Hunting

[PhantomJedi]

I mean hunting and fishing and I am not specific about if guns are used. You could have used your teeth. <_<

[blue]

I've spent more time fishing than I have playing computer games. I've also hunted--with bow and gun--but I won't again unless necessary. I still fish on rare occasion partly because the process is a rewarding meditation on sky & sound while casting about in dark water.

 

Eat what you catch. I was taught that from an early age. Don't torture and don't waste.

 

This summer I took a nephew salmon fishing. It took him over 30 minutes to gut & clean his first fish. Intense. I like to think that he learned more about death and respect that day than he'll ever learn from his Mega Man Bass video game.

 

Happy new year all.

[Child of Flame]

Hunting is a neccessity if only to keep the prey populations healthy.  When there's too many deer, they run out of food and start getting sickly and dying.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

In either case, the animals die and the population is back at a healthy amount. Same difference, except you're exhausting more effort than needed. We always just let the problems solve itself and it works fine.

 

Hunting is crap. Respect your equels, ****er. Your life is not worth a grain more than theirs. I hope someone starts picking hunters off with a hunting rifle just for irony.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

And yes, sometimes animal populations get out of control re: human settlements, and I suppose I understand that too...overpopulated deer starving is part of nature's way, and if people want to hurry the process a little for meat and prudence, so be it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

It's not just that the hunters want meat, it's the disease that follows the hunger and starvation that's the real bitch. 'Specially since a lot of it spreads over into other species.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

!!!

[Azarkon]

Here's the thing with fishing: I hear the argument made often that catching your own fish is as morally ethical as buying fish from stores. That maybe the case. But a fish caught in the sea was alive when you took it; a fish in a store is likely already dead, or going to die (ie its death sentence is signed). If you're the kind to moralize over the ethics of preserving life unless your life depended on it, fishing is far worse than buying fish because you're ending the life of what did not need to die. That's the best justification I'd have for *not* fishing/hunting, because the animals you kill would not be dead if it were not for you, and therefore their blood is on your hands.

 

Given that, I find the philosophy that all life is on equal footing difficult to swallow. First, it's intentionally ambiguous because by "all life" we clearly don't mean "plant life" or else vegetarians would starve themselves. Likewise, since we kill bacteria, fungus, protists, and insects all the time with or without noticing, their lives are obviously not important enough for even sensitive people to care. So all life, which sounds great, really just means animal life.

 

Alright, so is all animal life on equal footing? Because if that were so, then that means if a fish were dying and a person were dying you'd go save the fish if it were closer to you. If a rat was croaking alongside an endangered panda, you'd go save the rat since it's easier. This philosophy is highly problematic in my view: yes, it sounds nice when it's phrased as "we should respect all life equally and treat them like we treat each other," but in practice it's ethically horrid. No system of morality will ever fly in which we treat the killer of a rat or a frog as we treat a murderer, and would you really rather save a tadpole than a child? No other animal seems to think so - predators and prey alike have no respect for the lives that they destroy - so if we adopted the view does it really make us better or stupid? Assume a world in which humans respected ALL animals as equals: how would the animals respond? Would they respond in kind by respecting humans? Certainly not! And obviously they can't be depended on to fulfill any of the duties of a human being, nor would they be better off, necessarily, because we stopped killing them - cause then their populations would have to be controlled by nature through disease and predators.

 

I, personally, fish. It *is* inevitably for sport (and I challenge anyone who fish/hunt and own a computer to argue that their practice is not about sport), even though I eat the fish I catch - because if it were not at all about sport, not at all about the pleasure of fishing, I'd just buy fish from a store or net them from a boat since both of those techniques are far more efficient.

 

To me, fishing is the satisfaction of a basic hunter instinct and the pleasure I derive is inexplicable in a purely rational sense. I don't enjoy watching the fish die - in fact that's one of the worst things about fishing for keeps, since you get to see life flickering away in a bucket, but to throw the fish back into the sea makes the entire endeavor worthless (not to mention haphazard since the same fish will likely bite again). I'm not sure why, but it's the knowledge that I'm taking home a day's catch (even if it's about giving the catch away) that makes the activity enjoyable, and I *do* think that this is like trophy hunting except that it's not about the pride or the macho feeling but a more elemental instinct. It doesn't surprise me that most fishermen are guys - there's something about the male psyche that makes the practice of catching and keeping pleasurable, and which is imbedded in the memory of the primordial hunter.

 

We are not at all beyond our instincts. We've never been - the reality has always been a conflict between our moral-rationality and our intrinsic desires. Progress is about stifling the basic instincts for the sake of higher values, a process of self-improvement lodged in the faith of ideological superiority. Thus, modern man does not murder his fellows in the same way the cave man did because modern man is able to conquer his murderous impulses through moral values.

