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Ethics of Hunting
Cantelope
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Inspiration for Topic
There was a discussion in the camping topic about hunting, and how it makes some people uncomfortable. I wanted to respond, but I felt that my response was likely to derail the topic, and so I felt the need to make this topic. This topic will begin with a brief history of hunting in North America. This history will begin in the 1800's, because that period is most relevant to our current laws. Additionally, any discussion that is far before this period will involve a number of controversial historical matters that are in dispute by academics who study them.
After the section of this post about the history of hunting in North America, there will be a section about common ethical objections to hunting. This section will include a lot of discussion of what laws exist, and that discussion will take place within the context of common objections to hunting.
Market Hunting
Whenever hunting is discussed, we must first define the purpose of hunting. People who hunt for food are known as subsistence hunters, people who hunt for a product to sell are called market hunters. Market hunting has historically taken place partially because of the value of meat, and because of the value of the various products made from animal skins, feathers, bones or other parts of the animal.
As a commercial activity, for the participants market hunting is a no-brainer. Any method of raising cattle, or even pigs, was going to be a slow process for gathering meat compared to a group of men on horseback herding animals they didn't raise in a game rich environment so that they could be quickly slaughtered. When it comes to clothing, the amount of leather that could be acquired this way dwarfed any other method imaginable through most of human history.
Pre-European contact, North America did not contain horses or other similar creatures that were tameable and capable of carrying a person at high speeds. When Europeans come, initially their firearms are not a whole lot more effective than bows and arrows. The point being is that although market hunting was common, it did not tend to result in the extinction or extirpation of the animals that were being hunted because the technology that existed to hunt was primitive. At that time, hunting laws largely do not exist in a way we would recognize today.
In the 1800's technology progressed significantly in ways that made market hunting far more efficient. After the civil war there were large numbers of men who had been accustomed to military life who had few economic opportunities after the war. Many of these men would become market hunters, and their highly efficient operations aided by new technology would cause near extinction of Bison, Pronghorn Antelope, Elk and many other big game species.
Fish and Game agencies started to be established around the 1860's, though many would not appear until much later. At this time it was becoming apparent that hunting as an activity needed to be regulated. Fish and Game agencies sell hunting and fishing licenses, and enforce laws pertaining to wildlife and their use. Unfortunately, these agencies would not get the kind of funding they would need to actually enforce the law on a wide scale until around the 1940's, and in the time between 1860, and 1940 a lot of the damage would be done to the wildlife of North America.
The development of trains meant that big game animals far from cities could be transported to major cities and sold for far more than they were worth before. Previously you would sell any meat to a local town or otherwise it had to be preserved with large amounts of relatively valuable salt. Before trains, most of the money made from market hunting was made from selling hides. The firearms that were in use during this period were far more effective than what had existed decades earlier. Cities, towns, and commercial operations of various natures had eliminated large chunks of what had been previously wildlife habitat.
The point of this story is primarily to establish the history that led up to the modern system of Fish and Game agencies we have today. That is, unregulated market hunting along with the advancement of hunting technology, and the development of large cities created circumstances where it was possible to drive wildlife to extinction. This created an environment where if we were to continue to have wildlife in North America, hunting as an activity would need to be regulated. More specifically, market hunting would need to be regulated. The extinction was not driven by individual families and their attempts to secure meat through hunting, it was by professional hunters who were making a living off of selling animal products. These professional hunters would in some cases operate completely outside the law well into the 1930's.
Even today if you pay attention to your local papers, there are probably some stories of local poachers profiting off of either hunting in areas where it is not legal or using methods that are not legal. I live in California, and subscribe to a magazine written by our Fish and Game agency. It frequently has articles about game wardens catching local poachers. There are still big profits to be made by using illegal means of fishing, such as gillnets, to harvest far more fish than is legal and there is a big black market for these fish. Wherever there are animals, there are profits to be made by their exploitation, and if there is not a law enforcement system capable of handling that, we will see huge declines in wildlife populations.
Wolf extirpation
Another interesting case of wildlife extirpation in the US is that of wolves. The short story is, the US government made it a policy to exterminate wolves. This was done to protect farmers livestock, and so that ranching could be done more efficiently and in more places. The wolf is a particularly interesting case, because although the US government has actively tried to make a number of different species extinct, those efforts have largely resulted in catastrophic failure. Even more interesting than that, is that a little more than a decade after this one success, we would have something called “the endangered species act,” which would lay a groundwork for returning the wolf to places that government policy had made it extinct from.http://www.missionwolf.org/page/wild-wolf-history/
Pittman Robertson Act
The Pittman-Robertson Act, passed in 1937, created an excise tax on firearms and ammunition. Funds from this tax would be collected, and then distributed to the states in order to fund conservation efforts, to improve wildlife habitat, to pay for shooting ranges, and to educate hunters. This act was supported by many hunters, as this was a dark time for hunting. Market hunting had decimated most big game species, and a lot of hunters were becoming aware that if something wasn't done, this time period would mark the end of hunting of many species.
