunting groups. The survey has been done in 2000 and it was done in four different rural areas of GB (Cumbria, Devon/Somerset, Leistershire, Powys; with wildly differing results from area to area).
The target question (one of many different) has been:
"And to what extent would you support or oppose a ban on hunting with dogs in Britain?"
Those responding "tend to oppose" (14%) and "strongly oppose" (45%) add up to 59%.

And if you don't believe me, click here to read a short summary. On that page you find a cklickable zip.file that enables you to read the full report with all questions and tables.

Just thought you would prefer to speculate on a factual basis.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 08:27 AM

Rabies is endemic in the US; if you're afield and a fox (or any other critter) exhibits a lack of fear of you (and other symptoms), you don't fool with it. You either call a professional or deal with it yourself. Then the brain is examined.

Coyotes, kydogs, cats, and other mammals have all been found rabid. The situation here is in that regard different from that in the UK and Europe. That said, I still don't like fox hunting.

A friend and I, years back, were driving along backroads one night when we hit a fox. Bob stopped the car, reversed, and we found the animal thrashing in the ditch, its lower back obviously broken and also obviously in considerable pain. We had a .38 revolver with us (for reasons we need not go into except to say that they were not illegal) and we shot the fox. It died instantly and I swear that I heard it thank us. A gorgeous animal.

If you need to hunt foxes, why not just shoot them or trap them and then kill them? I honestly don't see the need to run them down from horseback and never have. (And use the pelts!)

As for hunting with spears -- well, there's a small group of folks that do just that, but in most states it's against the law. So I like those who use traditional archery equipment, shotguns, muzzleloaders, or single-shot rifles, all without telescopic sights. You have to get close enough for the shot to count WITHOUT spooking the game, and that takes skill on many levels.

Drinking ALWAYS takes place AFTER the hunt, not before or during. ALWAYS. And you don't hunt with a hangover. Believe me you don't. Hunting under the influence should be treated as driving is, at least.
But I'll say this: in better than 40 years of going afield for the purpose of taking game, I've never yet hunted with a drunk or even seen one out hunting. I'm sure they exist, but they've never come onto MY scope. (God, I hate to think what Hangin' Dave would sentence a drunk hunter to!)

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Fiolar
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 09:22 AM

According to an article in one of the Sunday newspapers this week, the latest craze is the rise of "trophy" hunting once again. Apparently thousands of pounds/dollars are being spent by well off assholes who book via the internet to go on hunting expeditions to place like British Columbia, Africa and India to shoot polar bear, lions, panthers, tigers and what have you. The situation in respect of some of the aninmals is getting pretty desperate and many species are on the verge of extinction. Perhaps it's a short step until some of the science fiction stories I have read over the years comes true in that convicted criminals could become the next prey for the trophy hunters.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 09:33 AM

ai find the reasons given for the rationalization of hunting a bit odd..

For Food, to protect nature from itself, to cull the herda and so on.

The average deer taken by hunters provides less than thiry pound of meat. Factor in..gas...guns...bullets and the average cost of this "essential to feed my family" meat is about 56.00 dollars a pound.
As for the second, hunters are conservationists...well, that does not even bear discussing. There are ways of culling without sending thousands af armed people into the forests to shoot animals indiscriminately.

Hunting , like boxing, is one of the last holdovere from a far more primitive time.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 09:54 AM

So is Folk Singing, Morris Dancing etc !

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Fiolar
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 09:59 AM

Well I don't think that Morris Dancers and Folk Singers use fire-arms in their performances, at least the ones I've seen didn't.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 10:31 AM

A lot of unsupported "facts" are being thrown around rather loosely in this thread. The assassination of the characters of hunters is typical but also ultimiately alarming. Rapaire, it is no "secret" that the Greeks got it wrong, whole fields of philosophy are arguing about this as we speak, but the idea has so ingrained itself into western thought that there is practically no eradicating it.

Truth be told, hunters and people who fish are generally much more in tune with the natural world around them, they don't derive "pleasure" from killing, but they do insist on a much higher level of agency when it comes to obtaining their own food. If you only buy your meat pre-processed in the grocery store, filled with all sorts of agricultural chemicals and with the heavy burden of the environmental blight that surrounds feed lots and packing plants, then you are in a piss poor position to criticize anyone who chooses to shorten the number of links in the chain between a living creature and food on the plate, and improve the quality of meat by lightyears. And if you think trophy hunting is immoral, well, you don't want my opinion of such popular non-hunting pursuits as the Indy 500 and Nascar, highly profligate "sports" in which many resources (i.e. oil that we fight wars over goes into fuel, rubber, and plastic) and the pollution (air and noise) compromise the quality of life for a lot of people.

For humans to insist that there are too many deer or too many foxes is to admit our complicity and small understanding of the natural world as we fool with populations in nature. There aren't enough predators because humans have been knocking them off ever since they figured out that wolves and lions and such eat domesticated animals such a sheep and goats and cattle. And heaven forbid some hiker or camper be knocked off but that another predator is shot for the mortal sin of tasting devine human flesh. There should be risks associated with the natural world if we go out into Nature, and this is one of them. And now since we insist on growing tasty plants that we water heavily in our yards, starving animals come looking for food. Predators follow their prey into our cities. What do we do? Shoot the predators and complain about the deer in the camillias. Duh.

For some excellent background on deer populations on protected lands, and attitudes toward hunters and observations about hunter behavior, you might want to look at Jan Dizard Going Wild: Hunting, Animal Rights, and the Contested Meaning of Nature. This is just one of several very good books on the subject. Another, by one of my Environmental Ethics professors, is The Animal Rights/Environmental Ethics Debate: The Environmental Perspective by Eugene Hargrove.

Hunters, like others who go away from home for a few days, have been known to misbehave. This has nothing to do with hunting as an activity and everything to do with social pressures on behavior. If you're in your own back yard, you behave. If you're in someone else's back yard, a few wild oats may be strewn. The same goes with Spring Break partiers at southern beaches and Conventioneers anywhere. Conflating the issues just muddies the discussion, a popular tactic for those who are opposed to hunting and will take any means to disparage the activity.

SRS (who wrote her thesis on the topic of hunting and environmental ethcis)

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 10:51 AM

Speaking of unsupported facts..there is nothing to support the notion, constantly toted by hunters, that they are better conservationists than the rest of us. As for killing "wild meat" as an an envrionmentally more friendly alternative to game at over fifty dollars a pound, well I don't get that logic at all. Predators are becoming extinct, largely due to over hunting. Again, I think it must be difficult to rationalize an activity that makes no envirormental of social sense and that sneds thousands of armed people into to woods rendering them unsafe for other humans. I must be daft, but I just do't get it.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 10:57 AM

Guest you have just illustrated my point. Your argument lacks any teeth.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Amos
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 11:05 AM

I want some comparable data. What per cent of this unidentified survey population, for example, approve of farming? Courting? Inventing various idols? Swimming and diving? Meetings for organizational purposes? Shopping in large department stores?

I think we need to post similar signs for the results on each of these across the land to ensure the knowledge is properly disseminated.


A

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

GUEST who claims the average cost of hunting deer meat equals $56.00 a pound...where on earth did you get that??? That's crap.

My family has been hunting deer for many years and over time the cost is probably pennies...believe me, my family is not wealthy and eating venison over the years was/is a cost-savng measure as much as anything else. These days the deer meat my father, brother or sister get is mostly given away, but the people getting it are as likley as not just making ends meet themselves, and very likely to truly appreciate the nutritious addition to their larder (me for instance).

Your figure may be true for the one-time hunter who goes in for fancy designer rifles, etc. But where I come from, a deer permit, hunting rifle license, a basic shotgun, ammunition and the amount of gas needed to get to the woods would, for a one-time kill of one animal, yielding, as you say, thirty pounds of meat, equal more along the lines of $8.00 or $9.00 a pound...and that's just once. Add up more deer killed with that same gun over the years, and the price goes down considerably.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 11:22 AM

Aldo Leopold, modern father of Environmental Ethics, was an avid hunter and fisherman. His Sand County Almanac is as good a place to start as any if you want the environmental musings of a hunter. This is a collection of essays from over the years that he worked in forestry and then in game management. His "Thinking Like a Mountain" essay reveals the epiphany, when he saw the value of predators as part of the natural system. The volume I've linked to is most authoritative copy of the book. For a look at some of Leopold's other writings take a look at The River of the Mother of God and Other Essays by Aldo Leopold. Through this book you can see the evolution of thought as Leopold reached his mature philosophy regarding the balance of the natural world, in which predators (human and other) are necessary.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 11:35 AM

More than teeth, Guest's argument lacks truth.

According to the Red List's assessment, OVERhunting is third. Habitat loss to humans is first.

Overhunting predators? Guest, you need special permits to do anything of the sort in US, usually.

30 pounds of venison? Guest, you shoot fawns or what? Or do you only eat the "choice cuts" and leave the rest to rot? I've NEVER seen a shot deer that yielded so little meat!

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 12:07 PM

A survey was done in New Brunswick in 1999 to determine the cost per pound of venison...

It was based on...meat left behind at a kill site, cost of gas based on a twenty mile to and from hunting area, cost of ammo for a three day trip, cost of gas for a three day trip. I honestly don't recall who did the surevey but I did read it and it seemed that many people, hunters included, agrred that it was reasonably accurate. Also, I grew up in a VERY rural area and very few of the hunters who trespassed on our property seemed to me to be very conscious of the fragility of the world around them. Nor did they seem very respectful of farms of livestock.
   I simply do not believe there is any evidence to support the notion that hunters are any better conservationists than anyone else.
   Much of my opinion of hunters is based on my personal observations over a long period of time. Perhaps I was unfortunate and was only exposed to the non conservationist variety.
    There may be cultural reasons to hunt, but I see no logical ones.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 12:22 PM

The last deer my Father killed, he drove over to my Uncle's farm about ten miles away, got out of his car, loaded his old 12 gauge shotgun, walked into the woods, shot a deer, and tied it to the car.
And we ate well for a long time...

And I agreee that hunters drink after the hunt, just as folk singers often drink after they sing.. :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 12:25 PM

Guest, pick up a book and read it. Offer a citation to reach the study you suggest exists. There are several others at Mudcat who argue the same way you do, no substance, just stubborn insistence that you're right and everyone else is wrong, "don't bother me with the facts."

Get out your calculator and figure out how much it costs every time you drive to the grocery store. Do you get lunch while you're out there? Count it in. If you're counting the cost of a hunter's togs, then count the cost of what you're wearing to shop. Everything has a cost. Hot air is cheap.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 12:33 PM

"·. but I see no logical ones."
it simply depends on where you are, who you are, and how you were trained. I know a man in W. Va. who sometimes goes out in his back yard and harvests a local deer for food.....I know also a woman who moved to Vermont and was aghast when deer season opened to see idiots driving slowly down rural roads in pickups with shotguns cradled in their laps, drinking beer and shooting at things than seemed to be moving in nearby woods.

If reason were followed, wildlife would be protected when necessary to maintain the population, and hunting would be allowed when possible for those with proper training and needs and idiots would be prosecuted as noted above.

