Brigliadore wrote:
Neither would you. Nor did all of those people in D.C. a while back, at least not the ones who died instantly.

I think that gets to the heart of why hunting is still OK. Those people in DC who got shot had family who mourned the loss of a loved one. Even those who didn't know the people were shocked at what had happened. No one knows for certain how animals feel about the death of one of their family members or one of their kind. I know elephants have been shown to mourn the passing of a herd member but not all animals seem to care that much. That is why it is still considered OK to hunt animals, because if you kill a deer does its deer family even care? Does a deer mom cry or feel any extreme pain over the loss of its deer child? As long as the answer to that question is still up in the air many people will not care if a wild animal dies. And frankly because many wild animals live solitary or semi solitary lives I suspect the answer to if the animal cares that another of its kind (or even a family member) got killed will still be a no.
I know it doesn't make it right but until it can be shown that animals have a larger range of feelings, many people are not going to care because they simply don't relate to the wild deer that got shot by a hunter.

Lets say the deer have feelings for the sake of argument. We ban all hunting because it is deemed to barbaric. Whats going to happen when the deer outgrow their current habitat and there is not enough food for them to forage? Those strip malls and housing developments are starting to take a toll you know. What happens when the deer get so populated they start inbreding? Whats going to happen to your emotions when they jump out in front of you car and total it??? The insurance companies lobbied in the state of Oklahoma to get the deer season extended by a week to help lower insurance costs. If we don't hunt the deer how are we going to control the population?

Next time, pretend you're cracking a whip. Grab it by the head, once around in the air and a snap of the wrist should do it. Quick, painless and bloodless.

If you do it right, that is.

Brigliadore wrote:
You're making the feelings of the DEER the issue, and getting completely off the track as a consequence. It's not the feelings of the deer that need to be examined - it's the feelings of the human being with the rifle, too much time on his hands and too little empathy for other creatures that are at issue.

So now it's whether there's anybody out there in the woods wearing a black armband and crying itself to sleep that determines whether or not we're going to approve of somebody going out and shooting holes in a living, sentient animal for fun? It's mercy and morality by consensus? Denis Leary's 'animal auditions' from 'No Cure For Cancer'?

I keep hearing things like (paraphrasing) It's okay because they're animals, It's okay so long as we do it quickly, It's okay because we don't really know how self-aware they are, and It's okay because they may want to die anyway rather than face another tough winter in the wild. Jesus, two hundred years ago we were hearing the same crap about slavery and Black people.

I'm only saying that, in judging what is the right and moral thing to do (or abstain from doing) when it comes to killing for fun (which is what it really is, minus the b.s. about "getting out in the fresh air and enjoying nature"), the law, tradition, the popular vote, the state of our certain knowledge regarding animal awareness - all of that is, or should be, of absolutely no importance; it's either an emotionally disturbed and immature thing to do, or it's not.

Shit they already do that a lot where I live, and hunting is REAL big in Utah. Despite hunting season thinning the population, during the fall and winter we have anywhere between 3 and 18 deer killed a WEEK on the 3 miles of road I live on.

By the way, Brigliadore, I didn't mean to suggest that you were the one who brought the matter of the animals' feelings into the discussion - actually, that was probably me when I wrote, "Don't the animal's feelings count for anything?".

I believe that when I wrote that, I was thinking not so much of the animal's feelings, as such, but of the animal's natural right to live until such time as it is taken down by the food chain - and no, I don't consider a camouflaged hunter with a high-powered rifle and scope a part of the food chain. Not unless he's being eaten by something else, anyway.

JeepNGeorge wrote:
Here's a thought - drive slower?

Seriously, here in Phoenix we don't get a lot of deer on the roads, but we have a serious problem with people jaywalking across busy streets, especially at night, and getting hit. Not to mention all of those 'undocumented' Mexian immigrants being hit while crossing highways in the southern part of the state. I guess maybe we need to add a hunting season or two, by that line of reasoning.

Whats going to happen when the deer outgrow their current habitat and there is not enough food for them to forage?

Then they die off due to starvation and their numbers return to normal.

