Hunting in the U.S.

[victorfrank]

I am amazed that this thread is here. The last time there was a vague mention of hunting (OP was about a Victorian stuffed rabbit) every anti- anything within a hundred mile radius posted and there was alot of collateral damage.

[madelaine]

Pink Panther, you are unusual - I was mostly talking about perceptions. And you are not what I mean by a "townie" if you are a responsible user of a gun. I mean those people who think eggs are made in factories, that you can have milk without generating calves which become meat, who leave gates open which means that I can't walk where I wish any more. When I was a child, I never worried about footpaths. I avoided fields with stock, shut gates, didn't walk through crops and no farmer ever shouted at me. Now I have to keep to paths because the bad behaviour.

I don't shoot but I have killed out of compassion - it hurts me but not as much as the suffering does.

[Pink_Panther]

Pink Panther, you are unusual - I was mostly talking about perceptions. And you are not what I mean by a "townie" if you are a responsible user of a gun. I mean those people who think eggs are made in factories, that you can have milk without generating calves which become meat, who leave gates open which means that I can't walk where I wish any more. When I was a child, I never worried about footpaths. I avoided fields with stock, shut gates, didn't walk through crops and no farmer ever shouted at me. Now I have to keep to paths because the bad behaviour.

I don't shoot but I have killed out of compassion - it hurts me but not as much as the suffering does.

What I disagreed with basically was your blanket statment that Brits don't hunt for the pot. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I have been a part time gamekeeper, have hunted with air rifles etc for years.
The bald statement about rabbits being unfit to eat is really ill informed. It is ill informed opinion such as this that does damage to country pursuits.
All game is entered into the food chain via resteraunts and game suppliers. Much of the so called vermin such as rabbits and wood pigeon are treated in the same way. Little is wasted and the countryside gets preserved. Songbirds thrive in a properly managed environment.

[madelaine]

Panther, we are in danger of passionately agreeing. I said "rabbits are perceived as unfit to eat".

And I said that we MOSTLY don't shoot for the pot! Please don't disagree with me without reading what I said.

[moonwitch]

Fair enough

And the person who buys their meat in a shop (paying someone else to kill it) is a WUSS

That's very true (in my case)...if animals weren't already killed for meat and I had to go out and hunt...I would be a veggie

[JaBek1]

I believe modern humans are, by nature, predatory animals. Our distant ancestors, being hunter gatherers, were both predator and prey. While I don't wish to get embroiled in a debate over the morality of preying on other species, it is a simple fact that for the most part, that is how modern man come to this stage in development.

Ambush has always been the favored method of attaching prey animals by numerous species. Almost all predators use stealth to aid in a successful hunt. Humans have used their ability to make tools and reason to their advantage which has allowed them to climb to the top of the food chain.

While it is true that today most of the food we ingest is purchased from supermarket shelves, we are still for the most part predators preying on other species for our survival. The fact that we now have specialized members of society to slaughter animals that we have raised for the purpose of consumption doesn't make us less predatory as a species, only more efficient at it. The slaughtering of cattle, pigs, fish and fowl has made the skill of hunting wild game somewhat obsolete. But if the skill is lost, how would the human race survive if it suddenly had to fend for itself.

Dennis