I thank Wolfgang for the link to the REAL story of the original post.

one more thought: fish may be caught, weighed, thrown back and caught again...for a fox or deer, it doesn't work that way.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 12:50 PM

The most telling arguments here are from people in favor of hunting. That's as it should be. Even though I don't do it, I believe it's necessary. But to be completely fair, the conscientious hunters I have known have all complained that the number of ignorant assholes with shotguns seems to increase every year. The laws don't need changing, though, just enforcing. Such as:

Only hunt where it's permitted.

Never fire until you're certain of the target (in all situations)

This isn't a law, perhaps it should be: Never let a wounded animal go off to die in the woods. It's cruel and unethical.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: fogie
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 01:03 PM

Well I knew I should have put UK in the title, but it has certainly broadened the argument. I was assuming that the posters were about the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable, but I have adjusted my understanding, with regards to the whole hunting scene, and thank you Wolfgang for finding out where the % came from. Its all Statistics, isnt it, and politics ,and saying one thing to imply another.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 01:19 PM

I did not make up the survey.. I did read it. I am sorry that I do not recall who did it. I know that I am basing some of my argument on personal observations but I do feel this is a legitimate waY OF Arriving at reasoned opinion.
I would also like to see the survey that suggests that hunters are also conservationists.
   I know this is a touch subject for many people . However, I still don't get it and I have been a so called "rural" person all of my life.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 01:25 PM

Yes, misophist.

1. Treat every gun as if it were a loaded gun until you personally have proved otherwise.

2. Never point a gun, loaded or not, at anything you don't want to kill.

3. Be sure of your target.

4. Be sure of your backstop.

5. Be sure of your gun and ammunition.

6. Never fire at a surface from which the bullet will ricochet, or at water.

7. Never shoot with anyone who breaks these rules.

8. Never mix alcohol and gunpowder.

There are two more, but right now I can't remember them, probably because they're part of me. I learned -- had to memorize -- the "Ten Commandments" when I was 12 and learning to shoot, BEFORE I was permitted to even dry-fire a weapon. And I mean KNOW them. We sat through nine hours of safety instructions before dry-firing, and 3 hours of dry-fire before we were ever allowed to load and fire at targets -- on range -- under supervision.

That's the sort of background Hangin' Dave and I come from.

A note about number 8: at 12, we weren't sure what that meant, so we assumed that the alcohol would get your gunpowder wet and the bullet wouldn't shoot!

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Peg
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 01:32 PM

good rules, Rapaire, it'd be nice if all   "hunters" followed   them. Sadly, even when people   do, accidents happen. But most of the accidental shooting of humans on hunting trips could be avoided if these rules were observed.

I still recall the guy in Maine who got off with a slap on the wrist after shooting and killing a woman in her own back yard; he shot TOWARDS her house, which she was about twenty feet from. He thought she was a deer. Apparently the white fur trim on her blue ski jacket looked just like a deer's white tail. The locals supported him, because the couple had recently moved there from NEW YORK STATE. (Binghamton)

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: katlaughing
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 01:36 PM

With five kids to feed and only one income, my parents often didn't have a lot to spend on groceries. We learned to handle guns, responsibly, as soon as we were big enough to hold a pistol or rifle.They were only used for target-practice or to put an injured animal down. My dad never hunted and we were able to survive without him resorting to it, despite the fact that he grew up in the rural West, as did we.

BillD said, If reason were followed, wildlife would be protected when necessary to maintain the population, and hunting would be allowed when possible for those with proper training and needs and idiots would be prosecuted as noted above.

Eben though I don't like hunting, I have to say Bill makes sense, as usual.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 01:48 PM

I don't hunt - but I would be interested in what other methods of culling are available that would result in the necessary reduction of deer population?


For example - between two hundred and three hundred thousand deer are taken by hunters every year in NY state - over an area of 47 thousand plus square miles - leaving a population that is *STILL* too large for the carrying capacity of the land.

BTW - about 100,000 lbs of venison get donated to food pantries each year from those deer taken.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 01:51 PM

BTW - according to our local fish and wildlife guys - about 90% of "fish and release" fish die anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 01:52 PM

Which tells me that the hunting is not for food but for fun.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 03:05 PM

So?

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

This will probably draw just as much flak as the suggestion that anyone who buys a handgun be required to take a gun safety course, but frankly, I think anyone who gets a hunting license should fulfill a similar requirement, or at the very least, be required to recite from memory the above-mentioned Ten Commandments. There are a lot of intelligent, responsible hunters (some of them are friends of mine), but no matter how you slice it, there are a bunch of idiots out there.

A friend of mine has a mountain cabin, which he studiously vacates prior to the opening day of deer hunting season. One year he goofed. He told me that in the early hours of the morning, he was startled awake by a gunshot nearby. He suddenly realized that this was opening day of hunting season. The season starts at official sunrise, but he said this shot, which was followed by several more, occurred about an hour before official sunrise. Also, his cabin was on the western slopes of the Cascades, and even after sunrise, it's still very dark. The rattle of gunfire gradually increased, and by official sunrise (by the clock, but still dark), he said that it sounded like the battle of Pork Chop Hill going on all around him.

"The deer around there are smart," he told me. "I've seen it happen season after season. There are deer all over the place, but they know when hunting season starts, and they all take off about a week beforehand. By the day hunting season opens, there isn't a deer within fifty miles of the place." Then he added, "Those guys were burning a lot of gunpowder. I wonder what in the hell they were shooting at!??"

Well, maybe another friend of mine provided at least one answer. He had gone deer hunting one day and came up empty. Hadn't even seen a deer, or much of anything else. He decided to pack it in, and was walking down a jeep trail toward where he had parked his car. He was out in the open. The grass on either side of the jeep trail was about knee-high, so he was in plain sight. Also, he was wearing a bright orange vest. The nearest trees were a clump about a hundred yards away. Suddenly, between an audible ripping sound past his ear and the sound of a shot—coming from the nearly clump of trees—he knew someone had taken a shot at him. He hit the dirt. He yelled. Another shot rang out, also from the clump of trees and in his direction. He yelled again, but he was answered with a third shot. In a mixture of terror and rage, he reached for his holster, where he kept a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum Highway Patrolman (he had already unloaded his rifle). With a two-hand hold, he panned across the clump of trees and emptied the cylinder. He reloaded and waited. After about ten minutes, nothing. Still holding the revolver at the ready and prepared to hit the dirt again, he slowly got up. Still nothing. He picked up his rifle and cautiously proceeded down the jeep trail to his car, got in, and drove off. He had to stop at the nearest town, go into a diner, and spend some time over a cup of coffee while his nerves calmed down enough to drive back to the city.

"Do you suppose you nailed whoever it was?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said, "and frankly, I don't give a damn. But I checked the news, and there's been nothing about any hunters dead or missing, so I doubt it. I hope I sent him home with his pants loaded. Maybe next time, he'll make sure he doesn't shoot at anything that can shoot back!"

And then there was the farmer who painted "COW" on both sides of his cow. Didn't help. Someone shot it anyway.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 03:11 PM

I believe NYS *does* require a hunting safety course before you can get a license. I may be wrong - as I said - I don't hunt; just cook the results.

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

I guess he was just doing what good conservationists (Hunters do) culling the herd, being an excellent field naturalist and saving us all from too much wildlife.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 03:38 PM

kat...thanks for the vote of confidence..I don't hunt, myself...was never in a life where it was needed or relevant. Have only fired two guns in my life, about 3 times each, and not for 35 years...but I do NOT have what a friend refers to as BBES .."Big Brown Eyes Syndrome" I eat meat, and was actually gifted with some venison from the W. Va. folks recently. I don't know why some issues have to all black & white for some people--the serious issues in life almost never have simple solutions.

I do think, however, that anyone caught abusing or ignoring firearms s laws should NEVER be allowed near one again...NO second chance.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 04:09 PM

Remember I said I don't hunt anymore and I haven't in 25 years. The guns I own are long guns that are too valuable to shoot. So I don't do either and my world woul;dn't be ruined if I never hunted or fired a gun again.

But:


New York state requires a hunter safety course at any age starting at 14 to get a hunting license. There are age requirements for small and big game tickets as well as regional requirements for which guns may be used in which zones. Some guns are deemed too small a caliber for safe and effective hunting in NYS. A .22 caliber rifle and.410 shotgun are not allowed in the field durning big game season. The reason is a .410 and the .22 hasn't the power to bring down a deer and the shot gun will chamber 30.06 round all tho' the bullet itself does tend to rattle around the barrell a might.

Other states necessarily don't have this requirements.

I see nothing wrong with requiering gun safety courses and refreshers as a requirement to gun ownership. Just as long as you aren't denied the right as a lawbiding United Statesian citizen to own a gun once the courses are passed.

BTW MMario, I have heard those same figures only in reverse from guys in the same uniform.. Maybe the forum is more important than the uniform when it comes to statistics.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 04:10 PM

NO! Peg. NO!

There are NO SUCH THINGS as accidents with firearms! NONE!

There is only carelessness.

If your weapon is faulty, you're careless in its care. If you grab the muzzle of a loaded weapon and drag it across the carseat towards you, you're careless in handling a weapon (and probably badly hurt or dead). If you fail to uncock your muzzleloader before coming down from a tree stand, you're carelss. If you fail to properly identify your target, you're careless. If you fail to have a proper backstop and your bullet goes through a house, you're careless. If you fall, plug your barrel with mud, "shoot it out" and your gun blows up, you're careless.

**In handling guns for more than forty-five years, as a civilian and in the military, I have learned that there is ONLY carelessness. And there are NO excuses for carelessness.**

And by the way, I believe that EVERY state requires hunter safety courseS before you can get a license. Good hunters take them every few years, just to keep the knowledge fresh.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 04:25 PM

or I could have remembered them backwards too Don!   Or it could have been a specific fish species.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: katlaughing
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 04:32 PM

Rapaire, in Wyoming only hunters born after 1965 are required to have a hunter's safety certificate with them. No refresher courses mentioned.

Bill, thanks...I do have BBES, but it is also a spiritual choice for me.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 04:48 PM

Slight language problem in this thread
English
Hunting = chasing animals to death with hounds (no American equivalent)
Shooting = killing edible game with a rifle or shotgun (American: Hunting)

There is some justification in the claim that hunting is the most humane way of culling foxes but anybody who regards it as a spectator sport is just sick.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 05:43 PM

Rapaire,

I know what you mean and have a lot of sympathy for good training and following safety measures. but: NO NO NO.

The idea that error free performance is possible and that all accidents can be avoided has long been given up in industrial (and other) accident research. It is impossible not to err once in a while.
Humans will, in ca. 1 out of 500 cases, mix up left and right or up and down. They could double ckeck and that helps somewhat but doesn't rule out all errors for even in double checks there is a small error rate. Error free performance is a phantome.

