Recreational hunting and DMGD - A new hypothesis

A pretend "scientific" web site registered by Bob Chorush, who seems to be some kind of animal rights kook. And he's claiming that men who like to hunt must have small weeners.

 

Isn't that HILARIOUS?!!! Small weeners!!! LOLZ!! I bet they smell like dookies!!!!

 

Bob is evidently 10 years old.

 

The site is cohosted with www.dwgd.com, a garden design company. I wonder if they share the belief that HUNTERS MUST HAVE SMALL WEENERS!!?!!?`11

Challenging recreational hunting by men is a high-risk activity... but I am up to it as long as my Corvette is at the shop.

 

You are the one using the word 'news': no mention of that in the OP.

 

he's claiming that men who like to hunt must have small weeners

Shouldn't that read "wieners"? Unless it's really wee.

 

From the site: Dr. Upchurch reports, "The first step in the treatment of a disorder is to understand its origins. We are pleased to have crossed that important threshold."

 

Look, there's a Snert out on a limb, quick, take aim...

 

I started hunting when I was around 10, and yes I had a smaller wiener then, what a revalation, then again i'm all growed up now..I still like to hunt..woe is me.

As an anti hunter, do you ever stop to think that maybe you're the one with some sort of defficiency?  Nah, you're a progressive and a feminist, you couldn't be wrong..perfection must be a terrible burden.

We have entered the intelligence zone...

 

Martin, are you trying to be funny?  

There  are  very few people in  this  society  who  need to hunt  for  food,  but wild  meat is  just  about  the best  meat  you  can  eat(besides  organic lamb  and  beef  that  is).  Should someone be condemned simply for seeking the most  natural source of  animal fat there is? What does this guy say about fishing?

There are men born with unusually small penises? :shocked:

 

I agree with timebandit, I hunt, always have.

 

And not because I have an enlarged clitoris. Because I don't.

And for those who just enjoy the hunt, I'm sure there are other possible reasons as well.  Some grown men might just prefer spending time out in the woods with their buddies rather than at home with their wives or girlfriends or big screen tvs.  Sport hunters shouldn't be so defensive.... 

I know lots of hunters (from work). Every single one of them does it just for sport. Now, I know there are many hunters (FN, Inuit, etc.) who hunt for food. I'm quite sure they must constitute a tiny minority. I'm not saying that my friends who hunt for sport don't also eat their victims. All I'm saying is that's not why they hunt.

Plese don't say "tiny", Unionist.

 

All I'm saying is that hunting just for trophies or the sheer fun of removing the light from the eyes of one of Nature's creations is wrong.  Killing for food or clothing or economic necessity is...well, sometimes necessary even today.  Need is never greed.

I am not a fan of sport hunting, eat what you kill.

Just stepping in to remind folks about personal attacks before I start getting complaints...attack the argument, not Martin...you know the drill.

Yes.  Thanks for posting this.  Most of the hunters I know - the ones I grew up around, my uncles both blood and chosen - are ardent conservationists who put a lot of time and money into preserving habitat.  Even preserves they're not allowed to hunt on.  Go figure.

I actually got to use a skill that I learned hunting last fall.  We were shooting footage out near an eco-village and we knew there were deer in the trees.  The cameraman and I both started thinking that it would be nice to see some deer bounding across the foreground with the village in the back, so we set him up in a good spot with a nice panorama, and I looped around behind where the deer were, then "pushed bush" to flush them out in the right place.  Worked beautifully, got a gorgeous shot out of it.

...that's quite the use of the double negative there.

I've been a vegetarian for almost 40 years now. I grew up hunting. And one of the many things I have done, was to be a hunting guide.

It is true that when it comes down to it, most people any of us are around do not hunt simply to put meat on the table.

So its fair to call it sport.

But is absolutely reductionist to call it 'killing for pleasure'.

My apologies...

Do you think hiking in the wilderness is a sport?

Is it more or less of a sport if it involves carrying a 15 lbs. weight into the bush, and possibly a hundred or more lbs. back out?

LTJ, I asked my question first. If you answer it, I will readily and happily answer yours.

