Posted on 04/08/2002 4:23:46 PM PDT by Sungirl
Fall is the time when forest greens begin to blaze orange, as hunting seasons open around the country. Each year, hunters kill more than 100 million animals, and while individual reasons for hunting vary, the industry that promotes and sustains hunting has just one motive: profit. According to the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, America's 14 million hunters spend $22.1 billion each year for guns, ammunition, clothing, travel, and other related expenses.
To justify hunting to a society ever more concerned about wildlife—including its conservation and humane treatment—the industry intensively promotes a set of tired myths. Learn the facts behind these myths.
Isn't hunting a worthy tradition because it teaches people about nature?
There are many ways to learn about nature and the "great outdoors." At its best, hunting teaches people that it is acceptable to kill wildlife while learning about some aspects of nature. However, the very essence of sport hunting is the implicit message that it's acceptable recreation to kill and to tolerate the maiming of wildlife. Even those who claim that wounding and maiming is not the intent of hunting cannot deny that it happens.
It is folly to suggest that we can teach love, respect, and appreciation for nature and the environment through such needless destruction of wildlife. One can learn about nature by venturing into the woods with binoculars, a camera, a walking stick, or simply with our eyes and ears open to the world around us.
Does hunting help create a bond between father and son? We do not know, but there are countless recreational and other activities that can strengthen the parent/child bond. Generally speaking, bonding has less to do with the activity and more to do with whether the parent and child spend significant, concentrated, and loving time together. Yet the particular recreational activity is also important, because it can send a moral message to the child about what constitutes acceptable recreation.
Hunting as a form of family entertainment is destructive not only to the animals involved, but also to the morals and ethics of children who are shown or taught that needless killing is acceptable recreation. The HSUS rejects the notion that a relationship of love and companionship should be based on the needless killing of innocent creatures. Killing for fun teaches callousness, disrespect for life, and the notion that "might makes right."
Isn't hunting a popular and growing form of recreation?
No. The number of hunters has been steadily declining for decades. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, there were 15 million licensed hunters in the U.S. in 2000, compared with 15.6 million in 1993, 15.8 million in 1990, and 16.3 million in 1980. This drop has occurred even while the general population has been growing. Currently only 5.4% of Americans hold hunting licenses. Hunters claim their numbers are growing to give the impression that recreational killing is acceptable. The facts are that more and more hunters are giving up hunting because it is no longer a socially acceptable activity.
Isn't it more humane to kill wildlife by hunting than to allow animals to starve?
This question is based on a false premise. Hunters kill opossums, squirrels, ravens, and numerous other plentiful species without any notion of shooting them so that they do not starve or freeze to death. Many species are killed year round in unlimited numbers. In addition, many animals that are not hunted die of natural starvation, but hunters do not suggest killing them. While it is true that any animal killed by a hunter cannot die of starvation, hunters do not kill animals based on which ones are weak and likely to succumb to starvation. Hunters who claim they prevent animals from suffering starvation are simply trying to divert attention from an analysis of the propriety of killing wildlife for fun.
Aren't most hunts to limit overpopulation and not truly for recreation?
No. Most hunted species are not considered to be overpopulated even by the wildlife agencies that set seasons and bag limits. Black ducks, for instance, face continued legal hunting—even on National Wildlife Refuges—despite the fact that their populations are at or near all-time lows. If hunters claim that they hunt to prevent overpopulation, then they should be prepared to forgo hunting except when it really is necessary to manage overpopulated species. This would mean no hunting of doves, ducks, geese, raccoons, bears, cougars, turkeys, quail, chuckar, pheasants, rabbits, squirrels, and many other species.
What's more, hunters are usually the first to protest when wolves, coyotes, and other predators move into an area and begin to take over the job of controlling game populations. The State of Alaska, for example, has instituted wolf-control (trapping and shooting) on the grounds that wolf predation may bring caribou populations down to a level that would limit the sport-hunting of caribou. Finally, hunters kill opossums, foxes, ravens, and numerous other plentiful species without the pretension of shooting them so that they do not starve or freeze to death.