It was at this time that many hunters started forming conservation organizations in order to help fund and protect wildlife. Wildlife was not being made extinct as a result of individual people who went out and hunted for meat and sport, it was being made extinct largely as a result of lack of enforcement of regulations against market hunting.
Wanton Waste Laws (Prohibition of Trophy Hunting)
It was not until the 1940's that various state agencies charged with enforcement of wildlife laws started to become effective. Well into the 1930s market hunters with submachine guns were roaming the countrysides of North America shooting anything that moved and taking it to local slaughterhouses for sale. At this point, that was largely an illegal activity (because most wildlife laws are made at the state level it is extremely hard to make generalizations about the legality of wildlife activities), but it still persisted and continued to decimate what was left of big game species in the US.
Around this time states started passing laws that made it illegal to sell game meat. They also made with this what are known as “wanton waste” laws. That is, if you kill a game species you have a legal obligation not to waste the meat. That waste, or “wanton waste” is a crime. You have a legal obligation if you hunt to salvage the parts of the animal that are usually eaten. What this means varies by state, in some cases if you took the meat and not the heart and liver, you would still be guilty of a crime.
What this means is that “trophy hunting” as people commonly understand it is illegal. The vast majority of hunters eat what they hunt. If they don't they are committing a crime. Many hunters are interested in having a trophy, but that is not just for bragging rights. In the case of deer antlers, the bigger they are the older the animal tends to be. Meaning that by killing the older animal you are taking less of its life than you were if you killed a younger deer. If deer are not killed, the way they would die naturally if not from predation is for them to lose their teeth and their ability to eat and eventually starve or freeze to death. In this way, from an ethical perspective it is very important to kill older deer to keep them from suffering.
http://definitions.uslegal.com/w/wanton-waste/
The Endangered Species Act
The Federal government protects endangered species, and there are no hunting of endangered species. If a species becomes threatened, that species will no longer be hunted. Only species that are not endangered are managed by state agencies, and it is state agencies that control hunting. States employ wildlife biologists that do surveys of the various species that are hunted, and what amount of these species are allowed to be hunted is controlled by these state game agencies. If populations start to suffer, fewer people are allowed to hunt that species.
Hunting Licenses
In order to legally hunt you must take and pass a hunters education course which includes sections about firearm safety. To be allowed to hunt you must annually buy a license. Funds from these licenses fund the state game agencies which allows them to hire game wardens and police wildlife. If you break wildlife laws, your license can be revoked, depending on the law and what state you are in it may be revoked permanently.
Hunting Tags
For most big game species, or any species that the local game agency is particularly interested in tracking you must buy a hunting tag annually. These tags are sold in limited numbers, so that the amount of legal hunting that happens is at levels that will not adversely effect the health of the species. When a hunter is successful, they must immediately fill out this tag and put it on the animal they hunted. Failure to do so is a crime.
In my state after filling out most tags I must present my harvest to some sort of law enforcement personnel for inspection, and they counter-sign my tag. The tag contains information about the time and date, and where the animal was harvested and what the method of take was. This gives Fish and Game agencies a lot of information including the ability to determine in many cases whether or not you have taken wildlife legally.
If you drive down the highway with a deer in your truck, the Fish and Game warden can stop you and inspect that deer. If you don't have a tag on it, or it is not filled out, you have committed a crime and will lose your license.
Funds for hunting tags provide habitat for the specific species that is being hunted. These tags are sold in limited numbers, and are based on historical data of how many animals will actually be harvested. That is they may sell 100 tags, knowing that on average about thirty deer will actually be harvested in the area the tag is being sold for. If the population of a specific species in an area starts to lower, the state will then revise its management plan for that species for the following year and reduce the number of tags available in that area to purchase.
In many cases, to hunt a particular species in an area you might have to enter into a bonus points system where you apply every year for points that you use as something like a que system. Each year you gain points, and when you gain enough points you can then buy a tag. In some cases for either premium hunting areas, or species that have lower populations, you might wait twenty years to draw a tag, and pay a fee for every year that you enter.
Carrying Capacity
For very species in the context of food and any other vital resources in their environment there is a limit to the maximum population that area can support. Without predation at levels that keeps the population in check, that species will exhaust its food supply, overpopulate, and create conditions that cause large amounts of that species to starve to death. Its of the opinion of many wildlife biologists that it is best for the health of the species to keep any particular species slightly below the carrying capacity of the land they live on. This allows each member of the species to consume a greater number of calories and give birth to healthier offspring that are more likely to survive in the long run.
