POLL: Hunting, for sport or otherwise...

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Just wondering how people feel about hunting. Are you for or against it.

Personally, I want to go hunting, because I like how elk tastes and I wouldn't mind having some antlers to make pens out of.

Comments? Death threats?

Poll Information
This poll contains 1 question(s). 26 user(s) have voted.
You may not view the results of this poll without voting.

Poll Results: Hunting, for sport or otherwise... (26 votes.)

How do you feel about hunting? (Choose 1)
* It's totally alright in my mind. - 38% (10)
* I can accept it, and might try it someday. - 4% (1)
* I don't like the idea of killing an animal, but if someone else did it I'd still eat it. - 12% (3)
* I don't like it. - 15% (4)
* I can't stand the idea of killing an innocent animal. - 15% (4)
* Killing animals for their meat/skin is evil! - 0% (0)
* I am undecided... - 0% (0)
* Other/None - 15% (4)

 

Killing an animal for sport is evil. Some hunters enjoy the idea of being a predator. Some hunters like it for the idea itself of killing for fun.

Killing an animal for food is okay, but the moral line is crossed when it is done for pure pleasure.

 

I agree, there should be a law against it. Or at least give me a written permit to go hunt the hunters.

 

Killing people for fun or being a predator is plainly evil, but with animals it's a bit more complex. There's quite a lot of people with hunting hobby who aren't truly evil. As far as my feelings go, taking whatever life for one's own pleasure is repulsive. Food, leather etc... legitimatise it to some extent. Notice that some of hunters control the number of over-breeding species, hunt down the not exactly welcome ones etc - that they get fur, horns or other trophy during is a secondary matter.

 

In a world where we more and more intrude into the areas once reserved for wildlife it's, at least here in europe, a necessity to hunt. If the wild population in forrests is not reduced, as the animals there mainly lack natural enemies - they have been wiped out long a go already, man has to take care to prevent overpopulation, underpopulation, disease prevention (for rabies) and the like.

Hunting is necessary to prevent conflict with the people around the animals, sad but true. When boars leave the forrest to mess up a farm that is a clue that their forrest is overpopulated - by reducing the population you re-ballance it and prevent the farmers from killing all game in sight to protect their property. People tend to over-react - that's for example why there are barely any wolves left in germany, except for those from poland seeking asylum here where they are not allowed to be hunted

Hunting only makes sense when we then eat the meat instead of throwing it away or when it is about removing a menace, like the "man-eating-tiger" (not quite the rule, much leass here in germany). Hunting for trophy alone is moronic; it only appeases the ego of the hunter and serves no useful purpose. Getting as trophy, using the fur, *and* easting the meat is ok IMO.
And I can also see hunting as a sport, under special cirumstances. Long gone are the days when hunters manly faced boars over a hunting speer (that needs courage; when I saw an angry 350kg boar when I was 12 I *flew* up a tree and I deeply regret that today I'd be too heavy for that ruling out that option in case I'd evermeet one again) and the dawn of high-tech rifles has made about all game easy prey. Anyway, with some self-restraint on the hunter's side it still is a demanding challenge. For a purpose beyond the thrill of hunting.

 

I agree with Ragusa. Hunting is necesseray to check the animal population. So, it belongs to the duties of forest-keeping and taking care of nature.

Further, it always has been this way, so why change. And shooting birds and small animals is a widespread hobby (and sometimes even a necessety) of children in rural areas.

A whole different matter is getting in the car, drive a few kilometers and kill animals for no particular reason except fun. This has absolutley no relation to the 2 upper cases and is simple killing out of boredom.

 

I agree with Ragusa. Hunting is a necessity in rural areas, especially here in Canada where most of the country is wild. My best friend grew up in a town (Churchill) where polar bears would occasionally wander into the streets. Major guns are your only defense against becoming lunch.

I am always surprised when non-vegetarians think hunting for food or fur is wrong. If you eat meat and wear leather, how can you morally object to people who obtain those things directly rather than through the horrific intermediary of a slaughteryard? I sometimes think everyone who wants to eat meat should have to kill an animal with their own hands, just once, so that they can never again eat meat without remembering that someone died to feed them.

For the record, I don't hunt, although I do sometimes accompany friends on hunting trips for the fun of camping and to profit from the venison afterwards. I've never killed anything bigger than a mouse and even that makes me cry for weeks afterwards. So if we followed my "if you want to eat it you have to kill it yourself" rule, I'd be a committed vegetarian.

 

Sprite has raised an interesting point. Maybe a little bit off topic, but none the less. I think it be quite contrary. The more people would be involved to get the food through killing themselves or witnessing the killing wouldn't become vegetarians. I think the rising numbers of vegetarians are a sideeffect of urbanization and work-specialization. Haven't any statistics to undermine my point, but I bet the more rural and "down-to-earth" an area is and the more animals are around (wild or "farming"), the less vegetarians one be able to find.

For someone who has to work with animals, an animal is a tool, not a valued pet.

 

Animals have no rights.