But I applaud any approaches to the unreachable here.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: akenaton
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 05:45 PM

The groups of hunters I referred to in a previous post,come to my area in fleets of jeeps,dressed in all the latest designer hunting gear and armed with shotguns rifles ect.They usually come to shoot specially reared pheasant and grouse.The birds are fed by hand for months before the shoot ,so are quite tame.When the shoot begins the birds are released on a patch of moorland,and chased towards the guns by a few local beaters.they are so heavy from over feeding that they can hardly gain any height and have no fear of humans .
I have watched these hunters blast the pheasants to pieces on several occasions.
These people are wealthy ...They dont need the birds as food...There is no sport involved...So why do they do it?   Sick minds!!
For all the facts and information from the hunters on this forum ,nobody has attempted to justify KILLING FOR FUN....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: NicoleC
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 06:16 PM

I don't think anyone here thinks killing is fun or is trying to justify sport hunting. But the kind of idiots that think 10 horses and 30 hounds vs. 1 fox is sporting are not equivalent with "hunters."

Personally, I don't see how being chased to the point of exhaustion and then being ripped to shreds while alive by a pack of dogs can be called humane.

When we were growing up, we didn't live somewhere where we could hunt for food, but we would have if we could. Too many people around to hunt deer, and the deer didn't bother us much -- they ate some of our food, but they didn't take an unreasonable amount. That didn't stop us from shooting the endless supply of squirrels that ruined our crops. (Squirrels don't just eat food, they often destroy what they aren't going to eat. One squirrel can strip a peach tree in a couple of days and not actually eat a whole peach.) There was no pleasure in it, and we quickly refused to eat squirrel -- but it WAS a necessity where we were.

My grandpa always hunted deer on a friend's private land that had so many deer my grandpa would feel guilty that it was so easy to kill them. They had several freezers to handle the yearly surplus, until they got rid of the freezers and started donating most of it to the poor people in town instead. Venison is darn tasty, and an excellent source of high quality protein in poor rural areas. I know the meat that can be purchased in that part of the country is rather old and turning gray (or green) by the time it gets to the supermarket unless you buy your meat from one of the door-to-door frozen meat salesmen.

My grandpa always called it "Forest Cow" -- an excellent way of looking at it for those who get upset over the idea of hunting but feel prefectly fine eating their factory farm meat raised and slaughtered in horribly inhumane conditions. ("BBES" -- LOL Bill!)

A properly managed hunting program can be a humane and effective way to handle overpopulation of prey animals -- essentially, we replace the predator animals.

How we keep the drunken idiots with guns out of the picture is a different problem altogether.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 06:26 PM

Guest and Akenaton, hunting is an important activity for many people who you will never come into contact with, will never see in designer clothes out shooting over-fed farm-raised birds. But the two of you can't get over characterizing all hunters as fitting that category, or suggesting that the very moment when the bullet hits the animal is so sublime for hunters that they are overwhelmed with pleasure. Get real. It's a poignant part of the process, and there is true relief in knowing the animal died instantly. There is an appreciation of the animal and it's beauty, and the bounty for your table. Same with fishing.

Hunting is a complex activity, requiring preparation, time, patience, more time, and if you're lucky, meat on the table. There is a relationship between the hunter and the prey. Go read that poem I posted above, by the Laguna Pueblo author who grew up hunting in New Mexico, where her family needed the meat. Why should the mountain lion be entitled to eat deer but not humans? Go read William Faulkner. In particular, I recommend Go Down, Moses. This is a beautiful novel with many representations of this hunter/hunted relationship.

Guest, you're just repeating yourself and stirring things up in the annoying habit of anonymous guests. I suggest you give yourself a moniker and use it.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: akenaton
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 06:56 PM

SRS Please dont be so patronising. Iv lived in the country all my life and dont need any lectures on the wonder of nature. As a matter of fact the natural cycle has a very big effect on how i conduct my life,and I resent having to watch a band of boorish oafs destroy tame animals
Its no use brushing the point about killing for fun under the carpet as you attempted to do, as this is the crux of the hunt\anti hunt argument.
Surely your thesis attempted to address that point.   Ake

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 07:06 PM

Wolfgang, the fact that humans create errors (we seem to have it built into us) doesn't change the fact that they can get careless. An "accident" is by definition unavoidable and beyond your control or means of prevention. But "accidents" with firearms can be controlled -- that some errors slip in is because, as you say, humans aren't machines.

What should be is again so very different from what is!

I accept an error rate in my work, as does any honest manager. I can even accept a death rate were I working on such a project (building a dam, for instance). As the saying is, sh*t happens. But my point isn't that people are error-prone, it's that as far as I can tell every error in handling firearms has carelessness as its root cause.

Kat, I'm aware of the "grandfather clauses" in the laws. If I remember rightly, Kentucky's year is 1985! But the old timers will die out and eventually everyone will be required to take the course. And I said that smart hunters re-took the course, not all hunters! E.g., my brothers and I are all "grandfathered" but both of them not only have taken the course several times, but are now certified instructors (one is a Master Instructor).

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

And another thing....YOU SAY "WERE NOT ALL LIKE THAT"
Without exception all the hunters I have encountered have been   "LIKE THAT"..

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 07:18 PM

Ake, perhaps you need to move in better circles?

The silly, selfish, pompous, self-aggrandizing, wasteful, snobs who you are familiar with are everywhere. If they weren't killing birds they'd be doing something equally distasteful -- driving an SUV, perhaps, or contributing to political campaigns or even running for office. Best you can hope for is that they somehow shoot each other or themselves.

Why don't you (and I'm serious) spend a year with the Yupik or the Inuit or the Navaho or the Hopi or the Lapps? Live in their traditional villages, live with them. They're nice folks, they'll take you in. And maybe you'll be able to flush your system of the swine.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: akenaton
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 07:27 PM

Thanks Rapaire ...You seem like a nice guy (for a hunter).
Maybe Im getting too wound up ,and its getting late .
    All the best, as we say in Scotia.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 10:22 PM

Ever pleasant Guest and Ake,

I'm beginning to think that this has nothing to do with hunting and everything to do with guns.

Do you have the same feeling about men who run slaughter houses and butcher animals that have been raised in feed stalls and force feed
to bloat in favor of high yields and maximum profit? (Do you avoid Big Macs in protest or just eat Tofu burgers. If they are so good, why are the called Garden burgers and Tofu Pups?)

If so, express it so the beef farmers in the group can join the debate.

Fox hunting, gun ownership, opening day for trout, big game hunting, Archery, black powder, first buck. These are all rituals that we have as a part of our human and cultural tradition. Many of these things measured a rite of passage for young men. Some indicated the change of the season. Do we still hunt wrens or just sing the songs? Some were done to celebrate harvests or successful breeding seasons.

Eventually barbaric rites like fox hunting fall by the way side along with sactioned cock fighting in the US and the annual seal pup clubbing by some countries. (Saddly not all have given up the seal hunt yet.) Maybe they all will in time. And I think that with each ritual and tradition that passes we are the less for it. We are that much further away from what we were and we know a little less about us to pass on.

I'm not suggesting that every now and them we burn the odd witch or rape and plunder a few Saxon villages as rite of passage. But I do suggest that we be less anxious to do away, out of hand things that others value even tho' we find them personally distasteful.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 11:30 PM

Akenatan, you have an agenda that isn't allowing you to hear what anyone else is saying. You're the one who is doing the "brushing aside," and belittling well-constructed arguments.

You also don't seem to understand that it really doesn't matter if the deer are tame or not. They're deer and they're fair game. Given your argument, it is easy to imagine an animal rights strategy that would place tame deer off limits then make an effort to tame all of them. I lived in the country every summer, and my father who was a hunter didn't tame the local deer. He made a point of chasing them off if they wandered into the yard. The point? Even if they preferred the vacinity of humans THEY WERE STILL FAIR GAME. If they weren't bright enough to stay away, they were the first ones bagged when the season opened. Most deer usually figure out when it's time to head for high ground. If people have been feeding the deer, more shame on them, because they can't have it both ways--the deer are either wild and more likely to survive, or they're lured by food and easier to see from the kitchen window every morning and evening. But that behavior has a price.

So what is your agenda? Have you been feeding the deer? Is it coming home to roost, so to speak?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: NicoleC
Date: 14 Oct 03 - 11:45 PM

Don as usual has jumped to the heart of the matter.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 12:39 AM

You've probably all read it before, but it is a beautiful poem and offers a different perspective from a hunter's viewpoint:

A Hunter's Poem

by B Lemuel T. Ward

A hunter shot at a flock of geese that flew within his reach.
Two were stopped in their rapid flight and fell on the sandy beach.
The male bird lay at the water's edge and just before he died,
He faintly called to his wounded mate and she draggerd herself to his side.

She bent her head and crooned to him in a way distressed and wild.
Carrying her one and only mate as a mother would a child.
Then covering him with her broken wing and gasping with failing breath,
She laid her head against his breast, a feeble honk ... then death.

This story is true, though crudely told. I was the man in this case.
I stood knee-deep in snow and cold, and the hot tears burned my face.
I buried the birds in the sand where they lay, wrapped in my hunting coat.
And I threw my gun and belt in the bay, when I crossed in the open boat.

Hunters will call me a right poor sport and scoff at the thing I did.
But that day somthing broke in my heart, and shoot again? God forbid.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 07:01 AM

A relationship between the hunter and the prey ? Oh I have heard that before...I would love to know the essence of the relationship, especially from the point of view of the prey. I could abide hunters more easily if they didn't try to justify it with all this bleedin nonsense. Just state it for what it is. Hunters kill animals for sport.\, full stop. I think that most, weather they approve of hunting or not, would appreciate the honesty.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 09:49 AM

Probably the very best deer hunt I was ever on.
by me

It was early December, the sky was still dark, and it was cold -- no snow, but the frost lay very heavily on the stubble of the harvested corn. My brother suggested that I take my muzzleloader and hike down to the Bohn Barn, which was a hole where a barn had once stood, and take stand there.

I agreed, and I and the others began began our walks, to the Old Schoolhouse, the Grainery, the Bohn Barn, and so on. Like the barn, non of these existed any more except as points of reference.

Fifteen minutes of walking brought me to my stand, and I snuggled into a spot where I had good view in all directions, even behind if I turned around.

Warm boots, insulated coveralls, an orange vest, an orange stocking cap fitted over my "Clancy" hat, lightweight gloves, and I was warm even though sitting quietly. The sun rose and I watched as the first rays began to melt the frost from the corn stubble. I slowly turned my upper body, right and left, watching for deer left, right, and straight ahead.

Nothing.

The sun continued rising, the frost was melting, the day was getting warmer, my hole was comfortable. . . .

"Hey!" my brain shouted and I woke up. Ten o'clock. Time for coffee.

I picked up my muzzleloader, carefully dropped the hammer on the nipple, and climbed out of the hole, smiling at the tracks that showed that some deer had grazed along the edge of the hole while I had been napping what? four feet away?

The coffee was hot and good, and the rolls Helen had send down from the house were excellent.