If you have no hunting whatsoever, we will not have significantly more wildlife. We will have boom and bust wildlife cycles like we have with our stock markets. Otherwise in many areas where hunting is not permitted, or for species for which there is currently no hunting, game wardens or government paid hunters who do not need to harvest meat kill some amount of that species.
Fair Chase
There exists a concept in hunting called Fair Chase. What that generally means is that animals should not be put behind fences or in conditions where they are so easy to hunt as to make it an activity more like farming. What this often means, is that hunters and fishermen for the health and propogation of the species are prohibited from using the most effective means of hunting or fishing.
For example, in my state it would be illegal for me to go to an area on public land that is the only area around with water, and simply wait there for the animal I am targeting to come. Its understood that this is an incredibly effective strategy that could hurt the population.
As for fishing, for anyone that knows anything about commercial fishing practices, they would know that a rod and reel is the least effective method of catching almost any fish species, but in my state it is the only legal method of catching most fish.
In describing fair chase, what I am presenting is the fact that we have legislated the idea that in most cases wildlife as a sport should not be an activity that is so effective as a whole that it could decimate wildlife populations. A common objection to hunting is that animals are defenseless, that it is far too easy to go into the woods with a rifle and shoot a deer. In areas with high deer populations it may be very easy. In my state of California, its common that about only one in every five deer tags will be filled. In other words, a large percentage of hunters frequently are unsuccessful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_chase
Conclusion
I wrote this post to make some broad points. I am summarizing the points I was trying to make below,
1: Wildlife has value. Outside of a system of law enforcement, a system that is currently funded by an excise tax on firearms, ammunition, licenses, and tags bought by hunters, that wildlife will be exploited by criminals for profit.
2: There exists a comprehensive system of state wildlife agencies for the purpose of making sure that legal hunters are only allowed to hunt in cases where it will not hurt the population of animals they are hunting. This is a system that wildlife biologists participate in, and have the ability to lower the amount of legal hunting done if a particular species in a particular area is doing poorly.
3: Animals exist as part of a complex eco-system. The fact that we hunt animals does not mean that there are less of them or that the species or population being hunted is harmed.
Feel free to air any concerns you have about hunting, but please do so after reading this full post so that you can be sure that our legal system has not already addressed your particular issue. I felt the need to post all of this, because the vast majority of what I have written I feel is largely unknown by everyone I have talked to who has objections to hunting.
Cantelope on
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I've always been of two minds with regard to hunting. I grew up and live in a rural area where hunting and fishing are pretty major parts of the local culture. You definitely notice the utility of hunting living in that sort of environment, for a number of reasons. The woods around here are covered with whitetail deer - it's not unusual at all for me to see them on a daily basis - and, as much as I like to watch them, they can be a major pest for a variety of reasons. Automobile accidents, up to and including fatalities, are probably the biggest one in my mind - can think of several deaths and injuries that have happened when somebody comes around a corner and runs into a deer on some isolated country road. Likewise, they can be bad for crops, too, which in an agricultural region is a real issue that can effect people's livelihoods in a major way. Over the years the government has reintroduced some natural predators to try to "naturalize" their population cycles - there's a lot of coyotes in the local woods, which didn't used to be here AFAIK - but that comes with its own suite of problems. Predators are just as happy to attack livestock as they are wild animals (not to mention pets).
On the other hand I've never really been down with the idea of killing animals. I'm kind of a hypocrite there, since I eat a hell of a lot of meat (including game), but... oh well. Still glad other people are doing it.
At this point, I think the unfortunate reality is that the cat is out of the bag as far as reintroducing a completely natural ecosystem in most of the US. Even vast places like the National Parks are pretty strongly monitored, controlled, and regulated. Barring some drastic and unforeseen population displacement, things aren't going to go back the way they were for centuries. In many places even the landscape itself is irrevocably altered; the area where I'm typing this used to be high-canopy old-growth forest, but you would have to go miles and miles to find a place like that now (and it only remains because of careful preservation). Maintaining the ecosystem in a state of relative balance is something that will continue to take a lot of work, careful observation, and tinkering, and regulated hunting is a part of that.
Poachers are where you get your real problems. The Department of the Interior has little incentive to be cavalier with their wildlife populations or encourage disbalance/extinction. But poachers, of course, don't care, and will happily run wildlife populations down to the extinction level if given the chance.
But honestly, I don't think hunting culture and poaching culture have a whole lot of intersect. Most of the hunters I grew up with had few qualms about the regulatory hoop-jumping associated with hunting; it was just part of the process. And, as you mentioned, it was a lot more common to come home empty-handed anyway.