Is hunting to prevent wildlife overpopulation usually effective?
No. Wildlife, to a large degree, will naturally regulate its own populations if permitted, eliminating any need for hunting as a means of population control. Discussions about supposed wildlife overpopulation problems apply primarily to deer. Hunters often claim that hunting is necessary to control deer populations. As practiced, however, hunting often contributes to the growth of deer herds. Heavily hunted states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, for instance, are among those experiencing higher deer densities than perhaps ever before. When an area's deer population is reduced by hunting, the remaining animals respond by having more young, which survive because the competition for food and habitat is reduced. Since one buck can impregnate many does, policies which permit the killing of bucks contribute to high deer populations. If population control were the primary purpose for conducting deer hunts, hunters would only be permitted to kill does. This is not the case, however, because hunters demand that they be allowed to kill bucks for their antlers.
Does hunting ensure stable, healthy wildlife populations?
No. The hunting community's idea of a "healthy" wildlife population is a population managed like domestic livestock, for maximum productivity. In heavily hunted and "managed" populations, young animals feed on artificially enhanced food sources, grow and reproduce rapidly, then fall quickly to the guns and arrows of hunters. Few animals achieve full adulthood. After 20 years of heavy deer hunting at the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey, for example, only one percent of the deer population lived longer than four years, and fewer than ten percent lived longer than three years. In a naturally regulated population, deer often live twelve years or longer.
What are state wildlife agencies doing to maintain interest in hunting?
Most states actively recruit children into hunting, through special youth hunts. Sometimes these youth hunts are held on National Wildlife Refuges. Some states have carried this concept even further, and hold special hunter education classes to recruit parents and their children. In addition to encouraging children to buy licenses and kill animals, the states are reaching out to women as well. If enough women and children can be converted into hunters, the state agencies can continue business as usual.
Isn't hunting a well-regulated activity?
No. While there are many rules which regulate hunting activities, enforcing the regulations is difficult, and many hunters do not abide by the rules. It has been estimated that twice as many deer are killed illegally as are killed legally. Hunters will sometimes kill a second deer because it has bigger antlers or "rack" than the first. In addition, duck hunters often exceed their bag limits or kill protected species because most hunters cannot identify the species of ducks that they shoot—especially not at a half hour before sunrise, when shooting begins. Secret observations revealed by ex-duck hunters demonstrate that illegal practices and killing permeate this activity at all levels.
Aren't animals protected through "bag limits" imposed by each state?
Those species favored by hunters are given certain protection from over-killing—killing so many as to severely limit the population—through what are known as "bag limits." However, hunting of some species is completely unregulated, and in fact, wanton killing is encouraged. Animals such as skunks, coyotes, porcupines, crows and prairie dogs are considered "varmints," and unlimited hunting of these species is permitted year-round in many states. At the base of this is the notion that these animals are simply "vermin" and do not deserve to live. Hunters frequently write and speak of the pleasure in "misting" prairie dogs—by which they mean shooting the animals with hollow-point bullets that cause them to literally explode in a mist of blood.
Moreover, hunters' influence on state and federal wildlife agencies is so strong that even bag limits on "game" species are influenced as much by politics as by biology. Many states, with the sanction of the federal government, allow hunters to kill large numbers (20–40 per day) of coots and waterfowl such as sea ducks and mergansers, for example, despite the fact that little is known about their populations and their ability to withstand hunting pressure, and the fact that these ducks are certainly not killed for food. This killing is encouraged to maintain hunter interest, thereby sustaining license sales, because the decline in other duck species has resulted in some limitations on numbers that can be killed.
Though hunting clearly kills individual animals, can hunting actually hurt wildlife populations?