 

I don't anymore.  No time, for one thing, and I never liked dressing what I kill, so I switched to cameras in my late teens so and tagged along.  And now that my dad is gone, hunting would be a bittersweet experience for me because hunting was a way to spend a day rambling around the countryside with Dad, appreciating nature and doing something together.  Sometimes we didn't even shoot, just watch the wildlife.  Figure out where it was, see the beauty of the landscape.  Drink cocoa out of a thermos and laugh our heads off.  A reason to go down a road you wouldn't otherwise take.  In my current life, I still like to go for a ramble.

For my father and his friends, hunting was something cultural.  Growing up in rural or semi-rural Saskatchewan, it was something that a lot of men did.  Fewer women in their generation, although some women did hunt.  A rarity, though.  Anyway, yes there was some working-class male bonding, but a lot of them came from families who did hunt to eat in the '30s and '40s.  Even into the '50s, some of them.  Food-gathering sort of became ingrained - we picked saskatoon berries in the spring, looked for fiddleheads in the early spring in the valley, too.  Fished in the summer.  There's something satisfying in going out and getting what you put on your table yourself.  The same reason some people garden, I suppose.  We did that, too.

I think the thing that bothers me most about the OP and martin's position is the idea that men who hunt must be losers.  The men I grew up around, that were part of my childhood hunted game, but they also put their efforts into conservation, into raising families on working-class jobs and wages, and still made time to raise money for charity through groups like Kinsmen.  They were good guys. It's pretty shallow to denigrate them as men because they pursue an activity you don't approve of.

Thanks Timebandit and LTJ.

 

Still crying over your post Timebandit, brought back some huge memories.

martin, I get that it's satire.  Do you get that it's a shallow criticism of me and mine?

That's because Streams and Upchurch lack a basic understanding of what those values are.  They're riffing on a stereotype, and so are you.  I find that offensive.

Sorry LTJ, I'll stick with my question until you answer it: Is it humane to hunt for sport? I eat meat and I do not condemn those who slaughter it. My question is very different. I don't know how to simplify it any further. All I can do is repeat it.

Let me give you my opinion. It is not humane to hunt for sport.

 

We are trying to deal with a situation where many men have bought in to a stereotype, making it reality -- whether we are talking of the "sexiness" of a powerful automobile* or of the thrill of shooting living beings for pleasure. When feeding oneself isn't the issue - I emphasized that the OP was about recreational hunting -  all that is left is the thrill of shooting/killing. If you think the authors lack a basic understanding of those "values", Timebandit, - not those of nature walks, food from nature and inter-generational moments of confidence -, feel free to make that argument. As it is, I fear you are using impeccable human values to cover for... well, jack-asses.

* A bit of good news - Toyota announced yesterday it was pulling out of Formula 1 racing, which will allow it to put 300 million/yr more into the development of hybrid/fuel-economic cars.

Even with auto racing I don't believe it's all about feeding into some kind of "macho stereotype".    The automotive industry has been involved in racing for over a century for a couple of reasons a) advertising and b)having a venue to "test" new automotive technologies that may or may not make it into the consumer market.

There are "races" involving solar powered vehicles.

Are you saying that these solar powered car races are about macho maleness and not about providing a testing ground for solar technology?

 

What a sad central theme for a thread. I can just imagine First Nations people being told they have small willys for trying to feed their families. And Inuit in the North. And there are northerners who hunt to supplement groceries in winter. Lots of hunters share their meat with needy people in the neighborhood.

Have they bought into that stereotype?  Really?  Because I've never met anyone who has, other than you and others who have no experience of hunting.  Frankly, martin, I think that's utter bullshit and it is far more likely that this kind of a cheap shot is more indicative of, as yarg pointed out, an antipathy to anything that is regarded as stereotypically male.  I don't see any reflection of reality here at all.

Your opinion is that "all that is left is the shooting and killing".  Well, I've already explained that that's not the case and there's no point in hashing it out again.  I've already explained there is a cultural aspect to it.  If I weren't so goddam white, you wouldn't question that.  We'd be talking about diversity of cultures and accomodating worldviews.

