Hunting - For or Against?
- Thread starter Liquid
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I have no problems with people hunting, people who complain about it would forget that humans have done this all the time we have existed. And since most hunters are men then I would think that it is done to try and feel more alpha male like in our relatively safe lives in the modern world. If I lived in an area where there was anything to hunt then I would definately do it. I would personally eat what I caught (if it was viable to), as I think that otherwise it is a slight waste of that animal and that if you eat it then it kind of justifies the killing.
If people don't like hunting then simply don't go hunting, and if others want to then leave them to do what they want.
If people don't like hunting then simply don't go hunting, and if others want to then leave them to do what they want.
Sphinx
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I wonder if you would think it fun if you stood just feet away from a terrified and exhausted fox that's been cornered by a pack of hounds and then torn to pieces right in front of you. Perhaps you still would.
I've got no problem with hunting, but when the final outcome is mostly do with sport and having so called fun at the expense of a defenceless animal is where I draw the line. Hut by all means, eat or sell your hunt to put bread on the table. No problem with that.
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- 1,142
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- Sanderson1981
I don't have a problem with hunting personally. I don't do it myself, because I don't have the patience for it. Most of my friends do hunt, however, and a few of them will bring the bodies to me to be skinned, cleaned, and cut up (I was a butcher for many years) in exchange for some of the meat. We use every part of the animal that can be used, and try to waste as little as possible. When my friends do hunt, they always try to get a clean kill, so the animal suffers as little as possible.
This atrocity people do with having an animal be ripped apart by other animals is not hunting at all, and it damn sure ain't a sport. It is nothing more than sadistic killing that so called "civilized" people do.
This atrocity people do with having an animal be ripped apart by other animals is not hunting at all, and it damn sure ain't a sport. It is nothing more than sadistic killing that so called "civilized" people do.
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- Zenith113
SphinxI wonder if you would think it fun if you stood just feet away from a terrified and exhausted fox that's been cornered by a pack of hounds and then torn to pieces right in front of you. Perhaps you still would.
I've got no problem with hunting, but when the final outcome is mostly do with sport and having so called fun at the expense of a defenceless animal is where I draw the line. Hut by all means, eat or sell your hunt to put bread on the table. No problem with that.
I think you misquoted Joey
.It's not about savagely ripping a fox apart, it's about getting together a bunch of friends on horseback and trained hounds to chase an animal that's famous for its elusiveness. Gore doesn't really bother me and I quite like dogs, but I have no experience in fox hunting.
I admit that fox hunting enters a different set of morals than traditional hunting, but I really don't find it that disgusting. You just need to understand that it isn't for some animalistic bloodlust.
Edit: if the reason people go on fox hunts is to watch it be ripped to shreds, then why would they bother with a hunt? Why not just put a hound and a fox in a pen? Because it's not about that.
But I'll defer to anyone who has more experience on the matter.
- 3,460
- Hollywood
Totally for controlled hunting and, being a farm hand and grandson of a keeper of the hounds for the Beaufort hunt, I see the mess that the fox hunting ban has left the countryside in regularly. A fox is a small animal, but can do unbelieveable amounts of damage to livestock, easily as much as a large dog.
The years of wisdom that the fox hunters have is being lost, and the countryside is now dominated by foxes, and their overly-successful plundering of farm animals. It is all but too easy for them, with very little deterrent to keep them away from farmland. I'm not saying the fox population has boomed since hunting was banned, but they have certainly taken more animals than they used to according to our livestock records.
It seems to me that the ban was backed by do-gooders from the more built-up areas, or people who had moved from the city to the countryside who didn't understand how things worked out here. Sure, a few foxes lives are spared due to no hunting, but many more useful animals are dying because of that.
Lambing is a nightmare because you never know how many lambs you might lose. Farmer-to-farmer sales are becoming difficult because of how many pre-lambing deals are being broken due to loss of ewes carrying lambs. This often forces you to sell at auction, making even less money for the animals.
In my opinion, as long as it is a stable species and the hunting is monitored and controlled (through set hunting seasons, tags, licenses or population counts) there is nothing wrong with it. Ideally you should use every part of anything you kill, but that is not always practical or appealing.
The years of wisdom that the fox hunters have is being lost, and the countryside is now dominated by foxes, and their overly-successful plundering of farm animals. It is all but too easy for them, with very little deterrent to keep them away from farmland. I'm not saying the fox population has boomed since hunting was banned, but they have certainly taken more animals than they used to according to our livestock records.