I didn't shoot a deer, but it was a fantastic hunt.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 03:11 PM

Guest, you offer only ill-conceived opinion, yours. You accept no one else's opinion or expertise as valid. You offer no identity as you hide behind anonymity. You're not contributing anything useful the the discussion except discord. Get a life, get an identity, get a few citations, or get lost.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: akenaton
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 05:08 PM

SRS....What does it matter if guest has a mudcat name or not .He or she has consistantly asked you to address the point about killing for sport or fun. You have consistantly refused to address it.
All the other points such as keeping down numbers are secondary to killing for sport ....This is what worries the vast majority of people.
Your points to me, regarding deer feeding ect are just not worthy of an answer,a course I dont usually take.....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 05:15 PM

Ake,

In hunting the reason for the hunt is food, not killing, and believe it or not hunting can be a very spiritual experience. I very sincerely feel that anyone, no matter who they are, who goes afield for the sole purpose of killing something is less than any non-human predator.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: akenaton
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 05:37 PM

Rapaire...I respect your remarks,and I understand the point you make about the spirituality of the hunt.   Please dont think Im being a smart arse,but the National Socialists also claimed spirituality for their abhorrent doctrins....so, that spirituality, is a very personal matter.....I feel that the only spirit about the hunters I see round here, is contained in their hip flasks....Yours in sport ...Ake

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 05:40 PM

No, Akenatan, I have not refused to address it, I have done nothing but address it. You two won't listen to the answers you're given. Get your head out of the sand and go back and read what I and others have posted. You're the ones who somehow think that hunters get an orgasmic thrill at the moment an animal dies. I said not. You seem to think that if someone doesn't admit that you are right, then they're avoiding an issue. But I also have said that the entire enterprise can be enjoyable, when you take all of the elements of the trip and the outcome together. So no one has said that hunting isn't fun. If you don't like the answers you receive, that's your problem. But some very good answers to your concerns have been posted, complete with citations. You and guest, on the other hand, have done nothing but whine and ring your hands.

If you want someone to speak to the big game hunting issues, then email Ted Nugent.

Guests become obnoxious when they don't identify themselves because there's no telling them apart and they are ultimately taking no responsibility for their arguments. Often times they're troublemakers. We have plenty of guests who use a regular moniker because they're using computers on which they don't want a Mudcat cookie, and that is fine.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: akenaton
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 06:01 PM

SRS....The birds I referred to earlier were being fed by the local Estate managment,who oganise the shoot,to provide easy kills for the shooters.
These people pay £1000 per day for their pitch and dont want to go back to Germany or Austria with an empty bag.Of course, they could always go and buy a brace of farmed pheasant for £10, but it wouldnt be the same....Would it!!   Best wishes Ake

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 06:26 PM

Ake,

There are game farms in the US, too. Hunters don't go there.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 09:11 PM

There are all sorts of places where birds and fish are bred for hunting. It's a fact of hunting life in some areas, certainly in the U.S., where it takes a lot of the pressure off of native and/or endangered populations. It's a seasonal source of income for many. People also raise fish in ponds and other people pay to go fish in them. People raise cattle and sell them to meat retailers who slaughter them and sell the meat to other people who eat it. People who eat grains instead of meat buy commercially grown products, often on land where the monoculture of the crops creates a wildlife dead zone (particularly of pesticides and herbicides are used).

Name your poison. No one's hands are clean if you want to start following the convoluted 21st century food chain.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 10:31 PM

Right on target, SRS.

Everything we deliberately eat is dead, dead, dead (I exclude things like yogurt culture -- I'm talking about things we can easily see). In fact, I know of only one dish (no, two) that is eaten while the creature is alive -- and now the eatee is giving the eater Crutchfield-Jakobs's Disease or the equivalent. That's fine with me, as the whole thing is disgusting.

I bring it up to illustrate my point. 99.99999% of the food you deliberately take in is dead. Plants plucked from their stems or yanked unfeelingly from the ground. Decapitated chickens, drawn, plucked, and bled. Cattle. Grains. Fruits and berries that will never fulfill their mission of propogating their species. If you feel squeamish about eating dead stuff, you're gonna starve.

As for orgasmic delight in killing -- did you ever see a five year old pick strawberries? They pull the defenseless berries from their nourishing stems with wild cries of delight, and cram the newly aborted seed carriers into their mouths, the red juice dribbling obscenely down their chins, their hands encarmined with the blood of the berries. And they ram so much down in this orgy of animal appetite that they came make themselves sick!

Disgusting!

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: fishhead50
Date: 15 Oct 03 - 10:57 PM

Alot of quantitative analysis for a such a folksy bunch as we. Mathematician John Paulos says it best, "79.48% of all statistics are made up on the spot".

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Grab
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 08:18 AM

Re hunting, I'm kind of surprised to see the posts saying "go bow-hunting or use a muzzle-loader, it's more ethical because it takes more skill". Either you are hunting strictly for food, or you aren't. If you are hunting strictly for food, you use the most expedient solution which will usually be a shotgun with a damn great slug, a rifle with telescopic sights, or similar. Shoot it and be done. But if you're hunting with a bow or some other archaic weapon, please don't be under any illusion that you're killing the animal for sport in the same way as any English fox-hunter.

As far as pheasant and grouse shooting goes, the birds *do* get eaten. Yes it's hunting for sport, but only in the same way as anyone today hunts or fishes when you can buy meat from the store.

There's additional issues with fox-hunting in that there's no natural predators for them apart from cars. The question is not whether we should kill them, but only how. If not with dogs, we'll need people with guns to go out and shoot them. Choose your method. So long as land is farmed, foxes will be a pest and their numbers must be artificially reduced.

Incidentally, I believe some fox-hunting groups are moving onto mink hunting. Mink escaped from farms and now have colonised almost all rivers in Britain. They are genuine pests in Britain, as a single mink can kill all wildlife for several miles around it and they have no natural controls. For an example from the recent New Scientist, there were two studies of water vole populations in the 1990's, and between the first study and the second study the mink had wiped out 90% of the British water vole population. Absolutely no-one cares about hunting mink (as far as I can tell), and rightly so.

Similarly rabbits can cause huge damage to crops, even more so in areas where they have no real predators. They're eminently shootable.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,Sooz(at work)
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 08:20 AM

Who did they ask to come up with the figure of 59%. (Not me or the foxes!)

Hunting in Britain has nothing to do with putting food on the table. It is "sport".

I've hunted the "big five" in East Africa - with my camera. It was both exciting and satisfying and also gives the local population a much higher standard of living.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: InOBU
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 09:16 AM

Well... where to start. To the guest who spoke of the cost of hunting, and the fact that it is primitive, this is rather typical of the US idea that our way (Urban America) is modern, we own the future, and the rest of the world if they are a folkloric tradition, is primitive. I work with hunter gatherer people in Canada, the Mistashipu Innu, and though they are a folkloric culture with ancient roots, they are as modern as anyone else, and to say that they are primitive because they hunt to survive in a harsh environment where they cannot grow veggies, well it is colonalist thinking.
They would tell you the cost of not hunting is the loss of their nation.
I think there is a definite New World - Old World split here as well, as many folks on the American contenant hunt for subsistence, not for sport, and there is no reason to make anyone feel guilty about it, as long as the pleasure in the communion with the real world is tempered by a reverence for the gift of that communion.
Cheers
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 09:33 AM

Many mink have been released into the wild by stupid animal rights activists who have "liberated" whole mink farms. Perhaps someone should have told them that our native species of animals and birds have rights too. Not only are water voles in great danger so are coots, moorhens, ducklings and any other birds which nest at ground level especially on or near water.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 09:58 AM

I can see them now, riding resplendant in red and green. The baying of the hounds as the hunt master call "View Halloooo!" The cunning mink dives into the water bank and scurries out of site down a hole. The exhausted and some what disappointed well to do canter back to the lodge for wine and tofu burgers.

Actually it is fascinating to think that two of the species on the planet who seemingly kill for fun are pitted against each other now in an elegant and idiotic game of hunt and hide.

Mink and other mustilidae (Ferrests, weasels, fishers,...)don't just kill to eat, the kill to kill. Mink and other nest robbers will raid a hen house, eat hens and eggs until full and then kill all the hen they can and destroy all the eggs. They do the same to pheasant, grouse, partridge, wild turkey as well as song birds.

When the PETA types let loose minks on farms they cut loose a fast breeding virus that quickly over runs the wild life in areas that weren't able to support the new inhabitant. The balance is lost and a new menace is on the land.

This is exactly what happened in an area of central New York about 40 years ago. The decline and elimination of most upland game birds was nearly complete in less than 5 years.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 10:39 AM

I would double check the facts of mink killing everything in sight then not eating it. I am aware that mink and weasles and wolverines have reputations as pretty nasty characters, but this sounds exaggerated. I've seen native weasles in the Northwest hunting small animals, moles, voles, baby rabbits. As difficult as it is to watch, they do keep the rodents and rabbits in check. For this reasons rabbits and rodents continue to breed prolifically, to keep ahead of the predator curve.

I searched the DT and came up with this short essay I posted on a different thread some months back. It bears repeating (and the chuckle is timely in this serious subject matter).--SRS

---

If any of you have ever heard Bailey White's remarks on All Things Considered you may have heard the following. It is a very short essay in her book Mama Makes Up Her Mind and other Dangers of Southern Living.

"Dead on the Road"

My mother eats things she finds dead on the road. Her standards are high. She claims she won't eat anything that's not a fresh kill. But I don't trust her. I require documentation. I won't eat it unless she can tell me the model and tag number of the car that struck it.

Mama is an adventurous and excellent cook, and we have feasted not only on doves, turkeys, and quail, but robins, squirrels, and only once, a possum. I draw the line at snakes. "But it was still wiggling when I got there," she argues. "Let's try it just this once. I have a white sauce with dill and mustard."

"No snakes," I say.

And she won't even slow down for armadillos, although they are the most common dead animal on the road these days. "They look too stupid to eat," she says.

We have a prissy aunt Eleanor who comes to dinner every third Friday. We always get out the linen and polish the silver when she comes. She expects it. Last month we sat her down to an elegant meal, complete with the Spode china and camellias in a crystal bowl.

"The quail are delicious," my aunt sighed. "And I haven't found a single piece of shot. How do you manage it?"

"Intersection of 93 at Baggs Road," recites Mama. "Green late model pickup, Florida tag. Have another one. And some rice, El."

She has many other marvelous essays in the book. I heard some of them over the years on NPR, but others are new to me, and they're all treasures.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 10:44 AM

No chuckles here, SRS, that's just right out gross. At least now I know not to bother with her books.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 11:43 AM

SRS,

This activity has been described to me by several sources. But notice please that I was speaking mainly about birds as a food source.
Also you are talking about a balanced in the wild system with minks and others having their own predators to deal with. Not a small area with few weasel types suddenly being over run by a few hundred breeding pairs of mink with a fairly short gestation time and no abundance of natural enemies about.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 12:08 PM

Rapaire; you needn't be so pedantic. Accidents (of any kind) of course do occur because of carelessness...but that is not the only reason they occur. Guns are mechanical objects; they are capable of   failure, too.
My father was on a hunting trip once where one of his buddies had a rifle that went off *all by itself* in the trunk of his car. An accident. He got rid of the gun.

