Over the Christmas holiday my family and me gathered to celebrate the season. One way or another me, my uncle, and my cousin and a few others got into an argument about hunting. He is an extreme animal lover (one time while golfing he wouldn't put until a bug walked across the path of the ball). Me and my cousin were telling him that hunting is necessary to control the population of wildlife, especially in areas where certain wildlife species do not have natural predators any longer. The main focus of our debate was deer. I said that deer have no natural predators in the state of Arkansas except black bear and coyote (which rarely feed on deer except the sick or dead). He argued that nature will balance itself out. I said that it works the same way that humans have, humans have no natural predators except ourselves and the Earth is WAY overpopulated now and that is why you have so many sick, hungry, and poor people in the world today. This same knowledge applies to deer. Deer breed extremely well, almost like rabbits if you will. Without hunters or natural predators you end up having an area that is overpopulated with deer and there ends up being not enough food and space to go around so they eventually starve and disease themselves to death without hunters. I was told this is untrue by my uncle. So my question, who do you think is right and why?
Hunting for food is fine by me, as long as the animal isn't endangered. Alot of folks in my family hunt, I'm personally not into it. I enjoy shooting clays much more than I ever did shooting rabbits or deer.
I don't want to do it...and I can't. I realize it's seriously hypocritical, because I eat meat. I have no problem with other people hunting...I just can't do it.
That's the thing, we do not hunt or kill any endangered species and we eat all meat that is edible. I apologize that I don't use every single piece of the deer like Native Americans did but I use what I can. I do not stuff or mount animals I kill and I would never do such a thing, I hunt for the meat and it is enjoyable to get out into nature sometimes. I will admit however that hunting is not a sport. If you consider it a sport it is the most lopsided sport in terms of advantages there is.
This is interesting. My brother is an avid hunter. I've never done it. We agreed to go hunting together this year. I'll let you know my feelings after I've done it. BTW, my brother is a Bishop at his church who doesn't drink or smoke. This should be interesting.
The world is overpopulated with human beings? Hunting for food fine Hunting for sport is cruel and inhumane Rocket River
Essentially, any person who has ever killed any animal in any way for their own purposes hsoudl ose the argument, and whether your uncle wants to believe it or not, that includes him. He can let a bug walk across the golf course, but he can't really help driving his car, living where he does, going to the bathroom, etc. At the end of the day, unless you go out and live in the wilderness by yourself, you will be directly or indirectly killing animals every day. So, if you just try and act responsibly, and try and live in today's society as best as you know how, then there shouldn't be anything wrong with hunting responsibly - only killing those animals that are in season, overpopulated, you're going to use as much as possible, etc. At the end of the day, it seems almost MORE inhumane to support breeding and population growht at a farm (i.e. - cattle raising), simply to kill that animal. It becomes even worse when you start talking about chickens growing with no heads, etc.
Did your uncle ever stop to think that Humans are animals and are a part of nature just like deer are? What is the difference between a baby deer being killed and basically eaten alive by a pack of wolves vs. a buck beging shot? Also, did your uncle stop to think that maybe humans hunting deer IS nature's way of "balencing itself out"?
