One question...

To give the courtesy of a reply to the original query- I spend much more time generally knocking around in the woods and woodsloafing than hunting, but more as a matter of necessity than for ideological reasons. I've spent most of my adult years working 80+ hours a week seven days a week for most hunting seasonswhich hasn't allowed much time for such participation. This last year I bartered and traded knives and favors and such for moose meat to help get my family through the winter. Do I feel like less of a man for it? not a bit. This year will probably be the first year I will have time to go hunting, and I will. Not for pleasure, but for the health of my family.

Now onto my befuddlement....

Most domestically raised animals that we consume are kept in tiny cages and stables, living with the feces of thier upstairs neighbors on thier backs. they are fed hormones, drugs, and fattened up beyond what nature would have ever intended. After spending thier adult lives in such conditions they are unceremoniously killed (if lucky at this time) dropped into a vat of boiling water and then processed onto your dinner table.

An elk, moose, caribou, etc. spends it's life roaming the wilds, raising it's calves and enjoying the freedom of the wilds. Sometimes a bullet comes whistling out of the bullets into it's heart or lungs and ends it's life. any hunter would agree the quicker the better. It is then processed by an individual and fed to said individuals family and loved ones. a death much more appealing for said creature than dying between the clenched jaws of a qrizzly or a pack of wolves.

I just can't see where the harvesting and consuming of domestic animals is considered at all compassionate, or how anyone can assume that holds any higher moral ground.

because they're prettier than wild animals? whose to judge the beauty of these animals and say "the ones I think are ugliest are the ones who deserve death?"

The fair fight is also a bit confusing for me. If this is so, then perhaps domestic animals would enjoy such an honorable death as well. My question is how many loin cloth clad men throwing the rocks at the cow would be "fair"

Mother Nature is not about "fairness" It just isn't there. That's the reason every cliff, hole, and vicious wild animal doesn't come with a warning beacon on it's back.

A bear will not refuse use of it's 10x weight advantage, powerful teeth and claws if it ever decides to kill me. Therefore I refuse to try to kill a bear without the implementation of my larger brain, opposable thumbs, and technology.

Furthermore, I just can't understand how people can become adults living under such a cloaked of sheltered naivette.

I know this isn't the desired response, but perhaps a thread entitled "do you enjoy wilderness photography?" would have gone over much betterm especially without the ignorant remarks about hunting.
 
Kaor,

Speaking as an American, who no longer lives in the US full time... We hunt, it's our land and we manage it very well. The continental US has an abundant supply of managed wildlife, the species that are hunted are not threatened and any animal that is threatened is forbidden to hunt with stiff penalties for those who violate. Oh, by the way, most game law violations are reported by hunters.

In places like Alaska where the giant trophy animals are shot, they have a law against "wanton wastage" of meat. You have to pack out the meat of the animal before the head and hide can be removed from the field. When you see the "trophy" head you need to understand the facts, the entire animal was packed out on the hunters backs.

I have hunted my entire life and have never actually known a hunter who lived out the stereotype you portray. Do we enjoy making the shot? Absolutely, we work hard scouting, tracking, searching, taking time off from work, learning the habits of the animals, getting together with friends, honing our skills, getting into position, checking the wind, holding still for hours on end, hearing the approach, controlling our breathing, slipping off the safety, catching the animal in our periferal vision, raise the muzzle real slow, settle the sight, BOOM... yeah we enjoy it. Then there's the tracking, the gutting, the dragging, the photos, the retelling of the story, the retelling of the story, the retelling of the story, the photos passed around at work, the many, many meals, venison chip steak, deer chops, deer jerky, deer burger, deer tenderloin sauteed in onions and mushrooms.

You are missing out, vegans have no fun. Mac
 
mp510 said:
By some of your spellings and some of your expressions, it sounds like your in the UK. I'm not sure what your current animal control situation is over there, but over here we are overpopulated with deer. I have relatives who have hit more than a couple deer in the last five years alone. In other areas, they have expanded seasons, methods and bag limits to help reduce the heard size. At another controlled hunt a decade ago, that was heavily protested by the animal rights activists, I have another relative that took 2 adult deer. His and most of the other hunters' deer were seriously malnourished and underweight. Coyotes and other similar animals have grown in population as well, and in some instances actually become dangerous to people as a result of lacking food. I recall a graph in my hunter ed book- only a small minority of animals killed were taken by hunters.
Click to expand...

Im not form U.K. , Im from Croatia, yes ppl hunt here same as in States or U.K. Im not talking is there to much or to less animals, should we reduce their number and stuff like that. Just cant imagine my self killing something so beautyfull like wild anymall and be happy about it. I will not lie to you my friends, if Im in situation that is me or animal, I would kill it, and i never patronized ppl about eating meat, and Im not in green peace or stuff like that, just think that ppl can enjoy in nature without gun ;)
 
Evolute said:
I don't find pleasure in killing animals.

I photograph nature for a living, the majority of which is wildlife photography. In a sense, I "hunt" almost every day. I stalk animals, aim, get them in my sight, and squeeze a trigger. However, I don't "hunt" in the sense of pursuing a mission of killing an animal, and then doing it.

I must say, I find "hunting", in the sense that I do engage in it, often a lot of fun. There is a great deal of planning and strategy involved with simply getting very close to animals while they are doing interesting activities, with a good background and good light. Figuring out the strategy and executing it successfully is a blast. Seeing the details of animal behavior and anatomy from very close is also deeply engaging. The feel of a cool breeze, the smell of the pine woods, the mud between my toes, etc., is also all pleasurable. Skillfully using equipment is fun. Employing lightning fast reflexes is fun, just like skeet shooting or video games. Seeking meaning in the situation that presents itself, and figuring out how to create a composition which visually conveys it, is deeply engrossing. Etc.

