Is Hunting morally OK or an unnecessary evil?

[sonorakitch]

Hunting plays a valuable role in wildlife management. While I hunt all the time, I eat everything I take. However, I cannot condemn those who don't eat what they kill, as long as somebody eats it. And here in AZ, there are donation programs where hunters can bring game meat to feed those less fortunate. An inspiring program I think.

That's very much what I was going to say. Hunting is not a sport. It has no elements of competition or skill that would qualify it as a sport.

There is a great amount of skill needed when hunting Cutlass...especially here in AZ. You should try it sometime....not as easy as you think.

~Chris

 

[Patroklos]

Hunting for sport is sickening.

Those gastely fishermen!

Where's the competition in that?

Finding/stalking your prey.

 

[Gooblah]

I think I misunderstood 'hunting for sport' - is that just shooting your bb at a raccoon?

Hunting to cull populations (such as deer in MI) is necessary and has my full support, b/c deer are a threat to themselves and to humans when they enter urban areas. Hunting for food is completely justified.

Look, as long as you have a license to hunt and you're doing it in-season, it's a-ok. I've always wanted to go hunting, but I'd feel bad if I just shot a deer and left it in the woods b/c I'm vegetarian.

 

[otago]

I hunt for meat only, camera hunt deer at times.
But there are some sick puppies who run so called hunting lodges, the deer are so tame that you can walk or drive right up to them.

 

[sonorakitch]

I think I misunderstood 'hunting for sport' - is that just shooting your bb at a raccoon?

Hunting to cull populations (such as deer in MI) is necessary and has my full support, b/c deer are a threat to themselves and to humans when they enter urban areas. Hunting for food is completely justified.

Look, as long as you have a license to hunt and you're doing it in-season, it's a-ok. I've always wanted to go hunting, but I'd feel bad if I just shot a deer and left it in the woods b/c I'm vegetarian.

I agree with you. I also agree with Otago (wow....never happens!). Hunting for sport, to me, means that you don't necessarily eat it; one might like the stalk, the thrill, or the sheer fact that if forces one into areas of nature that wouldn't normally be ventured in. As long as those people donate the food, I'm all for it.

And coincidentally, I've hunted with poor marksman who wound animals they cannot retrieve. There is not a more horrible feeling. I think you owe it to the animal to maintain excellent marksmanship skills...and for the record I've never wounded and not retrieved. If I did...I'd probably stop hunting all together.

~Chris

 

[Karalysia]

I think you owe it to the animal to maintain excellent marksmanship skills..

I think you owe it to the animal not to kill it in the first place.

 

[otago]

I think you owe it to the animal not to kill it in the first place.

Are you a vegan who wears leather shoes ?

 

[ComradeDavo]

Live and let live.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

As I have said before, hunters support wildlife conservations programs with their purchases. For me, it is morally ok, but if you think hunting animals is wrong, then it is a necessary evil.

 

[Bill3000]

Live and let live.

That is a completely vacuous statement. What exactly do you mean by that? Live and let the hunters shoot? Ban hunting and let animal populations go wild? What?

 

[Huayna Capac357]

Hunting for food and sport are fine, as long as they are regulated and managed.

 

[MobBoss]

Nothing wrong with hunting as long as it is regulated and managed. That includes hunting for food and sport hunting as well.

 

[Labtec600]

I dont like to deer hunt but have nothing against it. Deer hunting comes down to this:



Wake up at the butt crack of dawn to walk out into the sub zero temperatures. Walk my ass through the pitch dark woods trying to find my deer blind. Get lost. Find blind after walking in circles for 20 minutes.

Sit there and listen to the sounds of wild coyotes getting closer and closer all while pondering how my office job has prepared me for fighting coyotes. Conclude it hasnt. Finally the sun comes up - warms up 15 degrees - just enough to start melting snow so my snowy blind becomes muddy hell.

Fight sleep. Fall alseep. Wake up. Realize I cannot sit still for 5 minutes but when you move in the middle of the woods without any civilization around you it sounds like an elephant. Sit there for hours and not see a damn thing. Probably because I can't sit still and havent showered in 3 days.

Hear multiple gun shots go off near you - hope to god whatever they were shooting at they hit, because now it's scared and pissed off and nothing is getting in its way.

Finally get up and walk back to camp....all the while trying to not look or walk like a deer in hopes that some trigger happy hung over hunter doesnt cap me.

Get back to camp. Eat lunch. Ponder going back out. Deciding not to. Go back to sleep for 5 hours. Wake up at dinner and drink and play cards.

Then do the same damn thing all over again the next day. Joyus.


It's not as easy as people make it out to be or think it is. Pitting a civilized human that is used to getting their food in cans against an animal that is tuned to the smells and sounds of the woods. I know a lot of people go years before bagging their first animal or between animals.


Thought Rabbit and Grouse hunting is better as you get to walk around. Even then though, once you see the thing you have to put your gun up - aim - turn the safety off and then get a shot off and hit a fast moving target without shooting the guy next to you.

It's not like buck hunter at the bar.

 

[JohnRM]

Hunting ought to remain apart of our culture so that we do not forget how to do it.

To address the inevitable...

Yes, there is more to it than walking into the woods with a rifle or bow.

 

[bhsup]

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Morally OK, straight from the word of God.

 

[Perfection]

Live and let live.

Deer are vermin; they must be destroyed.

 

[JohnRM]

Morally OK, straight from the word of God.

Yeah, the Bible also says that it is okay to sell your daughter into slavery and to stone your children to death for disobeying you. Let us not use the Bible as our moral compass, eh?

 

[bhsup]

That's venison, not vermin. Works with either one though

 

[civ_king]

Hunting for food is perfectly fine for me (especially) if it helps keep population in check, for that I recommend copper bullets because lead in =

hunting for sport, you mean like in the mid 1800s where people would sit in trains and shoot at bison? that is a chunk of what ravaged the bison populations

 

[aronnax]

Hunting for food and sport are fine, as long as they are regulated and managed.

Ahh this is right amount of moderation I was looking for.