The values I've learned from men who hunt include self-reliance, an appreciation of nature - not just the Disneyfied aspects, and a responsibility to the environment.  You don't get it, and that's fine.  But don't shit on my experience because you lack the capacity to to understand it.

No, Fidel, martin's scorn is reserved for the pale of face.  Although class doesn't seem to have anything to do with it.  I guess all white males are just bad, bad, bad.  Unless, of course, they're just like martin.  Then they're okay.  Better align yourself.

I think I need a definition from martin and unionist by what they mean by sport or recreational hunting.  My experience would suggest that very few hunters would meet that term.  It seems to me much more that you are instead relying on a classist stereotype.  Very few hunters in pratical terms would be what I would call trophy hunters and are only looking for a big rack to display somewhere.  That group is so small, although often very wealthy, as to be almost meaningless for any kind of comparision or analysis of hunters or gun owners.

Even as sport I'd call it one hell of a lot more humane- more human [not male human]- than eating meat from the factory line. Talk about lack of fundamental respect for our fellow sentinent beings. And if you happen to be choosy about where your meat comes from- and because of the life the animals lived- its at a minimum clear you are more understanding of people who do not make that choice, than you are of hunters.

Timebandit and maybe others have given good short looks at how its a cultural thing. You don't have to be First Nations to tap into that- and like First Nations people, to continue that link even when like everyone else you are completely tapped into and dependent on the mass economy.

There's a lot to be said for meat eaters killing themselves what they eat. I'd never expect people who didn't grow up with it to be able to do it if you are going to eat meat, but I don't think there is any question that it is more holistic. And what difference is there between raising a sheep and eating it, versus going out to shoot a deer that you eat?

The fact that people don't need to hunt to eat is not the only dimension. Its also true that at least generally speaking, if they didn't eat it, they wouldn't hunt it. There is more to it than sport... no matter how sportlike it becomes.

And do you know of any timeless activity that has not become at least somewhat alientated from its roots in modern life? What's special about hunting- other than the fact you don't do it and feel its perfectly acceptable to look down your nose at it?

I agree with what Bookish Agrarian said. When I said that it was fair enough to call the way most hunters approach it sport- I meant that: 'fair enough', as in notr without truth. But I wouldn't characterise the way most people hunt as sport- and that most probably includes most of the people you know unionist. That's why I came up with the term/concept- hunting has become sportlike.

I think hunting is sometimes more humane than the methods used to slaughter cattle. Or keeping calves in confined spaces raising them for veal, and shooting them full of antibiotics because their immune systems are so weak. That really does amount to torturing an animal for the sake of fat-cat dining.

 

OMG this was the best laugh today!! I am so using that last line remind.

If regulated under provincial fish and game regulations, (as opposed to indigineous peoples hunting rights) its all recreational hunting. Whether a resident hunter or a non-resident guided hunter, its all recreational.

By law, outfitters must bring out any animal parts fit for human consumption in most provinces and territories and much of this is donated to various individuals.

The recreational part is very relevant when the hunter spends quite a lot of money on their hunting trip. Even rural hunters who hunt close to home still spend more on game meat than buying a side of beef from a farmer for a buck and a quarter a pound.

Sure - but that's not my concern. My concern is the timeless activities that involve killing animals where the motive is NOT securing food for one's family. If baseball originated with some survival activity, and has now become disconnected from its roots, that doesn't bother me - because it's just baseball.

The fact that it involves killing animals (when it's done properly and they're not just maimed and tortured, that is). That's what's special about hunting.

Let me give you an example. A person roams the neighbourhood shooting and killing feral cats, and neatly disposing of the bodies. When confronted, he says his ancestors have been doing it for years, he finds it fun, and it's a good excuse to go for healthy walks. Are you ok with that? I'm not. Nor am I ok with hunting for sport. Or fishing for sport, for that matter. Hunting and fishing for food are fine in my book.

 

There's no evidence here that you paid any attention to the question you asked me, and the considered answer I gave.

So I will repeat both the question, and the answer:

Did you think that was some kind of dodge me bringing up the factory production of meat? I can't think of any other explanation for you ignoring what I said.

Let me be very clear: I find it extremely offensive, and exremely disrespectful of sentinent beings. I already said that, so what gives you the audacity to think your concern trumps mine? 