Why the hell not stuff or mount it? If you kill a 9 point buck or whatever, then you might as well have his head mounted and eat the meat. I would if I killed one but I don't believe in killing animals of any kind. I will kill insects, however, if their bothering my sanctuary. I suspect I would kill an animal if I had to but not out of sport and I don't need their meat since there is no shortage of food or money on my part. So, I would never kill in the act of hunting. That said...I have been with people who are more than willing to kill the deer. I've seen deer skinned and chopped up. I will gladly eat the deer meat. But, I won't kill it. I do believe in your original statement about controlling the population of animals...especially deer. If there were no sport hunting to control the deer population, then you can damn sure bet the state is going to do some animal population control of their own means. But, that's why we allow hunting...isn't it? Otherwise, we will be overrun by deer and something else in the environment will be out of whack because of the explosion of deer. Same goes for other animals which are in abundance. Obviously, scarce animals need not apply. So, I think it is one thing to be an animal lover and not want to kill anything. But, that should not blind one to the reason it needs to be done. It just so happens that we have hunters out there who enjoy the sport, the taxidermy aspect, and/or the food you get. Some may do out of necessity in their own lives but most do it for whatever reasons they have ranging from leisure to sport to survival. If your Uncle doesn't understand that, then I almost feel sorry for him because his own animal lover attitude has blinded him to reality. In the old days before we were overrun with humans, then nature would have balanced out the animal populations. Deer would have had more predators back then. Now, humans have to be those predators or else we will be run amok in deer not just in Arkansas but Texas and whereever else. While overpopulation of deer may not necessarily mean they will starve or die of disease, it very well could mean that and more. Overpopulation of any species is likely to cause problems leading to controls over the population of that species. I wouldn't be surprised if, in the distant future, this applies to humans as well. After we deplete our natural resources and ruin our planet, it may not be able to sustain the population of humans it now supports. Oh hell...just let the deer reproduce until their so huge in numbers that every other outing in a car trip ends in an accident because you hit a deer on the road because their all over now. I say as long as the deer are not anywhere near extinction levels and there are limits(which there are) to how many you can kill in any one season...then wtf is the problem? If you don't want to kill the deer, then don't and let those who get off on it for whatever reason do it. Or, do like me and just eat the meat from deer that others have killed.
Since hunting licenses and certain ammo tax goes towards wildlife and preservation efforts, the number of whitetail deer has actually increased by a few million since the 1940's... I guess you could say hunting technically increases population of certain wildlife...
Shooting a feral hog by a feeder (like my Uncle) is not very sporting, but it's still better than going down and buying some bacon at the grocery and b****ing about people who hunt. I mean have these knuckleheads ever checked out a slaughter house ~ chickens, pigs, cows, sheep, etc… (Pick your poison) --> <--
Hunting and eating the meat from the animals you kill is way more humane than eating factory raised meat.
Yea...the most obvious argument is if your Uncle is a meat eater and an animal lover who doesn't believe in killing animals...then he's got a dilemma there. How can he justify eating meat then? It's okay for slaughter houses to slaughter animals for his meat but, when it comes to a few hunters killing some deer, he's opposed. Umm....hello? Anyone home in there?
i don't know why this surprises anyone. this is probably the vast majority of people. most people don't hunt. many people don't like the idea of personally killing an animal...but we've all grown up as meat-eaters. sooooo...this is the result. hypocritical?? yes. but not unexpected. i don't fall into the category of seeing hunting as evil or wrong...but i definitely am not comfortable with it, personally. having said that...i eat meat at virtually every meal.
People that have ethical problems with killing animals but still buy food made with grain or vegetables harvested by machines are hypocrits. Don't they know that each year millions of animals are killed by combines? I hope they don't lay down on a mattress and squash millions of innocent dust mites every night either. People need to realize that humans occupy a spot in the natural pecking order just like all of the other animals. At this time, we are in the top spot, and while it sucks to be the deer that is picked off by a hunter, that is no worse than being the plant that is eaten by the deer.
The Buffalo and Bison population has increased by 38,675 in the last 50 years...Thanks to hunters' monetary funding and PBS viewers like you...
First, I'd like to say that I personally don't hunt, and have no desire to, and would probably cry like a little girl watching Bambi's death for the first time. I am occasionally fascinated by the mechanics of guns, but only in a theoretical sense, and haven't shot one in many years. The first thing I'd like to say is that hunting licenses are definitely used to control animal populations. I speak specifically of deer populations in places with winters that cause a dieback in stuff for the deer to eat. The problem exists specifically because the particular way in which farmers and ranchers have vigorously pursued the killing of carnivores like wolves and coyotes, who will venture onto these ranches and kill the livestock. The livestock serve as substitutes for the wild dear that these animals normally eat. Without the normal culling that these carnivores provide, the populations are too large come winter when the plant food sources for these deer die back. If one let the populations be, by the end of the winter many of the deer would have starved to death very slowly and painfully. One could, I suppose, argue that the wolf populations should be allowed to return, but in practice that would never happen and to suggest so argues from a naive world view IMHO. I'm fairly sure, however, that for many of the animals which qualify as game animals, there is no ecological reason to cull the population, and to use this as an exclusive argument for allowing hunting is probably a bit of a stretch.