Yes. Hunters continue to kill many species of birds and mammals (e.g., cougars, wolves, black ducks, swans) that are at dangerously low population levels. While hunting may not be the prime cause of the decline of these species, it must contribute to their decline and, at a minimum, frustrate efforts to restore them.
Even deer populations may be damaged by hunting pressure. Unlike natural predators and the forces of natural selection, hunters do not target the weaker individuals in populations of deer or other animals.
Rather, deer hunters seek out the bucks that have the largest rack. This desire for "trophy sized" bucks can and has had detrimental effects on the health of deer herds. First, hunting can impact the social structure of a herd because hunters kill the mature males of a herd and create a disproportionate ratio of females to males. It is not uncommon to find a herd that has no bucks over the age of three. Second, genetically inferior bucks may be left to propagate the species, thereby weakening the overall health of the herd.
Because hunters largely want to shoot only bucks, hunting may cause artificial inflation of deer populations. When these populations reach levels that available habitat cannot support, increased disease and starvation may be the result.
We don't understand the full effect of hunting on wildlife behavior or health because wildlife agencies will not conduct the studies necessary to find the answers (e.g., "spy-blind" observations of duck hunting, in which undercover authorities secretly observe hunters).
Is hunting for food a good way to save money on grocery bills?
Almost never. When all costs are considered (i.e., license fees, equipment, food, lodging and transportation), hunting is not an economical way to provide food. Statistics gathered by the University of Maryland's Extension Service revealed that hunters spent more than $51 million to kill 46,317 deer in Maryland in 1990, approximately $1,100 for each deer killed. Assuming that the meat of each deer killed was preserved and eaten, and that each deer provided 45 lbs. of meat, the cost of venison in 1990 in Maryland was $24.44 per pound. For most hunted animals, such as ducks, doves, rabbits, squirrels, and crows, among others, use for food is now minimal, and the expense of equipment far outweighs the value of any food that is obtained. For the vast majority of hunters, hunting is recreation, not a means of gathering food.
ME??? Never. I'm three for three. Hubby Cyrano on the other hand is one for four. lol! But I love him anyway. ;-)
That would have been MY guess...
Well I dunno, is that you? The dude who now has his picture on the "Can" doe bleat call?
But anyway someone posted that when the deer was taken a while back (year and a half ago?) and a bunch of peta viles and naive animal lovers came out of the woodwork then too. One person posted about having hit a deer and trying to get out and comfort it as it was dying. They were actually *surprised* when the deer got up and tried to run off. I think that person had a death wish to go along with their abysmal naivete about animals. NEVER approach a wounded animal without a weapon or other adequate defense. sheesh.
With fur prices down because of the antifur crowd,not enough people are trapping furbearers and rabies is more prevalent all the time.The petaviles cause diseased,unhealthy animal populations through their ignorance.
In another thread she made some bizzare reference to "laser scopes", got criticized for showing her ignorance, and apparently decided to show us some...further demonstrating the conviction of her ignorance.
I'll look for for it, in the interest of advancing FR deer threads and eliminating those stupid moose and cheese threads.
Of course not. But I would have liked it a lot more if I'd have had some fresh backstraps for New Year's day dinner.
This past season many times wasn't fun at all. I didn't get anything until Dec 23 and it was COOOOOOOLD, about -10 to -20 wind chills for those last two weeks of December when I was really putting in the time to try and fill my tag.
Funny thing was, after that deer on the 23rd I could have filled all our tags in the very last week of the season if I hadn't second guessed myself. Once five does were coming, looking nervously over their shoulders and I thought maybe a buck was following them. So I waited and missed the opportunity. Nothing else came along.
Then I was looking the wrong way when two other does came barrelling in and stopped right under me. I never had a chance to move to pick up my bow, draw and shoot. But I did manage to actually pick up my bow VEEEERY slowly. With three kids we sure could have used another deer in the freezer.
Ya shouldna oughta said that...
It's yer own fault now...