 

Hunting in and of itself is alright I guess...it's just the hunters themselves that suck.

Most hunters I have met have the social skills of someone who has grown up in the woods...hmm...wait a minute.

 

Well... In my family, hunting is a tradition of sorts. My uncleds hunt, and fish, quite a lot. It's a lifestyle to them, not just a hobby. And believe me, it's not for trophies. Sure, sometimes an especially good-looking bird gets eternalized to a "trophy" of sorts. But most of the things they catch are used for food.

I see huunting as something that is both a qway of keeping the populations in check as well as a llifestyle, at least here in FInland. I don't get the "hunting for trophies" thing...

Gah. Tired. Make no sense. shut up now...

 

Personally, I have no problem with hunting provided that the slain animal is going to be eaten and not just left to rot or used for a trophy.

I don't really care what the hunters motives are as long as the animal itself is not wasted. If someone enjoys hunting for pleasure but the meat is eaten, sold to someone who will serve it/eat it, or even given to feed the poor/homeless then that is fine in my books. Meat is meat and quite frankly if someone thinks that it is less humane to shoot an animal in the head with a rifle instead of shipping in in a crowded container to a slaughter house then I think he/she should visit a slaughter house to see what it is like.

We have a meat processing company as a client and quite frankly I don't see how anyone could think that the treatment of the domesticated animals isn't far worse then what hunters do in the wild.

Most of the hunters I know are very responsible about maintaining the population of the hunted animals at an appropraite level. In general, I have found that the idiot hunters are not the rural and blue collar folk who

who compose the bulk of hunters here in Canada but are instead the yupee idiots from the big cities who have never hunted before but think it is some big adventure to go out into the woods and shoot things.

 

I personally don't see the difference between killing for food and killing for fun. Both are unnecessary. You don't NEED to eat meat, and you don't NEED to kill for fun.

Whatever your reason for killing an animal, you wind up with the same result: a dead animal. What difference does it makes whether it rots or is eaten? Do people somehow think that the animal will be happier with the fact that it's dead if someone uses its corpse for something?

The people who argue that the whole animal should be eaten are probably thinking along the lines of "if we use the whole animal for food, we won't have to kill as many, minimizing suffering and the taking of lives" line of thought. Well guess what? You don't have to kill ANY. As long as they consciously accept that they value the taste of meat more than the life of the animal that they take it from, that's fine by me. I understand there is a level of compromise in there ("I want to eat meat, but want kill as little as possible"), but I find it difficult to understand how people decide where to draw the line (how much eating / killing is ok?).

I personally eat meat. I presently do not hunt. I have, in the past, been a member of a bowhunting club, and practiced (as in honed skills for) my archery, but never acheived a level of skill which was appropriate for hunting. My one belief, when it comes to hunting, is that the death of the animal should be quick. Killing is fine, but torture is not on. If you can't put a shot through the heart / head of your target 9 times out of 10, you have no business hunting for sport.

You can, of course, use my own line of reason against me here: even the swiftest kill is bound to cause pain, and if you're out to minimize pain, don't hunt. As with many "moral" issues, it's very difficult to draw a line that lies somewhere between two extremes.

 

If GOD didn't want us to eat amimals then why did he make them out of meat?

 

Of course it makes no difference to the animal but it is wasteful not to use the meat which I do object to. Quite frankly, I like people and I am not overly fond of maggots so given a choice I would rather the meat end up in a human stomache. I would equally disapprove of cutting down trees and failing to use the wood.

 

I don't have any big problem with hunting except the case of hunting only for fun and don't even try to eat the game you have brought down.
Furthermore i personally dislike people who go for hunting and use illegal means to lure the animals and afterwards they massacre them without hesitation and with no usefull purpose.
I agree with Ragusa 99% but only if it means population control and only that.
And another thought why don't someone instead of the gun takes with him a photo and take pictures of the animals instead of shooting them for fun. It is the same thing with less blood

 

I smell a vegetarian.

I know a guy that goes hunting every season and when he gets back he puts all the packaged meat in to a freezer, has the skin made into some sort of clothing ranging from a few pairs of slippers to a leather jacket, if the buck had a nice pair of horns, they'd go up on the wall, if it didn't, he'd use the horns to make pens, and other things, now that sounds like he's using as much of the deer as possible, and I don't see anything wrong with that.

Personally, I think that if man wasn't supposed to eat meat, then it would have been poisonous to us. But it's not, so dig in!

 

Hunting is Great! I just started hunting w/ my dad last year. so far I've killed two Red Stags a Scimitar Oriks and a Marino Ram.

 

@Kitrax

Nope. I even stated in my post that I eat meat.

In terms of whether or not we're "supposed" to eat meat... the wishes of deities aside, one needs only look at the contents of the human mouth to determine that meat is most definately on the menu.

 

My father is a big time hunter, so I grew up with it all my life. I tried hunting for awhile, but lost interest because I have no patience. I will still eat any venison, any chance I get though Maybe if SP members were running around the woods, I might spark my interest back up