Let alone the rather obvious glass house implications here.

Bottom line:

I don't eat meat. While thats about respect for sentinent beings, I consider my reasons to be essentialy spiritual/metaphysical, and truly personal. Meaning, that it has no implications on what other people do.

I find the process of factory meat production much more offensive than I find hunting- all hunting, warts and all. Despite that, I make no commendation whatsoever of people who eat the meat that comes out of that truly inhumane process, the same as I make no commendation of hunters. 

You on the other hand, point the finger at others while apparently excusing yourself; and to make it worse, drag in the obvious straw person allegory of killing cats for kicks.

Since I'm left to guess, mine is that you understood my argument, but chose to trivialize it and cherry pick a bit for a launch into a straw person.

But we'll leave be the attributions.

You did ask a sincere question, and I answered it sincerely. 

So I'll ask a sincere question.

Do you think that the process by which meat is put on most people's table is humane? or even reasonably humane? And how does that differ from people who were raised with hunting, continuing to do so irregardless of the fact they don't "need" it?

I'm no expert, but I'm convinced that in many cases it is extremely cruel and at best indifferent to the suffering of animals.

Because what you don't seem to grasp is my point - the difference between killing animals primarily to be used as food, and killing animals primarily because one enjoys hunting.

A separate and extremely important issue is the method by which animals are raised and slaughtered. But it's not my point in this discussion. My point is that I question whether animals should be killed (and often just maimed) as an enjoyable pursuit in this day and age. I would raise the same concern even if hunters learned how to tranquillize and then euthanize their prey in the most heavenly fashion.

The only reason I exclude Aboriginal people from my question is not because they hunt for subsistence, but because they are sovereign and I don't like to preach my morality to sovereign peoples.

No, Ghislaine, with respect, that's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm talking about my fellow workers. They go out hunting (all males - always), drink tonnes of beer, and have a great time. If you don't know any people like that, then I guess we move in different circles (kind of like this thread at this point...).

To conclude, I'm NOT talking about culling wildlife. I'm talking about hunting for enjoyment. I also must say I've never met anyone who hunts because s/he can't afford to shop.

 

I find it interesting that a simple and respectful question of how one defines recreational or sports hunting has been completely ignored. 

Well, that is what I am talking about. If they are not eating what they kill - than it is for sport, or recreation or whatever you want to call it (whether they keep a "trophy" or not).

Well I guess we do move in very different circles then. And I don't think it makes a difference whether they absolutely cannot afford food without it. As I mentioned with my roomate, she could have taken out a larger student loan to buy more store-bought food. Everyone I know that hunts, hunts for food. And, yes they do enjoy it. It is often a family or community event and children are brought along. I find it very strange that all of your co-workers go hunting just to hunt and don't eat what they kill.

I think we can infer from the discussion that all hunting = recreational hunting in the view of those who are against it.

FWIW, Unionist, alcohol was never part of hunting.  After hunting, sure.  And it was usually rye, not beer.  Booze and guns do not mix well - you're more likely to hit another human than any game.  It's regrettable that you're acquainted with idiots, but please don't judge the rest of us by your misfortune.

George, I agree with you on the need for accuracy.  I was not allowed to shoot at anything living until I had proven myself to be a competent markswoman.  Leaving a wounded animal to suffer is unforgivable.

Something I was just thinking about...  Most of the deer licenses are based on population vs habitat.  Out here, there aren't as many predators as there used to be and deer populations are in danger of going out of control.  The danger with that is that you wind up with widespread starvation and disease within the deer populations - this is a much worse way to die than with a bullet.  The argument is that you would have to cull the population anyway.  Why is it a bad thing to let hunters do that rather than conservation officers?

Well, Unionist, I think several posters have already addressed this. I've agreed that I can and do have similar fun without shooting at anything, for example.

One could also argue that a clean kill in open, natural surroundings is inherently much more humane than sending an animal to a feedlot or abattoir.  It's also less humane to allow them to starve, and a cost-effective way to handle the cull.  So no, I'd prefer to agree to disagree on the humane/inhumane point.