It's really complicated to talk about native peoples rights, as they vary quite a bit. They tend to have different rules on tribal lands. In some cases they can use hunting methods that are not otherwise legal, in other cases because they have traditionally hunted an animal they are allowed to even though it is otherwise against the law.
I pretty regularly watch a show called Meateater. In one episode (Season 9 episode 3:The Coldest Hunt: Nunivak Island Muskox) the host visits some Chupik eskimos to participate in a Muskox hunt. In that episode he talks to them about their diet. You can't grow anything in the part of Alaska they live in. Its pretty normal for them to go all winter eating only a fish called tom cotton that they dip in seal fat. If you are not a Chupik Eskimo you cannot kill seals.
A small generalization would simply be, if you are Native American and can prove it you can likely get special hunting or fishing rights for whatever region your tribe is associated with.
As for actually hunting, sitting in a tree-blind hosed down with deer scent after baiting with salt block or bucket full of rotting donuts should basically be illegal but it isn't. If you insist on hunting, then actually stalk and hunt. I get that native american tribes still hunt as part of a cultural process... maybe they shouldn't get to use high caliber hunting rifles to do it? Generally indigenous people don't have access to large quantities of cheap meat and grain so I would give them a pass.
Human beings are a party species. As long as we get to do what we want, no one really cares about long term consequence. Supplying food for 8 billion people requires substantial use of land and advanced farming practices. Tradition is never a good enough reason to do anything on it's own.
Edit: The wolf thing just pisses me off, because you can't fence off entire counties worth of land and put cows and sheep on it after driving away all the indigenous creatures and then complain when your untended animals get eaten by wolves. They were there first and if you appropriately move your herd and use grown feed you do not need to occupy hundreds of acres for cattle ranching, they do it consistently in lots of places without excessive land. Just because it's cheap or free to sneak on to federal land doesn't mean you then get to kill animals because it's easier than putting in due diligence with your farming practices.
We make decisions as a society, and often times its very few of us making the decision. We made a decision as a society to preserve the land that is now our national forests, if not for that these farms are the only place that wildlife would exist, because despite everything that farmers may do to deter wildlife, farm habitat is much better for most wildlife than the cities that we live in.
As for your description of deer hunting, methods vary by state. Everything you described is illegal in California. That stuff tends to be legal in states with a high population of deer. I also think it sounds pretty condescending that you think native Americans need a pass from you to use large caliber rifles. Who are you to judge their culture and way of life? Who are you to give them a pass?
I am deeply concerned about wildlife habitat. I experience that habitat as a hunter in ways that most non-hunters don't, and it's largely been because people like me, and hunters like Teddy Roosevelt, that we made a decision as a country to have national forests and places where wildlife can be wild. Its because of hunters that got to experience this that the United States isn't just cities from coast to coast. If you don't allow hunting, then wildlife doesn't have the value that it has because of people like me paying for the experience and getting involved in the process.
Tradition is an awful reason to do something. Condescending or not, the practices of groups of people need to be weighed against the environment in which they exist. Natives pretty routinely get a shit deal, letting them hunt doesn't somehow fix that. I say this as someone who has family and family friends living on reservations. Most of them are shitholes with no opportunity. I'm advocating that pretending they get to hunt and open casinos so it's totally fine is insane, because the benefits of the mantle of "tradition" only really impact a few very large wealthy popular tribes. So "give them a pass" means "let them hunt until we figure that other shit out".
It was John Muir who persuaded Teddy Roosevelt, not the other way around. Cantelope, while I appreciate most of what you're saying, you shouldn't criticize someone else for being condescending and then in the same breath condescend all over other people.
"I experience this in a way that you don't" is both true and also special pleading. Bird-watchers experience wildlife in a way that you don't and your way isn't magically superior to theirs, or a day hikers, or anyone else. Different, yes. But just that.
So much has been changed by species that have been introduced to America either on purpose or by accident that humans will have to actively work for the foreseeable future to keep wildlife in balance. If you don't do that, then some species under the conditions that exist will out compete others.
As for Native Americans, I'm not saying everything is fine because they get to hunt. It is part of their culture, and I'm offended that you feel that you can cast judgement on it in the way you are.
Additionally, I wasn't actually saying because I kill animals I understand more about it than non-hunters. If you don't hunt, chances are you don't go to national forests as often as a lot of hunters do, or to places that they would go to. Everything that leads up to a successful hunt is the result of careful preparation, and study of the animal being hunted. I have an interest in going to the Marble mountain wilderness, I don't know any non-hunters that go there. I am interested in going there specifically, because it has possibly the greatest black bear population density in California. Additionally, the fact that I am a hunter and have an understanding of the law means that I am in a good position to call the police on poachers, and protect wildlife in that way. If you don't hunt, you probably have no idea whether people are breaking the law. A lot of that wildlife law enforcement starts with hunters in the field calling tips in.
