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

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.