Don't yell at me just because I am not conforming to your pedantic use of language.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,peg
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 12:09 PM

that last post was me; my cookie was absconded with.

peg

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 12:17 PM

Don, I remarked on that from an interested naturalist's point of view, and from the environmental philosopher's point of view that has allowed me to observe that predators usually get a bad rap when it comes to some forms of nature writing and general reputation. The precursor agency to the modern-day Fish and Wildlife Service was the Bureau of Biological Survey. The BBS was put into place specifically to eradicate predators. Knowing this, and looking at the so-so USFWS attempts to reintroduce wolves in the West makes one think that the fox is guarding this particular environmental henhouse in a really perverse telling of the story.

Kat, don't judge that book by one essay. They are all marvelous, and personally I think this one I posted is hilarious. Most have something to do with living in a small rural town, a lot have to do with social dynamics intersecting with nature, and how her mother approached the outside world. White did a lot of essays on NPR in the late 1980's and the 1990's. Her essays picked up on the same general kind of topics that Kim Williams (remember that nasal Brooklyn voice intoning "This is Kim Williams from Missoula, Montana" on All Things Considered?) covered until her death in the mid-1980s.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 12:28 PM

Peg, I'm not yelling at anyone. And if I seem pedantic I apologize, most profusely. It's just that "accidents" with firearms is a very touchy subject with me; I've heard and seen too many (no, I've never had one, fortunately).

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 03:28 PM

Time the gloves came off in this discussion I think.
Im sick of being accused of holding opinions, which I don't in fact hold.
Let me clear up the first "red herring",which keeps appearing.   I am totally opposeds to intensive farming of animals,which sees them appear on supermarket shelves packaged as commodities, having had no realistic standard of life.This seems to me to be an offensive abuse of another living creature, and might even be seen as an evil practice.    This of course is for another discussion,but does bear some relevance to this one.
I agree animals can be hunted for food.Many indigenous peoples including native Americans,lived almost exclusivly from the great herds,and lived in harmony,knowing how many to take,until the "white men" slaughtered them all for profit.
The only point I have put forward,(and I have posted some stories to illustrate my meaning),is   Killing animals for sport is wrong.
Silly river sage says..."They are deer and fair game". To me that is exactly the same mindset as the people who are involved in the intensive farming that I spoke of earlier,total disregard for another species,to be used for your amusement
Another post accused me of saying that hunters had orgasmic moments when the bullet hit the deer ....Well..you all seem so hard hearted and emotionless,I doubt if any of you could achieve orgasm...Ake.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 03:53 PM

But I have yet to see other methods being proposed on this thread for population control - and believe me - population control is necessary in the white tail deer in New York state!!!! Overall population for the state runs (AFTER culling) about 6 deer per square mile.

At their Current levels - with about 1/3 of the population being reduced each year ("they" would like to see the harvest be closer to 1/2) deer pose a real problem to traffic causing quite a few accidents every year - if they are allowed to breed up to the point where they starve themselves down in population - (which seems as cruel to me as hunting them) it will become increasingly dangerous to drive - and deer damage to crops will increase because they will have stripped the "natural" areas to nothing...

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 04:42 PM

MMario, because they will have stripped the "natural" areas to nothing... it's a real problem, what humans have done, eh?:-)

SRS, I guess I am entitled to my opinion and still think what you posted was gross. Also, I have read plenty of great books dealing with rural life, social dynamics interacting with nature and none of them had such humourless essays. I find the whole fascination with road kill jokes, etc. quite tasteless, pun intended.

One other thing...I hear most posters saying what a spiritual etc. experience hunting can be for them. It's a shame that humans have to be so egocentric. Sounds like the old "god gave us dominion over the animals" argument to justify such killing, imo.

I have nothing against indigenous people who hunt because they have no alternatives. Conversely, through my own parents', grandparents', and great-grandparents' examples, I know that a person can live well enough on a ltd. income and feed and raise a family without having to hunt. Any defense of hunting which says one cannot is just a bunch of hot air, imo.

katandyesmybirksareleatherfree

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 04:52 PM

Kat - since the population of white tail deer is MUCH MUCH MUCH larger then it was before the European colonization of the continent I can't feel too bad that we are trying to reduce their population to what can be supported by the habitat remaining. That habitat (for the white tail) is a much LARGER area then it was under "natural" conditions. (White Tail deer - and many game birds, and other critters such as woodchucks, rabbits, etc) need "border habitats" - where woods meet cleared areas. Man creates these in abundance.

And if you think things are bad these days - Have you seen pictures of NY and New England during the late 1800's and early 1900's? Many of the currently forested areas were bare of trees. I camped this fall in an state park that I camped in when I was a child. The campground I remember was an open meadow - miles of it, broken up by marsh areas. Today it is a forest, mostly evergreen but with some areas of hardwoods. Planted for the most part - but enough time gone by that things are closer to "natural" then not.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 05:02 PM

Why not eat animals that have been killed by traffic, assuming that the kill is fresh and the animal is one that is usually eaten? Many states will allow the person who hits a deer (for example) to take the carcass home to butcher and eat if so desired. Prisons have used such meat to feed prisoners. I've know of families that supplemented their food budget on road kill. If it can be eaten if shot by an arrow or a bullet, why can't it be eaten if killed by a car?

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 05:34 PM

GUEST whom I think might of been MMario, yes, but there were plenty of natural predators left back then. Humankind is the main reason that Nature's own checks and balances are so out of whack.

Rapaire, I guess, I still find the whole thing repugnant, but then I find any meat-eating to be so, so I guess we just have to agree to disagree. I think the road kill thing bothers me more because there seems to have been an upsurge in humour, songs, etc. about it and they turn my stomach, so to speak.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 06:13 PM

Kat, for much -- most -- of human history it was a feast/famine cycle. Drive the buffalo over the cliff and feast for a while. Then go hungry until another food source shows up -- plant or animal. Very, very few people alive in the West today (and I include you and my) have ever been really hungry because of an overall shortage of food (POWs, concentration camp prisoners and so on have been deliberately starved). If your life demanded it I suspect that you'd eat flesh, just as you or I might eat termites in the same situation.

You have choosen not to eat meat, and I respect that choice. Others have choosen to eat meat, still others to subsist on a diet of which includes meat that they have hunted *and no other meat.* For thousands of years the Inuit and other Arctic peoples lived solely on meat (with a few berries, etc. during the summer, but otherwise wholely on meat). All have kept in good health (for a variety of reasons).

It's a choice, and I'm very, very glad that we have a food distribution system that permits it.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 07:11 PM

Since when are indigenous cultures allowed to hunt but colonial cultures not allowed to hunt? It is this kind of double standard that allows the dominant culture to diminish the viablity of native cultures, to categorize them as stereotypically childlike and primative, doing something that "we know better than to do." It implies poverty as the reason they hunt, it places their spiritual beliefs in the "quaint" category, not to be believed by those who practice the major industrial religions in which multi-national big business has a huge influence. We don't bake our own bread, we buy it pre-sliced. We don't hunt our own meat, we buy it shrink wrapped in little red ingots at the grocery store, a dozen steps removed from the reality of cows and their big brown eyes.

Ake, you aren't taking the gloves off, you're throwing a bunch of nails on the road, trying to scatter the forward momentun of this conversation by people who know what they're talking about. You don't want them to notice your lack of a lucid argument. You just want the last word.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 07:36 PM

SRS Your arguments are far from lucid ,You dont seem to be able to understand plain facts set down simply before you and misconstrue almost everything I say.    It gets so tiresome continually having to correct your misapprehensions.
In fact I think primitive cultures were far superior in many ways to our own,and there is a world of difference between the spirituality contained in these cultures and the so called spirituality of present day "hunters".
Dont you take the time to read other members posts?   I set down in my last message my disgust of the intensive farming system.Why do you bring it up again? I think you are the one who wishes the "last word" and despite the quantity of contributions submitted by you, the quality of your argument leaves much to be desired ...Ake

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 07:56 PM

One final word from me...Katlaughing submitted a lovely poem concerning a hunter who became rehabilitated...
Iv known several hunters and poachers who have become sickened by their own actions and given up the practice,but never any real animal welfare people who have taken up guns to slaughter their fellow creatures.......Ake

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 08:00 PM

I will admit that when I was 16 and in my prime as a hunter I enjoyed every aspect of hunting. The ritual of the whole hunt from start to finish. I never though of it as killing a living thing and I still don't. I thought of it then as supplying a meal that my out of work Dad didn't have to pay for. We didn't see a pair of canada geese on the back porch rail, we saw dinner in the oven and sandwiches for lunch at school.

But did I enjoy the hunt? Yes I did. The philosophy of killing or harvesting a living creature I see will never be resolved. So I will leave Ake to his or her opinion as it is a fine opinion because it fits his or her philosophical needs. And should you come to Jordan, NY Ake and stay for Thanksgiving dinner, I trust you won't be surprised to learn whether the fowl is wild or local grown. :-)

Don

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 08:06 PM

Because you say so, Akenaton? I'm devastated. All of those philosophy and theory and ethics classes out the window. Good money down the drain. Why don't you go write a letter about this to the National Inquirer?

Time to let this thread slip off the bottom of the page.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 08:16 PM

Thanks for the invitation Don...And I would be pleased to accept if I ever get to NY....Its nice to be able to air alternative points of view without losing the plot....Best wishes Ake.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: InOBU
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 10:58 PM

Dear Ake:
Re: this quote...
"I agree animals can be hunted for food.Many indigenous peoples including native Americans,lived almost exclusivly from the great herds,and lived in harmony,knowing how many to take,until the "white men" slaughtered them all for profit."
A few historical observations. There is no magic primitive past. Native nations here made mistakes Euro-Americans made, for example, several species were hunted to extinction here, there were miniture Wooly mamoths in the North West until as late as three thousand years ago, and likely were hunted to extinction. And, Native hunter/gatherers, as I said in a post above, are not a relic of the past but part of the modern American present in the US and Canada. Knowing how many to take, was likely more a matter of hunting for use value and not for commodity value. These may seem like minor points, but I often have to counter folks saying that folkloric cultures, like Native nations and Roma, that they "should come into the 21st century". Well, they are here, and they are still who they were in the past, in the case of the Innu, for example, they are hunters.
cheers
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: InOBU
Date: 16 Oct 03 - 11:09 PM

Had to take a phone call, so a wee PS. As to vegitarians becoming hunters, well, as a matter of fact, a very small number of law students I brought to Canada to do human rights surveys among the Innu, while there, though not when they returned to the US, ate Carabou, seeing the place of that communion in Innu life. I expect if they found they had to stay there any lenth of time, they would likely feel the need to help provide for the community they joined and would likely hunt. I will see if I can get in contact with any of them and run that by them, but from their comments when sharing meals in Innu hunting camps, I think I am correct in my assumptions.
Cheers
(talk nice to each other folks...)
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Coyote Breath
Date: 17 Oct 03 - 01:36 AM

Sometimes road kill CAN be safely eaten. You must know how long it has been dead, though. Additionally, "massive blunt force trauma" can make large parts of the meat "unattractive". Missouri has established procedures for utilizing road kill. A "Disposition" form is filled out either at the local Conservation Office or, at the scene. Missouri has the "Share the Harvest" program where hunters can donate all or part of their take. My lady friend and I eat "wild" game whenever we can. We also eat other "wild" edibles, especially the berries and nuts so plentiful here. She just baked some paw paw bread (tastes like banana bread) I am cracking hickory nut hulls (VERY tedious) for a pie she will soon be baking. The week-end of the 7th of November we will be having a "wild edibles" dinner at my place. The dinner will feature young raccoon, bison, paw paw bread, persimmon sauce, sumac-ade, duck potatoes, and possibly wild beans. Elderberry and Buffalo berry wines will be some of the beverages served. Now we eat the above partly because we delight in unusual fare but more because this food is so much healthier than the junk one gets at market.

