Neutral. I have never hunted but I don't oppose it.
Glad to see there's no a whole lot of crying out of the tree huggers and the bed wetters here (the Dick Cheney thread has a lifetime supply of that). Mayham's post put it perfectly. No one is completely in balance with nature and we all leave some kind of imprint on this world.Mayhem said:I'd like to gently point out a couple things.
I have never met or heard of a hunter who just took the pelt, antlers, horns, etc. and left the meat. I'm not saying that it has never been done, and I allow for the possibility that there is a moron or two somewhere that does, but it just plain does not happen to any perceptible degree. In fact, there is an organization called Hunters Against Hunger that donate the meat that they harvest to homeless shelters and soup kitchens.
Instead of crying for deer, ducks, moose and geese, check out the lives that animals destined to be veal and foi-gras (sp?) lead. Think about all those millions of tons of carved up chicken that's in the worlds freezers at any given moment. Do you really think they all came from some pastoral Foghorn Leghorn barnyard?
If I'm going to be against anything, I'm going against any non-vegetarian that calls hunting barbaric. Those that buy meat in the store are just paying to have someone else do their dirty work for them. Hunters spend their money, walk the miles, and their results are far from guaranteed.
In the same vein, hunters spend literally billions of dollars every year. Their money ensures that animal habitats don't get bulldozed for subdivisions and shopping malls. Whether you like it or not, the world (including the natural one) is ruled by the almighty dollar. The land and the animals have to pay for themselves or Dupont, Chevy, Starbucks or the XYZ Land Development Company will be glad to foot the bill. Pick the animal you like best and thank hunters for supplying their rent.
I saw some of the Cheney thread. I'm not going to get into a pissing contest that this issue has so often caused. These are my views, I researched them, and I'm entitled to them. Disagree at your leisure, but lets not have just another gun/hunting thread, please.
Nightfly said:Natural Selection will run its course. If you're so damned poor that you can't buy food, (but you CAN buy bullets and pay for a hinting license for some reason - irony there), go for it. Survival is survival. Hunting is bullshit, unless you're starving and MUST do it.
This notion that some blood-thirsty, "insecure with himself" guy, sitting in a tree-stand, waiting for a deer to walk by so he can blast its torso into oblivion, while he's hiding, then cut its head off, mount the antlers in his home as a trophy, and "donate" the meat and skin "for a good cause" is just an excuse for people to TRY to justify their desire to kill and their machismo.
I could hit a deer (or anything else) at half a mile's range. I'm GREAT with guns because of my target-shooting youth. I guess I'm a "natural" with guns, but I fucking loathe gun-nuts and people who claim to hunt "for sport." Call it a sport if you chase the animal, wrestle it to the ground, push its head to the ground, and then walk away. THAT'S sport, and so is target shooting.
Hunting is NOT a "sport," IMO, because it involves the DEATH of the "opponent," and especially because the prey don't have the equal capacity to fight/play back - it would be PLAY if it were a sport.
Can you just see Maria Sharapova and Martina Hingis playing a tennis match and then suddenly Hingis whips out a pistol from her skirt and shoots Sharapova in the head?! She won. Would that be "sport?" No.
Sport is sport. Killing is killing. Survival is survival. Let natural selection take care of things - it works for humans, and it works for non-humans.
After all, we're all animals. Some of these animals live peacefully and some like to kill - and the ones who like to kill are humans. Humans do it and call it "sport." Sharks kill to eat - a necessary body function for survival.
The irony is that humans are at the top of the food chain, but unlike every other animal in the food chain, some of us kill in the name of "sport" when we simply go to the grocery and buy meat that was BRED in captivity for our survival.
:crying: :2 cents:
Imagine said:It still doesn't explain why 12 people (so far) feel it's perfectly okay to kill an animal for fun. Slaughtering animals serve a purpose; people have to eat. This poll was not about whether you think hunting is okay, it's about whether you think hunting for sport is.
Imagine said:It still doesn't explain why 12 people (so far) feel it's perfectly okay to kill an animal for fun. Slaughtering animals serve a purpose; people have to eat. This poll was not about whether you think hunting is okay, it's about whether you think hunting for sport is.
Have you ever heard, then, of hunters, many of whom fly in from America and Europe for this purpose, killing elephants for Ivory and gorillas for their hands etc
********** said:Have you ever heard, then, of hunters, many of whom fly in from America and Europe for this purpose, killing elephants for Ivory and gorillas for their hands etc... in Africa and such? Don't tell me that's for meat.
This isn't a moron somewhere or other. It's a hugely profitable global trade that is making some of the most beautiful species on the planet extinct. There are plenty of hunters that aren't at all interested in meat.
Fox
Nightfly said:I simply disagree with unneeded death of anything or anyone. If you have to kill a rabbit because you're starving, have at it. I'd rather steal food from a store if I was starving, or go to a food pantry, because I don't have either the desire or need to go walking through the forest with a gun.
The other morning there were ELEVEN deer in my back yard, grazing. I could have killed them all if I owned a gun and had bloodlust. Well, maybe a few of them since they scatter so quickly. Who the fuck cares if there are 11 deer in their back yard? They're gorgeous animals. WE invaded their natural habitat; we need to respect them, not kill them. I stood outside on my patio and watched them for ten minutes as the sun rose. It was truly a precious moment in my life.
When I see people loading up in their cars and trucks for a weekend of "sport" killing, claiming that "population control" is what they're doing, it makes me fucking sick. It's bloodsport/bloodlust, and many of the times it's frankly just a "weekend getway with the guys" from their wives so they can get drunk and walk around with their fucking guns. If you want to see how good you are with a gun, target-shoot. Don't kill. I could put one in your forehead from 3 city blocks away, but I'm not a killer. I'm a target shooter.
Like I've send endlessly, overpopulation of deer REALLY isn't a problem of nature - it's a problem of US encroaching on their turf, then we bitch about it and start killing them, trying to justify that as legitmate "sport."
Anyway, my :2 cents: AGAIN.
Mayhem said:I'd like to gently point out a couple things.
I have never met or heard of a hunter who just took the pelt, antlers, horns, etc. and left the meat. I'm not saying that it has never been done, and I allow for the possibility that there is a moron or two somewhere that does, but it just plain does not happen to any perceptible degree. In fact, there is an organization called Hunters Against Hunger that donate the meat that they harvest to homeless shelters and soup kitchens.
Instead of crying for deer, ducks, moose and geese, check out the lives that animals destined to be veal and foi-gras (sp?) lead. Think about all those millions of tons of carved up chicken that's in the worlds freezers at any given moment. Do you really think they all came from some pastoral Foghorn Leghorn barnyard?
If I'm going to be against anything, I'm going against any non-vegetarian that calls hunting barbaric. Those that buy meat in the store are just paying to have someone else do their dirty work for them. Hunters spend their money, walk the miles, and their results are far from guaranteed.
In the same vein, hunters spend literally billions of dollars every year. Their money ensures that animal habitats don't get bulldozed for subdivisions and shopping malls. Whether you like it or not, the world (including the natural one) is ruled by the almighty dollar. The land and the animals have to pay for themselves or Dupont, Chevy, Starbucks or the XYZ Land Development Company will be glad to foot the bill. Pick the animal you like best and thank hunters for supplying their rent.
I saw some of the Cheney thread. I'm not going to get into a pissing contest that this issue has so often caused. These are my views, I researched them, and I'm entitled to them. Disagree at your leisure, but lets not have just another gun/hunting thread, please.