But hunting isn't something I've studied extensively and I'll concede it might be possible that it can help reduce animal suffering, in some cases, by helping with overpopulation. If that's true I hope we can figure out ways to deal with overpopulation that don't involve shooting our fellow animals for sport.
I agree with the idea that just because something is culture, that doesn't necessarily mean it is free from scrutiny. What I read, read to me like a cheap shot at their culture. I have not seen anything yet in this topic that I would describe as a legitimate criticism of legal hunting.
I do find the pride many people take in killing an animal somewhat curious, though.
Photographing themselves with the corpse and preserving parts of the body for ornamentation and display and whatnot.
Killing for food is a chore. It seems an odd thing in which to take pleasure.
Is your motivation so different? Is the pleasure your derive from your sport not the same? Are they not just much wealthier and therefore able to conduct a more expensive and "prestigious" hunt?
Other than the fact that you're not intentionally killing endangered animals, how is your motivation different?
Like many, many other non-hunters I am something of a hypocrite in that I eat meat. But unlike you, hunting my dinner down and watching it die would undoubtedly leave me perilously close to vegetarianism. So explain what you're getting out of this, if you can. Because I seriously don't get it. I'd like to assume that its something other than sadism or a desire to kill things. But I know not what.
Also, I think one has to take a step back and evaluate how much of the "wilderness preservation exists solely because of hunters" body of fact is objective, and how much is coming directly from hunting-oriented groups. Again, John Muir -- he founded the Sierra Club, which is going strong today on the strength of non-hunting oriented wilderness appreciation and recreation. There are such things as birdwatchers and botanical clubs. As far as I know the entire US National Park system still forbids hunting; the crowds that visit Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Everglades, etc. are there to enjoy nature outside of its relationship to hunting. I can easily believe that hunters have played a large part, but there's evidence to contradict saying outright that "Its because of hunters that got to experience this that the United States isn't just cities from coast to coast."
Is it for food? or to maintain a balance that humans have already interfered with? It's ethical.
Those are my starting points, and things can certainly waver from there. Like defining how much food and how to define pleasure hunting.
I'm not going to say all hunting is bad, but I can't get behind the dentist from Minnesota flying to another continent to post selfies of himself over an animal he killed because it brought him much pleasure.
Other people may feel differently. I'm not going to tell you there is no "bubba" out there drunk out of his mind and breaking a dozen firearms and wildlife laws at any given time who gets off on killing an animal. I'm sure for some people the killing part is particularly pleasurable, that's not what its about for me. I get some satisfaction from acquiring my own meat, and food in general. I get a lot more satisfaction from the broader process. Outside of hunting I garden, and I am working on moving to another area specifically so that I can raise chickens, the city I currently live in has ordinances that make it extremely difficult to do this. I'm more or less obsessed with the broad process of food acquisition, and even of understanding why food tastes the way it does. You learn a lot about cooking, and why meat tastes the way it does from hunting.
Hunting doesn't take place in the national parks, but it does take place in the national forests. Much of that forest land, particularly what exists around large lakes is prime real estate that the market would pay nearly anything to build on.
Is killing the animal necessary for survival? In sufficiently advanced societies the answer would nearly always be no, except in cases of self defense. With regards to farming animals for meat, it should not be necessary for survival but our food supply is terribly non-adaptive. I can't think of any far future populated by an advanced society that relies on killing and consuming the flesh of things, if for no other reason than the terrible inefficiency of it. I say this as someone who has had the pleasure of eating on a few farms and killing my own dinner. It's somehow turned into a romantic gesture of "respect" to kill and eat a thing, as though it's a grand and awkward way of "tending the land".
Nope, it's just spinning a chicken by the head until you hear a pop and it kicks and squawks for a bit. My manliness was not increased, nor was the meal any more delicious. Everyone I know who hunts, learned from a parent or other adult family member who bought the same nonsense about respect and being in touch with nature and it's nearly impossible to discuss otherwise, because at this point that would somehow be an insult to the memory of said parent or family member.
I get that people hunt, I actually don't mind it that much. I get that people like beef steaks and chicken breasts, I don't mind that much either. I'm not willing to call either thing ethical though and think that as a species our continued survival will rely on not doing those things sooner than later.
Edit: See above dad story, I guess.
This.