Missouri's hunting programs are sane and necessary. Having spent the summer in a place where humans have occasionally been prey and not predator (Yellowstone Nat. Park) gave me pause. Being out in THOSE woods is the other side of the hunting coin.

I hunt, modern firearms, bow, and flintlock. I hunt squirrel, turkey, raccoon, and deer. I eat bison and elk (we have a friend who raises bison, the elk come from a game farm) as well. The UK has always been a mystery to me and I can't imagine that hunting is anything like it is around here and probably not as necessary.

I saw a fox hunt here once. In Racine county in Wisconsin. I was around 10 or so and the hunt was conducted on my grandma's farm. I thought the horses presented a very exciting show but I don't recall seeing a fox. Everyone looked very nice in their red coats.

CB

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Oct 03 - 10:26 AM

CB--Louisiana has a similar liberal view on using road kill. The only time they regulate it is when fur-bearing animals are hit during the trapping season. I agree--blunt force ruins the meat, but if an animal was hit with a glancing blow, the meat is usable when it is very fresh (as in, you saw it hit so know how fresh). If it's deer, it's a good idea to see if the driver survived that impact--not all do!

I have friends up in the Northwest who had a large family and always got by with meat from hunting. The standard line if you stopped by and were invited impromptu to dinner "If we'd known you were coming we'd have used beef," but it was always marvelous to have moose tacos!

We're harvesting neighborhood pecans right now. Orange on the fingertips attest to the staining quality of the hulls on those nuts. The garden is producing full-tilt, so there is a lot of fresh produce on the table as well.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,Guest Andrew
Date: 20 Oct 03 - 07:58 AM

Dear SRS I was born and raised on a small farm in a very isolated area..I think I know a good deal about the natural world and hardly need to be lectured on the subject by someone naive enough to think that animals have a complex relationship wirh someone who is trying to kill them. I have witnessed the slaughter of domestic animals and believe an animal knows our intentions and the response is not a spiritual one...it is terror. You also fail to distinquish between the "use" of animals and the "exploitation" of animals. Do not assume that those people who find a certain elf-righeousness in some hunters are just"stirring things up". We too have opinions based on experience.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Oct 03 - 08:12 AM

I'm not posting to this thread anymore; acrimony isn't my thing.

As for my past, I will only say that in the US the Depression lingered in some places and for some people long, long after WW2 ended.

As for the present, I will not apologize for "being what I eat." If I choose the eat game (and I had a lovely elk dinner this past Saturday evening, surrounded by the Tetons) that game becomes part of me and I of it. If I kill it (which I did not do, Saturday), then it and I share its life even more. If I waste it I dishonor both the animal and myself.

There is a circle. When I die, my body will decay and return to the soil. Grass will grow and be eaten by herbivores, the herbivores by carnivores, and the carnivores will in their turn die and decay. Everything touches.

The same things are true of ALL life. If you cannot understand these things, perhaps the fault is mine for failing to explain them well. In the meantime, I won't be in this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Oct 03 - 12:13 PM

That's a good one--"elf-righteousness"--and I agree with Rapaire. (I think you know nothing about the natural world--I won't take Rapaire's polite dodge that perhaps he hasn't explained himself clearly. He has.) The thread has attracted animal rights folks who will argue this point to the death, who have totally anthropomorphized the process of how animals live in the real world. Like nothing else would die if only humans would stop killing and eating them. Get a life, Guest Andrew and those who have nothing to stand on except a "save Bambi" argument. You live in a world in which the collection of any food impacts other creatures. You're welcome to not eat meat, but stop accusing anyone who takes the entirely ethical stance of claiming agency in choosing to kill their own meat as "naive." Those grains and beans you're so proud of eating have impacted far more wildlife in their agricultural existence than hunting does. And think of what your increased flatulence is doing to the ozone layer. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

This one is now "untraced" in my threads.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,Andrew
Date: 20 Oct 03 - 12:46 PM

You have missed my point..I do eat meat and I have no bambi complex nor am I an adamant animal rights person and I do not think that those who kill anaimls for sport are naieve unless that happen to sanitize it by suggesting the animals have entered into some sort of compact with those who wish to kill them. It is not hunting I am against as much as I find the rather facile justification of it that bothers me. As I said; I gew up in a very natuarl world..hunters have no monopoly on this lnowledge. Human have always lived in a world where the gathering of food impacts on the planet. Srs..ou are sawing sawdust.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Nerd
Date: 21 Oct 03 - 01:32 PM

A word or two about vegetarianism: it is absolutely untrue what Rapaire said some time ago that vegetarianism would be impossible if not for modern farming techniques. Some sects of Buddhists have been vegetarians for centuries. If everyone who could become vegetarian based on their local environment did so, we would all have more food, not less. Using plant nutrition to feed cows, pigs, etc, and then eating their flesh is less efficient than eating plant nutrition directly, so we could feed more people on less land by cutting out meat than by eating meat. Strict veganism is a pretty modern invention, so Rapaire may be correct about modern farming, but I doubt it; plenty of beans which have been growing for centuries have enough protein to live on, and you can get iron from greens, etc.

Agribusiness would like you to believe that without them we could not feed ourselves, but it is a lie. One thing is true however: we will soon reach a stage of civilization where the population outstrips what nature could provide without modern farming techniques. This is a regrettable situation. It is largely caused by modern farming techniques changing both the ecological and economic equilibria so that people have more children than they otherwise would. It will result in a world where Monsanto and ADM own patents on the foods we need to survive.

More on topic, hunting is much better for the environment than other ways of getting meat. Factory farming, giant hog and poultry farms, etc, are revolting in the extreme. And many cultures rely on it, as InObu points out. For this and other reasons, I am not opposed to hunting for food. I think a lifestyle where people ate only vegetables, a little dairy and/or eggs, and whatever they could catch and kill would be healthier for people AND the environment than today's overuse of meat.

Foxhunting, frankly, I could live without. While I recognize that it has made valuable cultural contributions (some lovely songs, for example), I feel that, like whaling, it's probably time for it to go.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 05:05 AM

Wolfgang in his post of 14 Oct 03 fully answered the question initiating this thread. Interesting point - look at the example target question asked:

The target question (one of many different) has been:
"And to what extent would you support or oppose a ban on hunting with dogs in Britain?"
Those responding "tend to oppose" (14%) and "strongly oppose" (45%) add up to 59%.

I am surprised that the figures given for those opposed to this ban are not much higher considering the number of dog owners in the UK. Note the question does not mention fox hunting, stag, otter, hare or rabbit - just a ban on hunting with dogs. Unfortunately for their owners - all dogs hunt, it is in their nature. A Jack Russell is one of the most efficient slayers of rats one can find - should that be proscribed - it would under the legislation proposed. What happens if Mr & Mrs Bloggs take the two Scottie dogs out for a walk and they start to chase the neighbourhood cat - the dogs are hunting and Mr & Mrs Bloggs could find themselves in the dock and their dogs destroyed by Court Order.

Don't know about Austria and Germany, Akenaton - in Norway to hunt large game (Elk; Raindeer; Red Deer and Roe Deer) you have to have undertaken the approved courses, have certified evidence of having shot a stated number of practice rounds on a target range under supervision before you are allowed to sit the test that must be passed before you can get your licence which only holds good for the specific rifle you fired and for that particular season.

I now only shoot what I can eat - in years past I did use to shoot at those who shot at me, or wanted to shoot at me. I have and had no qualms about either.

Rapaire makes much sense regarding safe gun practice.

On our hunts:
- Each hunter has a designated position and arc of fire. He is not allowed to move from that position without permission of the hunt leader.
- Each hunter has a radio for which he/she must carry a spare battery, all checked before moving out.
- Guns are always carried unloaded, with bolts and magazines removed
- Guns, even in the condition described above, are never pointed at anyone.
- Only when all guns are at their designated positions are the guns made ready to fire, the hunt leader will advise over the radio when this can be done.
- Anyone new to a particular hunting ground will be supervised, i.e. you will have an experienced local with you at all times to ensure that you don't make any any mistakes. The golden rule is don't shoot unless you are 100% sure of your target and line of fire to ensure a kill, fire, reload, observe, be ready to fire again.
- At midday break all guns are rendered safe before leaving the designated position and during the break they are all placed in one position where everyone can see them.

Conscription still exists in Norway, which means that the vast bulk of the population have received some form of weapons training. They are extremely serious about their hunting. A friend of mine who takes "foreigners" (and by that he means all non-locals) Red Deer hunting in Scotland says that the guides weigh up the hunters if they are the types you mention Akenaton, they will always be shown Red Deer but the gillies make sure that they are never in a position to make a shot.

Next year we are hoping to come across to Scotland to hunt Red Deer, some of the group have been before and have always been treated as responsible hunters. To put a musical note to this thread with regard to hunting, one tip given for transporting guns in hard gun cases where the guns will be checked in as hold luggage on aircraft - cover the gun cases with Hammond Organ stickers - luggage handlers suffering from BBES have been known to deliberately damage gun cases, others may deliberatley damage keyboard cases but it hasn't happened to date.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 12:15 PM

How many of you anti-foxhunting people keep cats ? I suppose that you all take great care to make sure that they never kill mice, rats or any other forms of vermin. Do you ever kill flies, wasps or other insects or garden pests like slugs etc. I've seen a cat playing with a mouse - I'm sure it's a much crueller death for the poor rodent than that meted out to a fox by a pack of hounds. Perhaps you consider that the extent of cruelty is determined by the genus and size of the victim.

I don't particularly support foxhunting, but I don't feel any great antagonism to people who choose to do it. I end up being more on their side because I can't stand the dogmatic approach that many people have against a sport that kills a tiny of the fraction of foxes that these very "antis" will kill with their own cars, when there are many much more important animal cruelty issues to be faced.

Before we get a whole threadrift about my use of the word "sport", I would like to point out that the word originally meant hunting. The fact that we have hijacked the word to refer to activities that are really "games" does not invalidate it's more traditional meaning. Incidently if anyone wants to start a movement to ban a game that causes a much greater number of mammalian deaths and injuries - Ill join an anti-football movement any time.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 18 Sep 04 - 03:20 AM

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Sep 04 - 03:35 PM

look you Yanks gotta sort out for yourself what you want to do.

Over in England, this is class warfare. The nobs (the posh folk that is) enjoy hunting - riding to hounds. Okay some people aren't all that posh, but most of them are.

Quite frankly most of us wouldn't give a toss if they chased the fox with a rusty can opener and ritualisticly strangled it with a pair of sweaty underpants. the point is that its a kick in the goolies for the class that's grabbed the best of everything for itself - particularly the royal family.

the gross indifference they displayed as a class to the working classes in the traditionally poorer parts of England during 18 years of right wing tory rule got a lot of people in the mood for this one.