That is a Class 03 federal firearms license, it costs $30 and is good for three years, it allows you to buy Curio and Relic firearms, those which are over 50 years old or are especially collectable(there is a large list of these) directly from importers at dealer cost. Then the UPS will deliver them right to your door.
Mausers,Enfields,Springfields,Mosin/Nagants at prices from $19.95 up depending on quality and quantity,generally in the 60 to 150 bracket.
I have a Finn M-39 from 1942 and a Finn Tikka from 1927 that are both tack drivers, the tikka I bought from a pawn shop for $50 , if you are interested you can link hereto find out more.
I am glad you are taking the time to teach your daughters (I believe you said) to hunt and relate to animals and the life process.
Sungirl doesn't understand that as hunters we KNOW what death means, and the majority of us do NOT take it lightly.
She wonders what we feel as we hunt, and I can't blame her if she has no history of that continuity with the past that is her and our birthright, she is a product of the liberal mindset and just cannot relate to personal responsibility.
When I am successful, and of course that is another thing she doesn't seem to grasp, we know how many times we have not been, I generally sit down with the deer and talk to it's spirit. As someone with a Buddhist bent I have learned that when a creature dies, it still can be set right on the path to rebirth , I acknowledge it's life and my responsibility for it's death, and fulfill that by taking care to use it for my survival.
Do I like splitting it open and having to reach into that still hot chest cavity to field dress it? No, but I take pride in knowing how to do it cleanly. As I have said many times before on such threads as these, man must force himself to kill, so that if the time should come when he MUST kill , there will be no hesitation.The lives of his loved ones may be at stake,the lives of your loved ones may be at stake, that is the responsibility one takes on by being armed.
Aim small, miss small.
Sorry for the rant.Didn't mean to get carried away, have made friends with a police chief and so have been getting in lots of range time, it sure helps.
Sungirl:
Provided the hunter is able to aim accurately:
Shotguns with Foster type slugs shoot accurately enough for deer to about 50 or 60 yards - with a special rifled barrel and sabot slugs they can double their effective range. Rifles can shoot up to 300 yards and more but people generally try to keep shots to around 100 to 150 yards. And Rifles are generally only allowed in areas where there is a lot of woodlands, hills, or no people, to stop the projectiles traveling a long distance and hitting some unintended target.
Go to http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/1056/downloads.html and click 911deer.wav.
Be prepared to laugh
Could you reference that for me, where God says He never wanted animal sacrifices? How come He accepted Abel's offering then, if He found animal sacrifices so repugnant? Also, the first thing Noah did coming out of the ark was build an altar. These are sacrifices before the establishment of the law. Abraham as well - he sacrificed a ram - which GOD provided - when God spared his son. Again BEFORE the establishment of the Law.
Genesis 4:4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
Genesis 8:20-21 And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the LORD smelled a sweet savour...
Genesis 9:1-3 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
And while you're at it, could you please reference where the people asked for the Law? To clarify - the Law works just fine, it's the people who can't work the Law.
God wants a humble and contrite spirit, a broken-heart,repentance for sins in the MIND as sacrifice.
Amen to that.
That is what Jesus taught--regeneration of the human heart, not dead goats. Jesus was the perfect sin-sacrifice, abolishing animal killings in the temple, and dying to cover the sins of all who believe in Him.
He absolutely was the perfect sacrifice. But Jesus also was the perfect fulfillment of the Law, and that included keeping the feasts, such as Passover, and the Passover meal involved animal sacrifice. Which He also ate, as we see in Matthew -
Matthew 26:17-21 Now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the passover? And he said, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples. And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them; and they made ready the passover. Now when the even was come, he sat down with the twelve. And as they did eat...
And what about this one?
Acts 10:9-16 On the morrow, as they went on their journey, and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour: And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance, And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth: Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean. And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. This was done thrice: and the vessel was received up again into heaven.
Or this one -
Colossians 2:16-17 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
Besides all that, what does this have to do with hunting anyway? I'm not sure I get the connection.
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