I have never personally hunted, but my uncle and father-in-law do/did and I have benefited from it in the form of tender, tasty deer steaks. My FIL has one deer head mounted in his house, but I guarantee that he also ate every part of that animal that he could. Sport hunting isn't a thing that goes on with the people I know and I, personally, do not understand why one would do such a thing. Unless you are defending yourself, someone else or your property, the death of an animal should mean you are planning on eating that animal.
Growing up in a rural area, this is what I consider deer season.
I don't hunt, tried it once and felt it was really boring sitting in the cold just watching for something. It just wasn't for me. That said, I was happy every year when deer season came around because it exponentially decreased the chances of a deer making contact with the fender of my car. That's not an exaggeration for those of you who haven't lived in a highly deer populated rural area. It something that happens all too often and can cause serious car accidents.
I eat meat. I'm a predator of sorts one way or another until they finish making lab meat into something viable. Given that, as a meat-eater, I already take life, I feel that having hunted and cleaned and eaten my own prey, I at least fully comprehend my actions. It's really easy to just chug a cheeseburger without thinking about what you're doing, but when you see the light leave an animal's eye you are more likely to have to come to terms with your own choices. Even if I did not eat meat myself, I still keep predatory pets, and there's nothing especially different from my feeding a corpse to a cat than to myself.
That said, in my family, hunting comes from a history of need; my dad was left in the woods for a weekends to provide for the family back in tough times. As our family has prospered, we hunt less and less, and now my dad, slaughterer of herds, happily feeds and protects the deer who wander into the yard. When we do hunt, we do so with respect for the animals, doing little more than disguising our scent and wearing subdued clothing, and putting a large amount of effort into ensuring the cleanest, fastest kill possible. We've taken some personal risks and put significant effort into ensuring that nothing goes wandering into the woods slowly bleeding to death, and taking an animal out as soon as possible if it's not dead when we get to it.
There is no sport/trophy hunting when we hunt. We don't point a gun at any living thing unless we're going to eat it or it's about to harm another creature human or otherwise. There's even a family history of "fishing" just to pet the fish (or baby shark) and throw it back; trading a meal for a hole in the cheek.
I have not had to do so myself yet but our family also puts down its own pets, rather than dragging them to the vets for an injection.
Power over life is taken very, very seriously in my family. It's as close to sacred as we have, and it drives a lot of the empathy in our actions.
I often wonder if everyone who chooses to eat meat should have to watch eyes dim as blood cools in their hands so that they have a better sense of the gravity of their choices. It doesn't stop a single one of us from eating meat, but it's probably much of why animals are such a huge part of our lives. I'm told that my dad, the lifelong hunter, had tears in his eyes when he had to kill and bury a fawn - which had been frequenting the front yard - after it was hit by a car.
As long as we tolerate wild predation, we've pretty much given up entirely on reducing the suffering of animals. Given how stressful being chased down by predators must be, and how most animals probably can't fully comprehend how hunting with a gun works, replacing all predators with hunting would actually be an act of mercy.
If you want to hunt animals the way you evolved to you should chase them on foot for most of the day then stab them with a pointy stick when they eventually collapse from exhaustion. And even though I'm okay with certain types of hunting, if you were prevented from doing so it would not at all be akin to penning in all wild animals.
This is a very silly post.
You don't think that we evolved to be problem solvers?
I mean, it's not like someone just gave us the guns.
Edit: I mean, that's like saying the way we evolved is to breath water.
You think the only problem to be solved is how to most efficiently kill animals? I very much doubt that you do. And I suspect that if I suggested replacing all hunting with jigsaw puzzles you wouldn't be especially keen on the idea. So let's put aside silly questions and address what it was you actually said.
The evolutionary history of humans does not mean they need to hunt or that they ought to. It does mean they can be very good at it but that is not at all the same thing.
You're kinda just begging the question here. I am certainly arguing that the evolutionary history of humans give us the natural right to hunt other animals.
People usually think that they have lots of rights they don't "need" (depending on what you mean, I suppose).
You're saying humans evolved to hunt animals in a certain way you're avoiding actually describing and that denying them the right to do so is akin to penning up wild animals. I am saying that is nonsense with no evidence to back it up.
It's cool if you want to hunt. You do not have an evolutionary need to do so.
So what's the difference? That's the question.
Human beings are tool using, hunting animals and wildebeest are migrating animals
I argue both have a natural right to those behaviors.
Your options are
A) neither have those rights
C) there is some relevant difference between the them
If it's c then what is the relevant difference?
That said, I've also lived in the Valley Forge area, and Pennsylvania seriously fucked their ratio of wolves to deer over the last couple of centuries. To the point where they have zero wolves and a deer population that threatens to crush itself under it's own weight via disease and food devastation. In that case, we've got a responsibility to deal with the problem we caused.