 

In this respect, I wonder whether the desire to hunt/fish should be conquered in a similar fashion - whether I should abide by a higher sense of ideological purpose over more basic instincts. However, each time I muse at this I contend that the rationale behind *not* hunting/fishing has never been quite convincing. I imagine a world without murder and think that such a world is a potential paradise. I can't imagine a world where we all eat plants and live harmoniously with animals - this seems ridiculous, given that animals are prone to prey on each other and human survival depends on maintaining an edge in those relationships.

 

To wit - if I judged a lion as a cruel, evil creature because he preys on the defenseless deer, I would be committing the equivalent of Ahab's mad rage against Moby ****. Yet that is exactly what is demanded of a world in which all life stands on equal footing - because I *have* to judge the lion if I am to judge myself for taking animal lives, since all life is on equal footing. Yes, the lion don't have a choice, but then omnivores do - and are omnivores therefore fundamentally evil when they take animal lives rather than plant lives? Am I to feel better about myself in an ethical sense because I resisted a turtle's impulse to eat fish, thereby condemning the turtle morally? That seems an utterly ridiculous point of view, as is any view that believes in the sanctity of all life while maintaining that predators have the right to destroy lives. Its only excuse, that animals do not think and therefore can't be judged, is contradictory to its original impulse - if animals do not think and therefore can't be judged, why then are they equally alive?

 

Anyhow, I think I've rambled on long enough. I don't particularly enjoy taking a fish's life (no more than I enjoy taking any life, for that matter), but I do enjoy catching them - and what would be really good is if there were a way to keep them alive while not detracting from the element of bringing home a day's catch. But even then, I don't believe for a moment that a fish's life is equivalent to a human life, and I hesitate to even attribute such a concept as value to life. Life is priceless - but trying to preserve all life is not respecting life as much as it is detesting death. We all, I think, see our own mortality through the deaths of other creatures, as human sympathy is an odd thing that can cross the borders between species - but the solution to that is not to thereby strive to protect all life forms from death, but to hold it in a deep awe that never strives to squander life itself. We may take from the land and the sea as all predators do, but we should not become nihilists who take lives because we hate life itself, or because of some ideological purpose that is anti-life. That, I think, is my stance on the "life is sacred" idea.

Edited December 31, 2005 by Azarkon

[PhantomJedi]

Thought the forum would have been more evenly divided.

[mkreku]

How bad are you at shooting? You hunt, but don't like killing? Are you a stormtrooper?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There are several roles in a hunting team. Some guys (usually the older ones) like to sit in towers all day and get fat. Some guys like to sneak around with their guns and wait for the prey to come running at them, and some guys do all the work with their dogs, trying to get the prey to move in the direction of the sneaking guys and the guys just sitting in the towers (getting fat). As I am one of the guys who walk around a lot, using our family dogs to scare the prey, I don't get to do much shooting at all. But I do carry around a rifle in case I stumble on some deaf animal.

 

The reason I don't like killing comes from one time when I shot a bird. I hit it right in the chest with a bullet (not shotgun!) but the damn thing didn't die. It flew out over a field and crashlanded in the middle of it, some 150-200 meters (yards) away. The sick thing is that it let out a death scream all the way, that sounded something like human baby crying out in death anxiety. Since then I've not felt comfortable shooting anything. I might need to mention that I was very young at the time of the bird incident..

[Diamond]

I used to hunt and it was an excellent experience.

[Walsingham]

How bad are you at shooting? You hunt, but don't like killing? Are you a stormtrooper?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There are several roles in a hunting team. Some guys (usually the older ones) like to sit in towers all day and get fat. Some guys like to sneak around with their guns and wait for the prey to come running at them, and some guys do all the work with their dogs, trying to get the prey to move in the direction of the sneaking guys and the guys just sitting in the towers (getting fat). As I am one of the guys who walk around a lot, using our family dogs to scare the prey, I don't get to do much shooting at all. But I do carry around a rifle in case I stumble on some deaf animal.

 

The reason I don't like killing comes from one time when I shot a bird. I hit it right in the chest with a bullet (not shotgun!) but the damn thing didn't die. It flew out over a field and crashlanded in the middle of it, some 150-200 meters (yards) away. The sick thing is that it let out a death scream all the way, that sounded something like human baby crying out in death anxiety. Since then I've not felt comfortable shooting anything. I might need to mention that I was very young at the time of the bird incident..

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Fair point.

 

I believe I may have mentioned this before but some twits ruled that you can't shoot a deer anywhere except the brain. Rather than the chest. It seems they felt this would lead to a quick death. The same people also ruled that you can only use a bolt action rifle. Bearing in mind deer can't be lured into fake drug deals, and must be shot at some distance, many deer that are culled get shot in the head, missing their tiny penny sized brains. The deer then runs off and hides. Since we don't allow hunting with dogs, the deer often escapes, and dies somewhere hidden, in agaony, over the next few days.

 

This is more humane, it seems.

[Walsingham]

Much later....

