Chris, you are correct, the pit and cliff were my attempt at opening people's eyes to things "out of the norm" should survival hunting become necessary.
There are no quotas, no limits, no laws. It's whatever you can do to feed yourself.
I agree, laws go out the window, just like the barrel of my 30.06 will go out the window....so I can bag a deer in my backyard, that I have UNETHICALLY baited there using nuts and fruits. Heck, i will even place a nice plywood backdrop and sight-in on the board for just the right shot. Hunger is hunger.
And I am not a seasonal hunter. But, I do know, that give nthe circumstances, I can shoot and butcher game for the purpose of providing food. People eat animals. we are at the top of the food chain, which, from where I sit, is a pretty good place to be.
Sorry Mr. Deer! I am a predator and you are prey. Get in my belly.
OK, Ethics, and my above statement about baiting. So what?
I believe we were discussing that Kevin brought up the topic as Survival Hunting, which MOST of us know means "sans laws". I took Kevin's use of the word ethics, not as actual ethics, but, as the superimposed ethics as set forth by DNR and state laws.
It appears Conner is from Germany, and therefor you may be reading how the populace of a European Socialist-leaning country thinks.
European hunting is more like a ceremonial tradition, with hard and fast routine and rules of engagement. Think of the Fox Hunt in Britain, or the Baron being handed his shotgun as the "helpers" open the cage to let the Game birds fly, if only for a brief moment, before they are blown to smithereens by the baron, who then turns his back on the bloodshed and lets someone else gather the foul, clean it, cook it, and serve it. He then sits at his dinner table, with the guests of honor and re-lives that triumphant moment when he blasted the caged bird, that had just seen the light of day and took to the air, seconds before becoming a aristocratic pin-cushion.
Runningboar hunts, skins his game, prepares it, cooks and eats it.
Does it all himself. Ethics don't have a darn thing to do with it.
My point being, that even legal ethics are in the eye of the beholder.
We follow hunting laws onyl becuase they are laws, doesn't mean we agree with them, ethics have no bearing.
Is it more ethical to bait deer into a pre-determined shooting lane or release a caged gamebird as if it is a clay pigeon launched at a skeet range?
Some of us understood the topic was SURVIVAL Hunting, and, as well, we understood that when it comes to being hungry, laws be dammed, ethics be dammed, we are going to feed ourselves and our family.
I agree with Kevin's Gene Pool theory. Ethics or not, it is a fact, that someone who refuses to feed themselves, by any means available, and bases their lack of action on any emotional need, will be "naturally selected against" through starvation. Darwin would be so proud.
If you eat, you live. If you don't eat, well, it's pretty obvious.
Again, I mentioned the pit and the cliff, because they go against the grain of what most think of, when they think of "hunting". When it comes to food collection, the hungry will use any means possible to procure food. It has nothing to do with ethics or law. If a man's children are starving, he'll ignore a law without blinking and eye.
In a survival situation it will be no different.
Runningboar also made a very good point about herds, in that, if there is prolonged period of survival hunting (several seasons) we will be dealing with a much smaller population of animals to be hunted. Each season the hunter will need to become that much more skilled, in order to bring home the bacon.
Until you can smear ethics onto a cracker and eat it,
it is of no consequence, when it comes to survival hunting.