I've also had winters as a child where the primary source of meat for our family was animals that had been hunted in the previous year. And we were far from the only family where this was the case.
So I think my stance on hunting can be summarized as; food/population control- yes, yeehawwegotsguns- no.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Never been hunting but I grew up salt water fishing and this is kind of how I feel about both subjects.
Size limits? Fine. Catch limits? Also a-ok. Tell me I have to take a year off from striped bass fishing for the sake of the population? Disappointing but I want there to be fish to catch for my kids when their time comes. I never keep anything I won't eat, killing animals purely for trophy/sport does not sit well with me at all.
Unless there is a distinct ecological or social need for killing an animal (that will not be used for food) I am wholeheartedly against it.
Come Overwatch with meeeee
Deer population density (on the east coast, at least, I don't know about the rest of the country) is dramatically higher than it was in pre-Columbian times and a big reason for that is predator removal. Reintroducing large populations of wolves into the suburbs isn't really a vote-winner, so something else needs to be done. Deer are involved in over a million car crashes per year in the US alone, resulting in hundreds of deaths.
I don't personally hunt because I don't feel like picking up another time-consuming hobby right now, but anyone who does (safely and responsibly) has my sincere gratitude.
I have no issues with hunting for population control and for food. You should be obligated to eat what you kill and use as much of the animal as possible.
Sport/trophy hunting can go fuck itself.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
Basically this for me as well, with a couple additions.
1) I catch and release 95% of the time. There is lethality associated with that practice, but it's low enough that I'm willing to take the trade-off.
2) I will support other people's right to keep fish, even when it rubs me the wrong way.
3) There exist entirely artificial fisheries (rainbow trout) which exist explicitly for humans to catch, kill, and hopefully eat.
Re: Hunting. There is a somewhat strong argument to be made that a well managed large game (elk, bear, even some african species, etc...) hunting program can be used to improve the health of those populations (by removing problem individuals) and raises funding for conservation of the remaining population. Fish and wildlife agencies in most states are wildly underfunded, IMO, and do not have the resources to keep up with illegal hunting and fishing.
Humans are a distinct animal that can rationalize choices and survival mechanics, and has adapted to a point that they can opt to avoid killing wild animals unless necessary, rather than as a mater of fact. Husbandry aside, which is another key difference between us and other omnivores.
My position is that it's an ethical imperative to avoid causing suffering wherever possible. This is in conflict with the individual's interest in survival and need for food, making hunting and fishing circumstantially permissible. Indigenous people practicing their culture, while not being immune to criticism, are generally correlated with sustainable practices and with genuine reliance on hunting for subsistence. For most Americans, having access to an affordable vegetarian diet, I am skeptical as to the justification for hunting.
Hunting is almost always preferable to factory-farmed meat, though, in terms of animal suffering, environmental impact, food safety and political / labor concerns. If people are going to eat meat, which they should not, then hunting is preferable. However, the "hobbying" of hunting is something I find distasteful and trophy hunting should be banned outright. Along those lines, anything that makes the endeavor 'more sporting' while increasing the odds of wounding an animal without killing it, such as antique firearms or similar, I have a hard time justifying.
Hunting as population control and deer as pest animals are circumstances resulting from the culling of natural predators. As others have said, the impact of overblown deer populations is huge in terms of auto accidents and environmental problems, most notably erosion along streams and river banks due to the over-grazing of vegetation that would normally hold soil together. Re-introducing and protecting wolves and mountain lions is the solution, but humans are bad at risk assessment and one instance of a wolf attack would outweigh a hundred traffic deaths and practically infinite destruction of ecosystems.
I'd like to address a couple of things specifically that stood out to me here.
I'd like to address this first. I grew up in the American Southeast which has a deer population that's insane. In Alabama, there are two drivers. Those that have hit a deer, and those that will. There are just that many of them running around. If hunters weren't using conservation practices the deer population would suffer disease, and food supplies would shrink. Case in point, my Uncle who is a farmer along the Florida/Alabama border HAS to reduce the deer population on his land during legal hunting seasons otherwise his crops are destroyed and his livelihood is threatened. He's worked out the math and 1 deer less than what he's allowed to take (based on the very, very smart people that run the numbers) equates to about $1,000 USD in profit lost during harvest. He's worked with the various organizations and his son actually received a degree in wildlife management to be of further help to this cause so that he can make sure he gets the best return on his crops while taking the least number of wild game off his property.