I doubt I could feel the same way, if I "hunted", in the way that most do it. To begin with, the purpose of killing would probably ruin the fun for me. I am not against the responsible killing of animals for food, but I personally find it un-fun to do. I would unhesitatingly kill wild animals for food out of real survival necessity. Short of that, I'd rather not. However, I can understand why hunters take pleasure in playing outdoors, stalking animals.

Also, most hunters go after relatively few species, during brief hunting seasons, with numerous restrictive laws, which would also place big limits on the enjoyment, for me. I like to go after many hundreds of species a year, of all variety of classes and sizes, whenever and wherever I want to.

And further, the species and methods that most hunters choose, such as going after deer, rabbit, ducks, pheasant, quail, and turkey, with firearms, from scores of yards away, taking any killing shot available, are too easy to honestly call a "sport"... or so it seems, to me. They're about as much a sport as jumping rope is a sport. There's not much to it, to keep it engaging.

Anyway, the pleasure I get from experiences in the outdoors, and the fun I get from practicing bushcraft, are not related to killing. I think that taking pleasure in the torment or death of an animal is pretty sick. I also think it is sick to kill big game for the main purpose of bagging a trophy. (Note that I am not accusing all hunters of killing for kill-thrills and trophies; I know that plenty of hunting has nothing to do with kill-thrills and trophies.) However, hunting for food, hides, etc., is often quite sensible. And, along the way, why not enjoy the experiences of the great outdoors which hunting may bring?
Click to expand...


Thats 100% my thinking, but I cant write so much like no native english speaker, it burns so much energy from me :D
 
But dude, guns rock! Go 2nd!!!
 
I enjoy nature every day, may it be walking my dog or snowshoeing around. To tell you the truth, I too feel bad when I walk up to the animal I kill.

Every fall tho, you'll find me getting up at 3 and draping camo on my back for a few week.
 
To me the most painful part of walking up on an animal that I've killed is knowing I'm gonna have to pack it's big a$$ back out for the next couple of days.

Anything that can be killed near my canoe and a clear riverbank is much preferred.:D
 
Runs With Scissors said:
To me the most painful part of walking up on an animal that I've killed is knowing I'm gonna have to pack it's big a$$ back out for the next couple of days.

Anything that can be killed near my canoe and a clear riverbank is much preferred.:D
Click to expand...

Hence turkeys and ducks are my favorite.

I used to have to clean my dad and uncles kills when I was a kids. Once me and my cousin decided to squeese the gut pile just a little bit and all the sh!t fell out...kinda gross me out since.
 
I took my dad deer hunting once. I walked him out to his stand, loaded MY shotgun with buckshot for him, and handed it up. He pulled out his bible and began shuffling papers, etc. He'll never see a deer that way, I thought. I walked over to my stand and got up, but before I was even settled 3 shots from dads area. OK. So I walk over and there he is praying over the deer, and crying. The deer had made enough noise to get him out of the bible, he'd shot 3 times at 20 yards and hit it with one pelet in the spine. The deer was laying paralized, so I had to finish it for him as he had no more shells, and no knife. We've never hunted together since. Man that deer was yummy.
 
The simple fact is that we spend the whole year in the wilderness, as much as we can, but only hunt during hunting season. If you don't enjoy the wilderness for it's own sake then don't take up hunting or you will be very very bored. Mac
 
Runs With Scissors said:
To me the most painful part of walking up on an animal that I've killed is knowing I'm gonna have to pack it's big a$$ back out for the next couple of days.

Anything that can be killed near my canoe and a clear riverbank is much preferred.:D
Click to expand...

A Buddy , My Dad and I were elk hunting. My buddy shot an elk (bow). You know... the buggers ALWAYS run down hill AWAY from the road. It was 2.5miles from the road. We quartered it, hung it in a tree, returned the next morning and put in 2 trips to get the meat out. 10 miles each total. Best tasting Meat I've ever had. there's more great stories to this one too, but I'll not steal the thread.
 
kaor said:
i dont aprowe .... amrecians.... normall, ....is killing for survive). .....civilizated..... metter...... metter ..... beautyfull wille...... recpect.... bearhanded........ riffle.........
Click to expand...

DUDE ! Get a SPELL CHECK NOW !!!

Wow !

.
 
It's been my experience that those that are against hunting have NO qualms about deer or other game dying through starvation.....

For them it's NOT okay to kill a deer fast, like, "BANG!" dead........but somehow it IS okay to allow them to suffer for weeks or months, slowly starving to death......

The first way, the deer is spared needless suffering and provides many meals for a family.

The second way, the deer endures long, needless suffering, to eventually die for no benefit whatsoever, aside from feeding the bugs and worms.

Yeah, THAT makes sense......:jerkit:
 
oo, have to ge in on this one.

I dont "get off" on hunting. The fun is in the hunt, I find after the shot has been taken, the fun ends, now I have clean the animal(animals) and go home. This is a large reason why I enjoy hunting small game, to me its a bit more rewarding, and I just have fun with small game hunting.
 
If I were to post on a Croatian site, I'd use Croatian spell check.

Why can't you use an English spell check ?

That's ok, I am amused by your mistakes. :D
 
Lots of them are misstyped actually, and Im working atm, answering phonecalls so im not really focused what Im typing
 
iamonespfn said:
Gotabunny-myspace.jpg


Rabbit with a bow, cool ! It looks quite challenging.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top