Is it just? Maybe not. But sometimes however much you bitch about it, you're outnumbered and its tough bananas baby.

Your class behaved badly and all people you were joyously pissing off in Maggies reign, along with the humane treatment for animals gang have found a way to grip your shit

Think of it as payback time for the coalmines, the steel industry and (what was it?) 28% of manufacturing industry in one year alone.
You don't understand our way of life, that's the problem.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 18 Sep 04 - 03:50 PM

I argue with you on the point of the steel industry, it was the common market that finished that off, not the tories. Mind you the trade unions did help to weaken it to the extent that it was easy meat. You are right about the class envy thing though, because that's what it's all about, I MAY like what you do, or I may NOT like what you do, but because you are historically my enemy, I will piss on your parade. Never mind Iraq or any of the other things that are more important, let's get the toffs, and forget logic. It's all prejudice and no logic!
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,cookieless mcgrath of altcar
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 04:50 AM

The image of portrayed by wee little drummer of a class war is utter nonsense.

I hunt with an entire building site crew, a road repair man, a window cleaner, and a bloke that sweeps the floors at car plant in Crewe, fishermen and several (male & female) nurses.

And of course, Britain's most popular hunting activity (in terms of
numbers) involves the use of Lurchers. Upper class? Bollocks!

Could you site a source for your information oh wee little drummer? If it's a class war, I'm sure you can back up your claim that is the sport of toffs. I know its not. But I'll be interested to see what your source says on the matter. NAME IT!!!

It might not fit in with your little fantasy, oh wee little drummer, but I also stood on picket lines during the miners strike. (At Bold Colliery)

Where does the South Wales Miners Hunt fit in to your picture oh wee little gullible person?

I will not stop hunting until someone gives me a good reason.

Wee little drummers wee little lies don't count.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: shepherdlass
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 02:01 PM

Cock fighting and gladiatorial contests were traditional "sports" too - doesn't mean we were wrong to ban them.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: greg stephens
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 02:44 PM

Shepherdlass: I agree banning gladiator contests was an excellent thing to do.I also think banning drinking in the USA was a stupid thing to do. The question is,what is the relevance of both these perfectly obvious statements to what we are talking about now?

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,Lucia
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 10:07 PM

Its class warfare on the other side of the pond, too WLD.Over here, however, its primarily the rural&working class folk that do the vast majority of the shooting.It's tougher I guess to put that Easy Rider Rifle Rack in the back window of a BMW than it is in a Ford F-150.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 02:49 AM

I'm NOT against hunting, provided the hunter is in need of the hunted for food, intends to give it to the needy for similar reason, or is taking some part in the extermination of some rabid or otherwise dangerous beastie. But no matter what the reason for hunting, to make any kind of ceremony around doing a fellow creature to death is, frankly, juvenile and debasing. Fox hunting --as practised by red-coated posers in the good old UK--bad enough, but the most demeaning of all is so-called "trophy hunting". The cretins who favour this as a "sport' deserve to have their own heads mounted in a set of good old-fashioned stocks and liberally pelted with globs of the shit of whatever inoffensive creature they have slaughtered.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,padgett
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 05:42 AM

I have not made up my mind on this
I like singing hunting songs and others sung by hunting people
I know characters involved in hare hunting, many from working class backgrounds and one or two involved in keeping dogs for this purpose in West Yorks

I understand that foxes kill for the sake of killing and are deemed to be vermin, altho I like all animals personally

I am a townie, not a city person, nor am I a country person
I feel that ways of life are totally differnt wherever you live and what your expectations are

Expect change but what will replace the industry value and way of life; more importantly does the UK government care, or are they tarred with the same brush as Maggie Thatcher who killed off mining communities ~ Arthur Scargill was NOT responsible for the demise of the coal industry and mining communities!!

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 05:58 AM

No padgett, foxes don't kill for the sake of killing that I know of. Humans, are the "best" at that. To make matters worse we do it with thought wheras an animal may be acting on a natural instinct.

What happens though for example is a fox manages to get into a hen house and kills the lot. One theory is the fox trying to silence the noise and a threat therfore caused to itself. So yes the fox will kill more than it needs to eat but it does so in unnatural (man made) situations.

Jon

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: DMcG
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 06:18 AM

The target question (one of many different) has been:
"And to what extent would you support or oppose a ban on hunting with dogs in Britain?"
Those responding "tend to oppose" (14%) and "strongly oppose" (45%) add up to 59%.

This is quite a nice example of how easy it is to distort statistics, even if the original survey was carried out impecciably. Here's a couple of reasons why people might be opposed to the ban without being in favour of hunting.

a) They might be thinking about the proposed legislation and believe it doesn't go far enough - why not ban hunting in toto, not just with dogs.

b) They might be opposed to 'banning things' as an approach, at least until all other alternatives had failed

c) They might feel that the government should not be spending time on this issue 'when there are more important things to do'.


Reading the report is also quite interesting. "An average of 21% of respondents had taken part in hunting with dogs over the period of 12 months prior to the survey, and 16% had participated in hunting with the target hunts. A third of participants had actually ridden with the hunt, with the remainder having followed by foot or vehicle, or attended a meet. Participation in hunting by other family members was reported by 36% of respondents, and 34% were aware of friends who had hunted over the previous year."

Well, I don't know about the rest of you in the UK, but I am fairly sure

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: DMcG
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 06:26 AM

Oops!

.. I am fairly sure that one in five of my friends hasn't hunted in the last year.

Part of the reason these figures look odd is that the report is focused, quite intentionally, on the group most directly affected by the ban, not on the general population. This was done to meet its remit, namely to assess "THE EFFECTS OF HUNTING WITH DOGS ON THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL LIFE OF THE COUNTRYSIDE IN ENGLAND AND WALES".

But the figure of 59% is being presented as if it represents the whole population.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 06:36 AM

Dave, I do have to say that though I'm glad if the hunting is stopped, to some degree I do come into your category b. I do feel in favour of stopping this "pastime" but banning never fits comfortably with me.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 07:43 AM

I think at some point you are going to have to engage with the arguments that people have against hunting rather than just say you like it and its going to go on.

Anyway why would I lie. What profit to me . I don't give a damn whether it stops or goes on . I just recounted an incident from my life.

never been to south wales, no idea what goes on there.

I just think you need some proper arguments. If hunting gives you that much pleasure, I should get your act together. I don't think the big demos are convincing anyone.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: muppett
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 08:19 AM

I saw one of these posters on the road into Otley, someone had painted over it 'LIES' I tend to agree with them.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,Redhorse at work
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 08:45 AM

I may be cynical, but I suspect the unwritten remit of the survey was to produce the highest possible figure in favour of hunting. Most previous surveys came up with figures in support of a ban of 70-80%(urban response) or 60-70%(rural response.)
On the other hand we should be thankful they've stopped those godawful ads suggesting that because a nurse likes hunting we shouln't regard it as uncivilised. Given the choice I would always prefer to be tended in my illness by someone whose idea of fun is not tearing small animals to pieces.

nick

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 10:15 AM

Look if you think I'm lying about it being a class thing.

Think about that headline this week - Price Charles says he won't give up hunting.

Do you really think 95% of the population said well done your majesty. i think the main public reaction - well in your heart of hearts I think you know it, don't you?

As for the miner being keen hunmters. I've lived in (what was) a mining village for the past 30 years. Ex miners down the supermarket, down the pub.... I swear to god theres not one tally ho amongst the lot of them.

I bet some Big Issue sellers have their own table at the Groucho Club, but somehow it doesn't convince.

I don't why I'm giving you constructive advice after all that abuse, but if I were you and I needed a bit of animal cruelty to float my boat. I should take a look at the arguments advanced by those lawyers defending Hal Lal butchers and the like. You must engage with the arguments advanced by your opponents ( who are winning)- not keep warbling mantras to yourself about 'my grandad did it'.

Shudder to think what my grandad did.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,Hugh Jampton
Date: 21 Sep 04 - 10:20 AM

I agree with fox hunting. I have no objection to horse and hounds but I would heartily suggest a start be made, with guns or any other effective method, with the rural/urban foxes that inhabit the Sevenoaks neighbourhood. Upon enquiring with the local council vermin control office, that took no action in respect of foxes, I was directed to a phone site in a Tonbridge charity that advised the listener that all he could do was to discourage the creatures by the application of proprietary deterrents. It was also made clear that any person caught attempting a permanent solution that breached the Wildlife Act could be fined up to £1000`s per offence. As a youngster in Charing, Kent the 12 bore versus fox were "de rigeur". What a silly world we bring upon ourselves.
As for those that would claim "animal rights"!!!
The concession I would agree with is that man should deal with such problems without inflicting gratuitous cruelty.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Sep 04 - 11:04 AM

Your first and last sentence kind of contradict?

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,Hugh Jampton
Date: 21 Sep 04 - 11:10 AM

I think not. From what I gather the dispatch is over in a trice. The pack then amuse themselves with a lifeless carcass.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Sep 04 - 11:17 AM

fun fun fun eh?

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,Hugh Jampton
Date: 21 Sep 04 - 11:28 AM

Guest, I search high and low in my thread and nowhere can I see the term "fun" so I am at a loss to see your point.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,noddy
Date: 22 Sep 04 - 07:14 AM

Hunting Wwhat? Treasure. Yes. Animals NO!

Lies
Damn Lies
and statistics.

20% of accidents on the roads are caused by drunks.

80% are caused by those who are sober.

Lets get all the sober people off the road to make it safer for the drunks!

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,Greycap
Date: 22 Sep 04 - 08:07 AM

I bloody aren't - I know sadism when I see it.I just want to know how we need two more years to bring it into effect.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,J.Peel
Date: 22 Sep 04 - 11:54 AM

"Sportsmen arouse, the morning is clear.
The larks are singing all in the air"
Etc.,etc.,etc.,

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: John Routledge
Date: 22 Sep 04 - 01:13 PM

Travelling home yesterday I saw many roadside posters "Fight Prejudice - Fight the Ban"

I think this poster is too close to the truth for comfort.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: shepherdlass
Date: 22 Sep 04 - 01:37 PM

Greg, of course I made a perfectly obvious statement (that banning gladiator contests was a good thing) - what I can't get is where the difference lies between (a) two humans tearing each other to shreds for the purposes of enjoyment and (b) several animals tearing a fox to shreds for the purposes of enjoyment (if it's HONESTLY about pest control, why not use a gun?).   Sorry if you didn't get the analogy but it seemed fairly straightforward to me.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,andy
Date: 23 Sep 04 - 02:11 PM

no surprises that a ban will come into place.

In 2001 Lord Burns concluded that hunting with hounds is NO crueler than other forms of killing foxes.
here is the link to the report.
http://www.huntinginquiry.gov.uk/mainsections/huntingreport.htm

No method of killing anything is humane. i wonder how many people have ever been in an aboitoir? that is a very gruesome place.