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/4577808.stm

 

Animal rights protesters set boars 'free' from farm. Resulting in several getting run over, some being shot. The local hunt are called in to help find and retrieve the remainder.

[Kaftan Barlast]

I saw a hunting documentary on Discovery today. I could never hunt, I couldnt live with taking the life of another being that hadnt done anything to me. I could see deer just outside my widow where I grew up(they liked eating birdfood and old apples) and the idea of shooting one would be like shooting a dog. Like going to the park and just open fire on peoples pets.

 

 

Much later....

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/4577808.stm

 

Animal rights protesters set boars 'free' from farm. Resulting in several getting run over, some being shot. The local hunt are called in to help find and retrieve the remainder.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

That old chestnut. Ive known a few hardcore animal rights people and when they do these sort of things its not to liberate a handful of animals but to sabotage the farmthing and put the farmer out of bussiness. I heard it worked on a couple of mink breeders here, they lost so many of their animals that they went bancrupt.

 

 

Now thats not very clever because thats just goig to make the companies buy from 3rd world countries where they have no concern of the welbeing of the aimals whatsoever.

[Gabrielle]

^ I suppose you would starve if you were lost out in the wilderness then Kaft. Then you will become food for the animals.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Hunting, Do you?

 

Yes, back in the day. Mostly women, a boy or two, the usual.

[Gabrielle]

Fishing.

[SteveThaiBinh]

Animal rights protesters set boars 'free' from farm. Resulting in several getting run over, some being shot. The local hunt are called in to help find and retrieve the remainder.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Huntsmen and animal rights activists in perfect symbiosis. It warms my heart. :D Or, more accurately, it doesn't. It's disgusting (though unsurprising) that protesters have so little regard for the lives of animals or people.

Now thats not very clever because thats just goig to make the companies buy from 3rd world countries where they have no concern of the welbeing of the aimals whatsoever.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Interestingly, requiring companies to get their livestock from overseas is one way of improving animal welfare standards in developing countries, as Western supermarkets can insist on humane treatment of animals from their suppliers. Whether this is progress on animal welfare or an insult to countries where many people live in inhumane conditions is another matter.

[Walsingham]

Nail on the head there, Steve. With much of the world's human population living in revolting conditions, andabuse of people occurring at remarkable levels even domestically, I get more than a little aggravated by people wasting time on animal rights.

[Kaftan Barlast]

^ I suppose you would starve if you were lost out in the wilderness then Kaft. Then you will become food for the animals.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I dont suppose you are aware of that there are in fact, other food types than meat "

 

 

 

*chews franticly on an old pinecone*

[Gabrielle]

^ I suppose you would starve if you were lost out in the wilderness then Kaft. Then you will become food for the animals.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I dont suppose you are aware of that there are in fact, other food types than meat "

 

 

 

*chews franticly on an old pinecone*

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You would become weak after a while, and become the food source to the predators out there.

[Commissar]

^ I suppose you would starve if you were lost out in the wilderness then Kaft. Then you will become food for the animals.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I dont suppose you are aware of that there are in fact, other food types than meat "

 

 

 

*chews franticly on an old pinecone*

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, no one's making you hunt. As I said, I'm not fond of shooting deer, myself, but I'll knock pheasants down all day long (or at least until I hit the limit, if any of the fine people from the government happen to be reading). Good skill to have, in case a Battlefield: Earth scenario ever takes place.

[Judge Hades]

If we had an Independence Day iinvasion (much better movie) I would probably hobbling down to the local unshop and pick me up a .50 cal assualt rifle and an 9mm sidearm.

[Kaftan Barlast]

If we had an Independence Day iinvasion (much better movie) I would probably hobbling down to the local unshop and pick me up a .50 cal assualt rifle and an 9mm sidearm.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Hee hee.. the recoil of a .50 BMG round is about 500% that of a 12 gauge shotgun. Id like to see you fire such a thing(if it had existed)

 

 

 

Ooop! Forgot Im not supposed to know things like hat anymore. Forget all I said :ph34r:

[Judge Hades]

Actually the Navy use .50 cal machine guns (assault rifles) mounted onthe side of their ships. At least they did when I was in the Navy. You wouldn't be walking around and firing one. You would have a fixed mounting.

[Gabrielle]

I bet Kaft hugs trees.

[Judge Hades]

You just have to worry when they hug back.

[Gabrielle]

HA! Good fun.

[Kaftan Barlast]

There aint nuthin wrog with being affectionate for trees. Glorious beings they are and darn practical too. I heard 'bout dem realdolls on TV but I thought to maself "Why pay for a piece of plastic when youve got a wood full of.. wood.. and a shed full o tools". Took me three good months but I carved me a woman like none other, Betsy I called her.. 110% prime spruce. Most of the splinters disapeared with a bit of use so shes all smooth and good now. Might even give her a bit shellac in the future too