It seems to me that the ban was backed by do-gooders from the more built-up areas, or people who had moved from the city to the countryside who didn't understand how things worked out here. Sure, a few foxes lives are spared due to no hunting, but many more useful animals are dying because of that.
Lambing is a nightmare because you never know how many lambs you might lose. Farmer-to-farmer sales are becoming difficult because of how many pre-lambing deals are being broken due to loss of ewes carrying lambs. This often forces you to sell at auction, making even less money for the animals.
In my opinion, as long as it is a stable species and the hunting is monitored and controlled (through set hunting seasons, tags, licenses or population counts) there is nothing wrong with it. Ideally you should use every part of anything you kill, but that is not always practical or appealing.
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Joey D
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I wonder if you would think it fun if you stood just feet away from a terrified and exhausted fox that's been cornered by a pack of hounds and then torn to pieces right in front of you. Perhaps you still would.
I've got no problem with hunting, but when the final outcome is mostly do with sport and having so called fun at the expense of a defenceless animal is where I draw the line. Hut by all means, eat or sell your hunt to put bread on the table. No problem with that.
I think you meant to quote Zenith.
No worries though.
How it's always been described to me is that if you are going to shoot an animal make sure you have a powerful enough weapon and aim for the kill zone. This is typically the heart and lungs area of the animal. I know with some animals though they suggest the base of the skull to sever the spinal cord. With small game it's typically aim for the head on the small stuff. You may also want to twist the head on small game too as to break the neck and ensure the animal is dead.
An inhuman shot would be shooting the animal in the hind quarter or leg, something that won't drop it instantly. Also using an under-powered weapon is also inhuman because it does not have the stopping power required to drop the animal right away. Sometime misses happen and you only wound the animal, the humane thing to do in that situation is to track the animal and make sure you kill it. Letting a wounded animal go free is not humane in any way since you've pretty much condemned the animal to death for no reason. I carry a handgun with me for situation when I do wound an animal and it's not dead yet. Getting next to a wounded deer on the ground can be very dangerous for you.
When I'm hunting I will not take a shot unless I know I can hit the kill zone of the animal. I have had misses though which leads to tracking, but that is very rarely. The best thing to do is to practice with your weapon and make sure the sights are as accurate as you can get them, this really help with placing your shot correctly.
Another good reason for hitting the kill zone is also to preserve the meat. Hitting the animal elsewhere could, and probably will, damage usable meat. Hunting with an over-powered weapon will do the same thing.
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I don't think Solid Lifters meant "It could be worse", while hacking a pregnant hind to pieces with a small axe. He meant that he kills animals in such a humane way that there are a huge amount of less humane ways that the animal could be dying. If I was an elk i'd sure as hell prefer to die from a hunters bullet than getting mauled by a grizzly or chased for miles before being dragged to the ground by a pack of wolves.
Sphinx
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So sorry, Joey. I have no idea how that happened.
I'll edit my post shortly.
So we ignore the part the yokel's do on the ground after the chase so long as fun was had during the chase with our bunch of friends.
Blooding is still in practice the last I heard in these ere parts.
How would they go about getting a live fox. Hunt for them?
Don't you guys get government subsidies for losses? If not, that makes a change.
We're not all townies, I've lived and breathed this for half a century:
Every business run risks and you take into account any loses that could occur. I would be to eliminate my risks but I would just end up in jail.
I could live with humane controlled culling.
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- Zenith113
Imakuni
Fair enough. I was asking for a definition as to what the "humane" killing of animals is; a very important issue in the fox discussion.
SphinxSo we ignore the part the yokel's do on the ground after the chase so long as fun was had during the chase with our bunch of friends.
Blooding is still in practice the last I heard in these ere parts.
How would they go about getting a live fox. Hunt for them?
Blooding happens after death and (I thought) was largely abandoned.
Also, the death for the fox takes mere seconds. To wound a fox in the name of pest control (assuming an instant kill isn't achieved) condemns it to a far more painful death than a hunt.
Keef
Man, you are really channeling the Paul today.
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Blooding wasn't done due to bloodlust. It was a tradition that went back hundreds of years to welcome a new or junior member into the hunt. It also signified that, as part of the hunt, that person had a right to question any bad practice before, during, or after a hunt.
Fox hunters didn't hate foxes, as foxes were the reason for the hunt. If the hunt ever fully dies out, it will have a knock on effect on a lot of people and traditional trades and businesses, which is the last thing anyone would want. They hunted foxes to keep the population healthy, the total opposite to the reason that most people think they hunted for.