Now that hunting with hounds will be banned. what is the alternative? shooting foxes. Shooting vermin myself, and working withpeople who shoot foxes, i regret that not every shot at a fox is a clean kill. the fox will often get away and die slowly in a bush. Events like this are also more likely to happen.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/3649160.stm

with foxhunting with houds, the fox either gets away TOTALLY skotch free, or is killed almost instantly. No injured foxes. No foxes running around with legs missing, as they have been caught in a snare.

Someone further up the page mentioned, the "toffs on hourseback in silly clothes, enjoying killing the foxes, where as forrest wardens etc, do it as part of their job." I suppose if these "toffs wore jeans, and hunted foxes with a miserable face, that would be ok then would it?"
I hunt mainly because i enjoy it. i offer to shoot vermin as i enjoy being outdoors, hutning is instinctive. Do other animals get "banned" from hunting? or told they are cruel because they hunt?
the people riding horses, dont kill anything, the dogs do that, as it is in their instincts. Are we going to arrest dogs for killing a fox or a squirrel?

I think you will find most people could not care less if fox hunting is banned, after all, it doesnt affect them in any way. this foxhunting debate has put back hospital and pension bills.
Tony Blair is a liar. He promised hunters that it would NOT be banned, and before his election, said that he would ban it.
However, he also promised Education education education, better healthcare etc etc, but he hasnt done any of these yet.......presumably he has been too busy banning fox hunting.

Foxhunting is very english. sadly we are not allowed to be english any more, and what remains of it now?

Most of these animal rights people are weirdo's. Girls with silly coloured hair, that stick up posters of "cute" foxes. They live in towns and havent got a clue about how the countryside works, so they should keep their nose out.

i wouldnt dream of banning something just because of my personal oppinion. Who are affected by the ban, people in the countryside, who are anti-hunt, people living in the cities. sorry to break the bad news people, but animals die all the time in the countryside.

Why not ban cars? cars kill far more foxes than hounds. What harm has foxhunting ever done to anyone not involved?

all the best
andy

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Sep 04 - 02:25 PM

What do you think of bearbaiting? You don't live in Turkey after all.
Is that OK too? A bit of harmless jollity? Just because people are not directly effected doesn't mean they do not have opinions and feelings.
As the saying goes: no sense, no feeling.
And wow what a surprise that a member of the house of Lords speaks out in huntings defence. A real man of the people!

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 Sep 04 - 04:19 PM

Slight thread creep: When the Nazis first came into Hungary when my Mom was a preteen, the kids in her extended family didn't know they were Jewish, or what being Jewish meant, but they were told at school to raise their hands when asked if they were Jewish. One cousin went home and asked, Are we Jewish? Parents said yes. Well, came the follow-up, what is a Jew? Answer, after long thought: A Jew is someone who doesn't go hunting.
True story!

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Sep 04 - 05:24 PM

First off, in my post i said "i wouldnt dream of banning something just because of my personal oppinion."
I do have oppinions about Bear bating, i think it is cruel, as the bears suffers ONLY for people to watch and place bets on whatever, but who am i to tell the Turks that?

These bears dont have to be killed it is purely sport or tradition. Fox numbers have to be controlled one way or another. If people enjoy doing this, then all the better.
I dont live in turkey, so it is not for us to criticise them as we dont know their customs and traditions. They have different values to us, and so probably dont believe what they are doing is cruel. After all, we are told we have to respect other cultures and all that?!

What about Halaal meat, often not stunned as in the ASEAR regs, then the animal has its throat sliced, or sawed with a knife whilst still alive? that is cruel shorly? But it is offered in school menus in my city.

Foxes are vermin, and are farmers want/need them controlling. Alternatives to fox hunting are shooting, snaring, gassing, etc. Although i have snared foxes, it isnt atall nice, the fox will be trapped for hours, constantly tugging/chewing at its leg to get it off. Shooting often results in the fox not being cleany dispatched.
Fox hunting with hounds has been PROVEN to be no more cruel than other ways.

got to go, all the best
andy

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 23 Sep 04 - 07:29 PM

Fox numbers have to be controlled one way or another. If people enjoy doing this, then all the better.

Prehaps one clear reason why people like you make me want to vomit.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 23 Sep 04 - 07:38 PM

(I mean by that I may want to control but to enjoy it????)

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Sep 04 - 02:47 AM

People dont enjoy killing foxes, they dont kill foxes, the dogs do. I enjoy shooting. I dont enjoy killing animals, of course not, noone should, if they are normal, of course i feel remorse.
But i enjoy being out in the countryside away from everyone else.
I guess that is the same with foxhunters, the thrill of riding a horse through fields and over hedges must be amazing.

So what you are saying is that fox control is fine, as long as no-one enjoys doing it. Just because the hunters enjoy the occasion, that is wrong?

all the best

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Sep 04 - 08:00 AM

When the ban happens, and it will, hey democracy CAN work...the hunters can turn their attentions to killing rats? Can't see any great objection there.

They could dress up on Saturdays in snazzy furry bomber jackets, they could even wear little mousey masks and false ears.They can charge up and down the city streets shouting, "We are hunters, we are good, we are here to exterminate vermin." They could even throw in the odd Tally Ho for old times sake.

See, there's always a solution that satisfies everybody.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: DMcG
Date: 24 Sep 04 - 08:33 AM

Good idea, GUEST. The billing specifically outlaws (and I quote), "hunting wild mammals with dogs". There are an interesting set of options to stay within the law, as you suggest:

* Hunting wild creatures that are not mammals. Rats are certainly a possibility. An earthworm hunt sounds a little less exciting, perhaps, but it would be legal. They could sent a pack of hounds after buterflies. Or they could combine traditions and hunt wrens (though that may well be a protected species under other legislation.)

* They could hunt with something other than dogs. Sheep are perhaps not terribly effective, but tigers might be entertaining and could do wonders for preserving an endangered species. Hyenas could get lawyers excited as to whether they are dogs or not.

* They could rear foxes domestically and then hunt them.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,milk monitor
Date: 24 Sep 04 - 09:23 AM

DMcG, ah your ideas are much more sophisticated than my own, and all sure fire winners. I like the idea of hunting with tigers. Butterflies have had it too easy too long.

Horses may not be too suitable for inner city cobbles, but I am sure that a fleet of adapted Tesco trolleys would suffice? The lighter hunter in the trolley and the heavier hunter pushing.

We are told that within cities we are never more than six feet away from a rat, so they could even hunt with specially extended brooms? The brush connection could satisfy the loss of the fox from their lives.

See, it's not all over hunters, there are so many things for you to kill. It just takes a little thought.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: DMcG
Date: 24 Sep 04 - 09:32 AM

Sorry, we've blown it. Rats are mammals. It's gonna have to be those butterflies.... no, I've got it. A WASP HUNT!

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,milk monitor
Date: 24 Sep 04 - 09:37 AM

Ok the butterflies get it. There'll be no more sheep worried by Cabbage Whites.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Sep 04 - 02:19 PM

There is absolutely NO reason for butterflies, earthworms and all these other silly things you suggest, to be hunted. Foxes ARE a problem, and need controlling. Hunting butterflies for the sake of it would be unnecesarily cruel.
I am against game shooting as the birds are bread only to be shot, which i think is cruel. I know people who shoot game, and i dont impose my oppinions on them.
However, i think banning pheasant shooting etc, would have a detrimental affect to the countryside, as shooters put a MASSIVE amount of money into farms and estates, and do a lot of good forest work.
In the same way, i think if fishing was banned, the waters would be in a worse state, and there would be hardly any of them. Many lakes etc were made for fishing. Excluding the filthy fishermen that litter the banks, and destroy their own sport, and get a bad press for angling, many fishermen help alot in preserving the waters. Organizations such as the Salmon and Trout Organization, and the ACA (of which Chris Tarrant, is the chairman)

Shooting rats is valid, they are vermin. Many people shoot rats with airguns, and many countryside people keep ferrets or dogs for killing rats in the barns. Rats are filthy, and no one wants them around.
In the same way, they hunt foxes. What are you getting at?

i think most people percieve foxhunters to be upper-class, and resent them for that reason. I can 100% tell you that none of the people i know are "Toffs." Most of them you would NEVER guess hunted. Just ordinary people. Many have got into it from riding horses, and are invited to go on a hunt.

all the best

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 25 Sep 04 - 02:05 AM

If Foxhunting is a Sport, who is the current champion?

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 04 - 01:01 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?"



Frightening, truly frightening....many humans die in pain, perhaps all they need is a well placed shot, at 50 perhaps, just in case they're heading toward a painful death.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Sep 04 - 10:33 AM

refresh--guest makes a good point

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Blowzabella
Date: 26 Sep 04 - 01:04 PM

Instead of butterflies - how about red ants - there are lots in my garden. How do you hunt red ants?

Incidentally, I once saw a red ant funeral. In the house I used to live, the garden was absolutely plagued with them and, I confess, I had gone round with the white powder, to try and stem the flow a bit.   

Not long afterwards. I saw the 'survivors' of one nest, having a clear out of their dead. They were carrying them all out of the nest and chucking them in my pond!

And once, when in Rome, I saw a train of caterpillars, but that's another story...

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Sep 04 - 01:14 PM

By hunters we mean fox hunters. They are the ones in the news at the moment.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Blowzabella
Date: 26 Sep 04 - 01:37 PM

and 'we' would be...?

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,noddy
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 07:35 AM

In a recent interview with Otis Ferry the Youngest Master of Houndsthe one who got into the House. He said That on one day of fox hunting they chased 9 but only caught `1 Now that is that an efficient way of pest control! All those people and dogs and damage to the fields and crops and hedges and fences.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST,milk monitor
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 07:49 AM

And to think, I had a crush on his father.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 08:14 AM

200. I thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 08:24 AM

Just scanned through this entire thread re Fox Hunting with Hounds in UK . No one has quoted the one I like -- 'the Unspeakable in pursuit of the Uneatable'

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 04:28 AM

Fox meat IS edible - I've eaten it - it is considered it delicacy by some Roma people but I wasn't impressed.

Re: Noddy and fence damage by Hunts.

Hunts operate as guests of individual farmers. Damage to fences is VERY serious problem to the farmer and is taken just as seriously by hunts.

All packs that I have followed insist that any damage is reported to the field master. Most packs will attempt to repair the damage on the spot. Farmers are usually informed immiediatly if the damage is serious . Any livestock that manages to get loose will be rounded up and made secure.

Many hunt followers carry fence repair equipment!

Mounted packs also fine people for damage to fences. Often £100 or more even for minor damage. Of course miscreants do exist and no doubt individuals could site anecdotal examples to the contrary.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Oct 04 - 04:04 PM

HGHYFGVBKJ

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: grumpy al
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 02:39 PM

As Winston Churchill once said..."there are lies, damned lies and statistics". Statistics can be made to read anyway you want them to, how? by how many people are questioned, which area people are questioned in i.e city, town or village and how the questions are phrased.

Subject: RE: BS: 59% of the people in favour of hunting?
From: Sweetfia
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 04:53 PM

Well i'm in favour, not really for the killing but because it would mean the chance to ride for miles in the countryside, which would be just marvellous darrrling...except that now i can't cos the bastards have gone and banned it!!