Recreational hunting and DMGD - A new hypothesis

So what?

Unionist wrote:

Timebandit wrote:

But it is necessary - see my explanation of the cull. Would it be okay to cull as long as nobody enjoyed it?

I said hunters aren't motivated by ecological aims. How about dealing with that point. And I've never heard of hunters being given marching orders as to where to hunt, how many they must kill, what dates to go out. They aren't hired to cull.

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What difference does it make that we're not First Nations?

What is wrong with [b]READING MY POSTS[/b]??? I said they were sovereign, and it wasn't my place to preach to them any more than (say) Greenlanders. [b]Sovereignty.[/b] I preach to my own people, and I respect the traditions and hereditary rights of others.

I guess the next question there is:  Are you my people?  Have you ever even been here?  If not, don't tell me what my local culture can, is or can't be.

My experience is that ecological aims are interwoven in hunting.  We never wanted to take more than we should because that would damage the ecology.  In fact, as I've pointed out several times, it's the experience of and connection to the natural world that is the larger part of why the people I know hunt, and they are keenly interested in the preservation of natural spaces for wildlife - even those where hunting is prohibited.  Is this not ecological motivation in some respect?

And they are, actually, given regions within which to hunt on the licenses granted.  There are zones with applicable licenses.  You also can't just go and buy a license, you apply for one.  In some zones, you are subject to a lottery system.  So you won't necessarily be granted one.  There's also an allotted time period.  And you pay for the privelege.  Rather than hire for the cull, the government raises money on it.  It's necessary, the controls you point out are missing are there, and there's the added benefit of money going back into conservation.

So the main sticking point seems to be the whole pleasure aspect, as you see it.  Is that about right?

But if somebody doesn't, they starve - they die slow.  How is that better?

ETA:  How about some of my other questions?  Any answers?

Unionist wrote:

 I do, however, personally hope that people will come to see that killing of animals when it isn't really [b]necessary[/b] should become a thing of the past.

I think that's a fair statement if applied to killing and eating meat in general.  Eating meat isn't necessary. People can survive without it.  Ethically though I don't see a whole lot of difference in eating meat you get from the store or eating it from an animal that one killed directly except of course with the former one just lets someone else do the killing part.

Hey Eliza -

Our farm dog is getting to the point she is afraid to go off the porch very far at night.  Smart girl.

The chickens they killed were in a fenced area - only let out at dawn about 25 metres or so from the house and barn.  They jumped the fence and killed dozens and dozens of chickens in something like 20 minutes.

These were definitly coyotees as I chased after them with my truck through the fields.  Big, bold, cocky killers.  They are also wiping out the re-introduced wild turkey population in our area.

At the same time we have a Chicken Hawk swoop in from time to time.  She only takes one chicken.  As much as I don't like the loss I figure I am doing something to help the general ecosystem by letting her take the occassional chicken with our blessing.

Yah, I've had them come right up to the truck sitting in the field while I was only a row or two away on the tractor. 

On one of the farms we work there were a whole whack of nests with brooding turkeys on them.  I came back a few days later and all the eggs were eaten (possibly later by raccoons), but worse all the brooding turkeys were also laying there dead.  Could only have been Coyotees - nothing else is big enough in our area.

And what will be worse is that the natural cycle will mean most of their prey species will decline (rabbits and ground hogs already have around our place as sitings are very rare) and then they will get hungrier and bolder and who knows what will happen.

ElizaQ wrote:

Ethically though I don't see a whole lot of difference in eating meat you get from the store or eating it from an animal that one killed directly except of course with the former one just lets someone else do the killing part.

Hi ElizaQ,

I never said I had an ethical issue with eating an animal that one killed directly. Did I?

Unionist wrote:

ElizaQ wrote:

Ethically though I don't see a whole lot of difference in eating meat you get from the store or eating it from an animal that one killed directly except of course with the former one just lets someone else do the killing part.

Hi ElizaQ,

I never said I had an ethical issue with eating an animal that one killed directly. Did I?

 

Well you didn't but that wasn't what I was commenting on.  You said, "I do, however, personally hope that people will come to see that killing of animals when it isn't really necessary should become a thing of the past." You also said, "No, it's killing animals when you don't have to."

So I extrapolated from those two comments that the your key point was about necessity. You even bolded the actual word 

My comment was about necessity which is why I said. "I think it's a fair comment IF you're talking about meat in general." It's not a necesscity. We all can survive without it. No one has to kill animals to live and eat.    Maybe I shouldn't have made a comment talking about the ethics but asked for further clarfication on what you actually mean then.  If you're talking 'necessity' (your bold) then what is the difference between killing an animal that you eat in the wild vs eating an animal that someone else killed for you?

If you're talking as someone who doesn't eat meat for whatever reason I get those comments. They make perfect sense. If you're talking as someone who does eat it, for whatever reason, then they don't make as much sense in terms of talking about the necessity of killing animals.  Is it just due to where they're located or something or the difference between animals that are raised on purpose for human consumption vs those that are free?

ElizaQ wrote:

If you're talking 'necessity' (your bold) then what is the difference between killing an animal that you eat in the wild vs eating an animal that someone else killed for you?

There is no difference. I get the feeling I'm repeating myself a whole lot. I never said there was a difference. I'm not talking about eating animals. I'm talking about whether hunting primarily for recreation is not perhaps a pastime that we should look at as being unnecessarily inhumane.

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If you're talking as someone who doesn't eat meat for whatever reason I get those comments.

I eat meat.

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If you're talking as someone who does eat it, for whatever reason, then they don't make as much sense in terms of talking about the necessity of killing animals.  Is it just due to where they're located or something or the difference between animals that are raised on purpose for human consumption vs those that are free?

No - it's about whether the killing of animals is primarily to feed people (which one day we may as a society decide is wrong, but I'm not there yet) - or whether the killing of animals is [b]primarily part of a recreational social good time romp in the woods whatever[/b] - which I am suggesting might be something that perhaps people could look at and say, "Y'know, we can have similar fun without actually killing those animals".

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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.