Now, that's one story. We all know other stories of the guys who only go out to get a nice big buck head to hang on the wall. Personally I'm against that. I was given my first firearm, a .410 shotgun, when I was about eight years old. That was my first hunting tool. My father and I would go hunting for the next decade and anything killed was processed into meat that would last us through the winter. Was this needed in our current age of going to the grocery store? Absolutely not. But there IS a culture behind our hunting. Not only was it one of the sole sources of food on the table when my father was growing up in the country, as it was generations before him, but it was also cultural in that we have a strong native american background in our family as well. Through this we learned to respect the hunt not as something we took from the land, but something we were given.
When I went to college, I stopped hunting. Recently, I've felt a tie to that past and it's gotten me back into the mindset to let nature provide. I spend a lot of time with a group of people who share similar interests and have about 400 acres spread out through some forests and streams. This is NOT a conservation (hunting) club, mind you. Only select few are allowed to hunt there and rarely at that. Those that do hunt other areas bring their kills back to this place to process it though because it's almost a community. We're all thankful for what comes from taking a deer. As I said in the camping thread, being thankful means nothing goes to waste. Everything from the antlers to make tool handles or measuring cups to the sinew to adhere to our bows to the meat which feeds hundreds at an annual event is used. Most of us hunt traditional with selfbows (bows me made from a stave from a tree cut on the property) and homemade arrows. We do stalk game, some use ladder stands, but fields are not baited. We also have squirrel hunts and rabbit hunts and it IS a cultural thing for us.
No one whom I respect has ever said they enjoy taking an animals life. They do it because they want to feel more connected to their past and provide for themselves.
Recently, at another archery club I visit, a man hit a deer and drove off, too scared or careless to deal with the aftermath. The deer then got caught in barbed wire and was lying, suffering. A woman passing by came and got me and the club owner and told us about it, and we walked down the road to find the deer suffering. We had to put it out of it's misery and it was heartbreaking. Cars passing by called us "fucking poachers" and told us we deserved to be shot and threatened to call the police, which we had already done. The police were overjoyed we were able to handle it because they would have left it to rot, and we were able to preserve 70lbs of meat from it.
That's as best I can do to explain what I get out of hunting, or fishing, or any taking of wildlife. I hope it helps, and I'm sorry if it doesn't.
I think knowing the ways of our ancestors and having a respect for those ways and knowing how to live from what the land can provide for you and use all of those spoils to make food, tools, and clothing is ABSOLUTELY necessary for survival. That's my personal opinion. If I had children whether they hunted or not I'd love for them to know how to live without the comforts of air conditioning and microwave meals. Even if they decide to never pick up a bow or gun I'd want them to have that knowledge. I'm not a prepper, just to clarify, but I take a boatload of comfort in know that god forbid something terrible did befall us that I'd have the necessary knowledge to keep going and do it with dignity and respect to the environment in which I'm living.
I disagree in that I don't think our species will ever rely on a purely soy/vegetarian based diet and the idea of meat production and consumption will just go away. I say that with know malice toward your opinion, please let me make that clear, just a simple disagreement.
I bring this out whenever wild animal deaths come up
.Likewise, Stephen Herrero, a Canadian biologist, reports that during the 1990s bears killed around three people a year in the U.S. and Canada
And if you are worried mace seems better anyway.
.The question is not one of marksmanship or clear thinking in the face of a growling bear, for even a skilled marksman with steady nerves may have a slim chance of deterring a bear attack with a gun. Law enforcement agents for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have experience that supports this reality -- based on their investigations of human-bear encounters since 1992, persons encountering grizzlies and defending themselves with firearms suffer injury about 50% of the time. During the same period, persons defending themselves with pepper spray escaped injury most of the time, and those that were injured experienced shorter duration attacks and less severe injuries. Canadian bear biologist Dr. Stephen Herrero reached similar conclusions based on his own research -- a person’s chance of incurring serious injury from a charging grizzly doubles when bullets are fired versus when bear spray is used.
Coyote
.Two fatal coyote attacks have been confirmed by experts.
Hog
. His analysis included 412 wild pig attacks involving 665 human victims worldwide, over a 15-year period.
Among the key findings:
• Only four fatal wild pig attacks were reported in the U.S., three of which involved wounded animals being hunted. The most recent such case occurred in Texas in 1996.
Alligators
.Since 1948 there have been 22 fatal attacks in Florida, as well as 206 major bites and 116 minor bites, according to the wildlife agency.
Rabies
. The number of rabies-related human deaths in the United States has declined from more than 100 annually at the turn of the century to one or two per year in the 1990's. Modern day prophylaxis has proven nearly 100% successful.
Mountain lions
At least 20 people in North America were killed by cougars between 1890 and 2011, including six in California. More than two-thirds of the Canadian fatalities occurred on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
Edit: Oh and to compare that to tornadoes which you also brought up.
. Tornado deaths per year
2011 553
2012 70[/i]