What happens when the deer get so populated they start inbreding?

Uhh -- inbreeding is caused by small populations, not large ones.

If we don't hunt the deer how are we going to control the population?

What are we going to do when hunters aren't permitted to roam the countryside with .22s and plink away at mice? Won't the mouse population explode and overrun everything? Somehow, I think the deer population will tend to itself just as it has for thousands of years. I could be wrong, but I think the argument that hunters and hunting seasons control various animal populations is a load of bunk.

Actually I'm not, you asked point blank if the animals feelings counted for anything, and I responded in turn. Then you compared people dieing to animals dieing and I pointed out that the majority of the population is not going to care about animals being shot until you appeal to them on a more personal level.

I disagree with that statement. Going out into the woods and killing an animal is no better or worse then killing a cow or chicken or whatever. You seem to not have a problem with eating a hamburger but if someone kills a wild animal then they are disturbed and immature. Just because I don't believe with what someone does, it doesn't make them mental or childish. Shit my sister scrap books, which I think is a complete and utter waste of time but I am not going to call her stupid for doing it. I know scrap booking is not the same as hunting, but its not your right to judge someone when you yourself are being a hypocrite. I will say it again. I don't believe in hunting but I am not going to tell someone they are disturbed just because they happen to like it. I don't get the attraction to hunting but just because I don't get it doesn't make it wrong.

I think it holds true only in that we have taken so much habitat away from wild animals that now there is not enough predators to keep the population in check. Cattle & sheep ranchers killing off all the the wolves in some areas is a prime example of how we messed the natural balance up.

I only wish they would on my road. I don't like seeing all the dead deer on the side of the road, and because the city only comes by once a week to pick them up they lay there for a week some times.

I think it holds true only in that we have taken so much habitat away from wild animals that now there is not enough predators to keep the population in check.

Yeah, although in most of the areas I've lived enough land has been taken away that there isn't enough left to sustain a normal population, so the entire one dies out. There isn't even enough for predators to stick around. Really sad.

Cattle & sheep ranchers killing off all the the wolves in some areas is a prime example of how we messed the natural balance up.

I was never sure if this was because of wolves coming to attack sheep or just ignorance on the farmer's part -- I've seen documentaries showing farmers going well out of their way to kill a wolf, sometimes many miles from their farm, then return it to the farm to claim defense. That would hype up the other farmers and the hunting of wolves got really unessecary and destructive. Besides, wolves rarely kill healthy sheep -- they usually only go after the sick ones, which the farmer gets rid of, anyways. There was a much simpler problem to the wolf/coyote issue: lithium. Lace a carcass with lithium and let 'em eat up. The illness that follows is so severe that it only takes that one meal for them to associate being violently sick with eating mutton.

I think both, also for many years if a rancher caught a wolf killing his sheep he could kill it and send the carcase the the government which would then pay the rancher for every animal lost. A lot of hunters were killing the wolves for doing nothing and then claiming it killed several of his sheep. Quick way to make a few hundred in their minds and they didn't care about the harm they were doing to the balance of nature. Funny thing is every once in a while the deer population would get some real nasty disease that would then spread to the sheep and all the ranchers would complain to the government about the deep population being out of hand and disease ridden. If the fuckers hadn't killed off all the wolves the damn deer wouldn't have gotten out of hand.

You would rather a deer starve and feed the coyotes than be hunted and feed humans?

Inbreeding is caused by no new genes being introduced. When the dominant deer hangs around he tends to start breeding his own offspring. Random killing of the big monster bucks ensures that fresh genetics are given the chance to be introduced. Sure the old deer will eventually die and a younger buck be given the chance. Hunters are merely speeding it up. We are doing our duty in the food chain. I should have been more clear.

The hawks, snakes, cats, and my silly dog for that matter will help control the mice population as usual. If rats were bigger I'd even hunt them for food myself.

You can look at it anyway you want to, but we are a member of the food chain. Sure not everybody that hunts does it to eat the food. But to take away all hunting would be like the example of the farmers and the wolves mentioned earlier. It's all a balance. We just have the ability to make killing deer illegal that the wolves don't.