My local hunt (Beaufort) was started because the 5th Duke of Beaufort and his hounds were so challenged by the fox's wit and determination to get away that he started to hunt them more regularly. Hunting them, even on horseback with a pack of specially bred dogs, is hard work because foxes are anything but dumb and have been known to give a full hunt the slip on many occasions.
Taking the brush, pelt and 'crown' of a fox as trophies was a way to remember the hunt and be thankful for the animal that gave it's life. Why would they let a beautiful fox pelt go to waste? Why let the meat go to waste when the dogs would happily eat it? Even the blood of male foxes was sometimes used around chicken coops/runs to ward off other foxes.
Fox hunting was essentially the most respectful form of pest/population control, almost like a big, lengthy ceremony and funeral to celebrate how fantastic Mr.Fox was. Compare that to most forms of pest control - Shoot it/trap it and incinerate it. What a waste.
Don't you guys get government subsidies for losses? If not, that makes a change.
When we do get a subsidy it takes a long time to process and be paid, and only covers the market price of the animal (which is very little). So the food, space, medication, time, labour and the extra money that we'd get from selling to another farmer or even auctioning the animal is lost.
Every business run risks and you take into account any loses that could occur. I would be to eliminate my risks but I would just end up in jail.
Yes, but livestock farming, especially sheep farming is a business on the edge. Taking into account losses would mean buying more animals, along with all the costs that come with that animal.
Eliminating risks would require several full-time shepherds to watch the flocks day and night, and even then there is still risk of sheep being taken. Livestock is a huge loss-leader for the farm I work on, even with government subsidies.
My boss has told me many times that if he was greedy and didn't care about the rest of the E.U having such poor livestock welfare standards that he would pack livestock farming in completely and concentrate on profitable arable farming (mostly oil seed rape for biofuels - meaning more grains and vegetables imported from the E.U).
The U.K needs all the livestock and food-growing arable farms that it can get, importing lower quality meat when we could breed it here and have farmers/breeders make a profit with a few government/E.U changes is crazy. Same with grain and vegetables, why import when we can grow it here?
The problem with trapping is that foxes are often smart enough to avoid them, and shooting enough of them while keeping a balance between areas is difficult and time consuming.
Using bait to lure them into the open for a clear shot can leave cubs with only one parent, or a very healthy breeding animal dead.
Flushing them from underground with dogs is very time consuming as killing multiple foxes from one den could wipe out entire family generations at once and so should be avoided. Shooting one fox per den could work, but again, it would be very time consuming and you risk shooting a healthy animal.
With the traditional fox hunt, only the strongest survived. The weak and the ill foxes would be caught, and the smartest, healthiest foxes would escape to hopefully raise strong cubs. Obviously strong foxes were sometimes caught, but the hunt process is more natural than other methods of population control (most animals hunted by other animals in nature are chased, either to escape or to die depending on whether they are strong or weak).
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arora
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Guess I'll chime in, of course I'm all fot hunting( shocker ) I'm also for varmin control when necessary.
I hunt, and for a time it literally was ''the meat on the table'' as I provided for my family. It's less now and mostly upland bird of which I enjoy the kill as much as the meal, no longer require deer or elk, which are a pain anyway.
This fox deal I don't care for tbh, falootin show, however, I have and will hunt cyotes where I live as long as there is a bounty placed on them to protect cattle ranchers, and it is sanctioned by the state I reside. Love me my 243
) I'm also for varmin control when necessary.I hunt, and for a time it literally was ''the meat on the table'' as I provided for my family. It's less now and mostly upland bird of which I enjoy the kill as much as the meal, no longer require deer or elk, which are a pain anyway.
This fox deal I don't care for tbh, falootin show, however, I have and will hunt cyotes where I live as long as there is a bounty placed on them to protect cattle ranchers, and it is sanctioned by the state I reside. Love me my 243
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- slashfan7964
Quick and easy so the animal does not have to suffer. Seeing an animal in pain by my hand tortures me. I try to do it fast with 1 shot.
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- BasedAckbar
I believe in fair play in hunting.
If your dinner has a good chance of hurting or killing you, then I'm all for it.
If your dinner has a good chance of hurting or killing you, then I'm all for it.
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- Agremont
Hunting for fun and recreation has always seemed wrong to me. For survival however, I think it's ok.
