Posted on 04/21/2022 4:28:23 AM PDT by Kaslin
I’m ready to make a lot of you mad, and I’m ok with that….
I’m not against hunting, it helps control animal populations that otherwise would grow too large and starve a lot of them. It also feeds people. I’m not even really “against” what I’m going to talk about here, I’m just saying that I simply do not get it. I’m talking about trophy hunting.
I get that in a lot of cases trophy hunting helps support the animals and keeps populations alive – an animal that provides incomes to tribes and/or governments will be protected and less likely to go extinct. I get all of that.
What I don’t get is the desire to kill an animal so you can say you did. So you can take a picture next to its dead body. So you can mount its head on your wall.
I will never understand the mentality of watching television, seeing some majestic creature in Africa and thinking, “My God, such a beautiful creature – I must kill one.” More than that, you have to drop a huge sum of money for the privilege.
What brought this up? This story from the UK Daily Mail about a man who paid $50,000 to kill a rare big tusker elephant. The weirdo, in my opinion, said after, “You know, there's more to it than shooting a bull, taking a photograph, becoming a hero and all this other nonsense.”
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Who wouldn’t want a trophy giraffe?
“Trophy” animals represent the direction evolution wants to go. (Remove the biggest fish in the species, the remainder of the gene pool stay small).
I have over a hundred “Trophy Groundhogs”, and they didn’t cost more than $40 (old 5.56 ammo).
I knew a guy who ran an auto dealership named Carr. I also knew a Hunter Fisher who did neither.
I get the point, but to me this is like the issue of smoking. I often say that the US was a better place when you could smoke anywhere you wanted to: bars, restaurants, at work, on a plane. To be clear: I’m not claiming that smoking is good. But the government regulation that let them control what you can and cannot do got a huge bump when the government cracked down on tobacco. That government control was bad. It was worse than smoking. A world in which you can smoke is a world that lacks tyranny.
Trophy hunting? I’m not in favor of it. But I do not need more government regulation of what we can and cannot do.
The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution. Which is to say: Trophy hunting isn’t the issue. The issue is: do you want to live under tyranny?
Did Catfish Hunter catfish?
If you don’t plan to eat it or eradicate a pest, don’t shoot it.
Go buy a cheesy velvet painting of the animal to hang on your wall instead…
This article feeds the “need” argument. Why do you “need” to hunt a trophy? is the same as Why do you “need” an AR-15?
Same mentality.
Let people be free and stop trying to take away the joys that are not joys you share.
“Who wouldn’t want a trophy giraffe?”
I know a guy who used to go on African (safari) hunts.
His thing was bow hunting Giraffe as well as other critters.
Rich guys gotta do rich guy stuff?
He supposedly had a hunting accident when he was young as well but who knows if Charlie Finley came up with that one too.
I think it’s different depending on income level and where one lives. Plenty of people here in rural MO would love to get that big, ?? point buck and hang it on their wall to impress friends. They would likely eat the venison too even though it would have to be cooked a certain way. They can do all of this wit minimal cost with the biggest cost being the taxidermy.
Rich guys want to show how much money, freedom and balls they have. I’m able to do this because I can afford it.
Poor guys want to show how much talent they have by getting that buck that no one else was able to get over the years.
I suppose it makes both feel like top dog.
Also in both cases, it’s something you do with the guys that makes you feel like a guy doing guy things and in today’s feminized world, that probably helps keep the testosterone levels up.
Trophy animals aren’t what they used to be. The days of going out and killing the biggest bull elephant you can find were over long ago.
A lot of times those animals will be problem animals. Elephants that for whatever reason would rather tear down fences and feast on human crops, lions that cannot be dissuaded from killing domesticated livestock or even humans.....there are a limited number of those permits awarded each year. The limited number of permits is the reason for the high cost.
Say a man spends $50,000 for a big game permit. He brings his own guns and ammo but has to outfit his guides and handlers who pack and carry his stuff around at the local stores. That is good money for the local economy.
When Mr Big Game Hunter makes his kill, say a bull elephant, the meat doesn’t go to waste. The nearest village turns out en masse to collect the harvest. NOTHING is left behind. Even the bones are used by the villages.
That $50,000US is more like $5,000,000 in whatever the exchange rate is.
Could the villagers kill the elephant themselves? Sure, but it would only feed them once, and there would be no additional benefit other than a full belly.
The author makes it sound like it's too easy tells me he has never been out where animals that bite and scratch do just that because they are wild. An almost 3 ton animal moving at 40 miles an hour can stomp you into the ground before you get a shot off. Possibly even after you do get a shot off.
I have seen javelina, a small tusked peccary, gore a hunter who made a poor shot. He almost bled out.
In India, elephants destroy so much of the food crop, villagers light them on fire to drive them out of the fields. Which is more humane?
This sentence tells all about Derek Hunter's ignorance.
No, it is not simple.
No, it is not easy.
No, it is not certain.
It is complicated, difficult, uncertain. An achievement that takes years of skill development to accomplish, in many cases.
Men have always been hunters. To be a great hunter is much like becoming a great athlete.
Not all can do it.
Yes, money can make a great difference.
Just as some men "buy" trophy wives, some men "buy" trophy animals.
In a sense, they are buying status. So? It has always been the way of the world.
Every animal dies.
Death by human hunting is usually the most humane death an animal is likely to experience.
That government control was bad. It was worse than smoking.
Seriously ? Hate all forms of hunting but this is such a weak argument I’ll believe it when you show me a smoker that freely enjoys smoking and is sincerely thankful they started (there are a few I’m sure, or at least used to be.)
In short, even disregarding the many other product liability arguments, on the freedom issue alone cigarette smoking itself is less an expression of freedom than the robbery of it.
I’m not actually trying to say anything at all about hunting or smoking. I’m trying to say that when people accepted the concept that Big Government ought to control all the tiny decisions in your life, then people made a mistake.
There is always the need to justify immorality...at least until there is widespread wildlife fertility control/ contraception or other humane means of managing populations. Trophy hunting only further reduces the viability of species that are already endangered. Example : an adult male lion is killed, the destabilization of that lion’s pride can lead to more lion deaths as outside males compete to take over the pride.
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