The Accurate Reloading Forums THE ACCURATE RELOADING.COM FORUMS Hunting American Big Game Hunting A life is a life, or is it?Go | New | Find | Notify | Tools | Reply | |
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I was reading the thread about respect for your quarry and it made me think about killing in general. We have a bumper crop of ground squirrels this year, they are thicker than lies in Washington. It is quite possible to kill several hundred in a day. For those that hunt ground squirrels, groundhogs, coyotes, whatever classifies as varmints in your area, do you do the �thank you oh great ____� (fill in the blank) routine every time you separate a rodent�s or marmot�s upper and lower body halves? We also have an epidemic of black flies this year, or just plain gnats as I call them. It is almost Biblical in proportion, in fact I am thinking of writing a letter to the editor calling upon the Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. Anyway, on a drive down the highway these bugs hit the windshield like rain. It gets so bad you literally have to clean the windshield to see. Does anybody think much about the hundreds of tiny lives crushed out on the windshield? Not trying to be a smart a$$, but asking an honest question. We seem to place a certain value on certain life and next to no value on other lives. Curious to know what you think of this. | ||
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Jim - Interesting topic, however, I am not a Buddhist therefore I do not consider bugs or even gophers sentient beings. Therefore, I do not consider this murder as defined in Biblical terms. Please understand that I am all for hunting ethics and I am a big disciple of clean kills. Not really sure where I draw the line between animal species that I respect and those I could care less for. Cutting a gopher, coyote, feral pig in half with a large caliber weapon does not disturb me. Shooting 100 gophers in a day is a little extreme in my books, but to each his own. In any event, bugs definitely fall into the �I don�t give a $hit� category. Z | |||
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| one of us |
I think it all boils down to each individual person and what his / her values / experiences are. A rancher in Wyoming is going to view prairie dogs in a different light than will a family making a tour at the zoo. The rancher sees them as a pest that is detrimental to his land and income and is willing to do anything short of using a nuke to get rid of them. The family at the zoo sees them as a cute creature because they don't have any experience with them. There is a big difference between hunting and extermination. For my hunting, I put the most value on something that I can eat after the kill (ducks, deer & elk), while others will put the most value on the trophy for the wall. To each his own. As for extermination, whatever is the most expedient method to rid myself of the problem is what I will do. | |||
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Maybe it is just me, but there is a difference between shooting rock chucks because the farmer is going to poison otherwise, and shooting chucks just because you can. | |||
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| <'Trapper'> |
Perhaps we should all go once again and read the oldest game law: "If a bird's nest chance to be before thee in the way in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be young ones, or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the young, or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young  euteronomy 22:5-7 Not to be preachy but it seems we have all had a mega dose of the Bambi syndrome and now worry about smackin a bug or squashing a mosquito. I can't tell you why there is a difference in my mind but an older cousin of mine used to shoot young pigeons in the barn with his pellet gun and it really upset me. Yet, I would then and still do like to shoot the adults as they fly about - do so every time I can find a farmer that needs to have them thinned out. Still havbe a moment of sadness when I put my hands on a deer that I have shot or a goose that I have bagged, just because I know full well that is one less in the population, one less that me or anyone else will ever have a chance at. And having said that, I am very thankful to still be able to pursue wild game as I hunt for the various things that I do. I believe this is what one would use to judge the true difference between hunting and killing. And finally, this is why I still get so very upset with those that will buy meat in the store in a styrofoam tray but tell me that I should not take a gun and hunt "poor, defenseless wild things." If this is not a pure hypocrite I would like for someone to tell me why. Best regards, ------------------ | ||
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The reason for my post re 'respect for your quarry' was that I was starting to get a bit blase about shooting deer. I wanted to try and recapture some of the specialness I used to get when I downed a buck or a doe and I thought some way of marking the event would help me not get to the stage of regarding the animal as just a few quid at the gamedealer. I'm also a traditionalist at heart . | |||
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| <yorick> |
I consider humans to be predators, at the top of the food chain. We have no reason to feel bad or guilty for killing lesser species. That having been said, I think it is in human nature to feel something when we kill, especially when we kill something that is appears nobel or beautiful or even just cute. Just don't dwell on your feelings, it isn't manly | ||
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EVERYONE, not just hunters, thinks of stuff this way. See a road killed crow or gopher, everyone goes "yuck!" See a road killed deer, everyone goes "How sad!" I love to have conversations with anti hunters that go like this- ANTI- "Hunting is cruel. How can you kill such wonderful animals?" | |||
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| <Don G> |
My daughters were raised to be realists about where meat came from. I raised rabbits when they were young, just so they'd see the whole process from the time they were toddlers. We have been eating venison almost exlusively for the last two years. I ran out of ground whitetail/elk/mulie last week and had to make tacos out of ground beef. I got the leanest I could find (ground round), and drained it well, but my youngest daughter still said "Ewww! Daddy what's wrong with the meat?" She had to wash dishes that night. When I went to get the leftovers for lunch the next day I found she had written "Dead Cow" with a Sharpie on the tinfoil packet! Don | ||
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| <Wes> |
Its size for me. The bigger it is, the longer it took to grow, and the fewer of them there are, the better reason I need to kill it. I can't kill chipmunks fast enough, my wife's friends are kind of horrified at this. To them its cuteness that counts. Deer are cute, cows not. Chipmunks cute. Woodchucks cute. A rather anti hunting, animals good female co-worker (who I like) gave me lots of amusement as a woodchuck was positively DECIMATING their hosta and vegetable gardens. Yes, they conspired to kill the little darling! I catch no more grief when I mention dead chipmunks.
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Like someone else here has already said, we humans are at the top of the food chain. We kill because we have to. Some could say we don't have to kill because we can get everything from the super market. Still, some human somewhere has to kill to supply the super market. Most hunters kill because they enjoy the whole natural process of putting life giving food on the table. We hunt for sport you say. Well, I am not going to argue that hunting is not a sport. It is a sport only because we hunters have made up rules to abide by so that we are conservative and that wildlife be taken fairly and humainly.It is my opinion that when you make a set of rules for an activity and have those rules regulated or enforced,that is why it becomes a sport. No matter how you look at it, one way or the other, supermarket or the top of a mountain, we have too andare killing some sort of life. The chipmunks, squirrels,prairie dogs,etc trying to over run your property. Kill them. There is no shortage of them. A lot of "varmints" have natural cycles. They peak in population and then die off from something. Why wait till they ruin you. If it is more enjoyable to cut them in half with a high velocity center fire rifle, then do it. If you do it with poison or any other means, it does not remove you from the act of killing. Out of our respect for living things, we owe it to whatever we kill, to kill as efficiently(humanely?) as possible to avoid unnecessary suffering. I would feel sad or bad or regret if I killed for no reason and left it to waste. I enjoy the whole process of hunting even the killing and I do not feel one bit sad about it. Feeling sad about killing an animal that you are going to eat does not make killing any different. Killing is a necessary act and I enjoy the whole process that it is involved in. I quess I have gotten a little off topic and to your question. I place a higher value on life that is important for my survival than life that is not or even a detriment to my survival. Just like our historic ancestors. They killed and placed a value on certain life(for food and clothing)and little value on certain life(other humans and predators that competed for the same needs). We are not much different, it is all about survival. Daryl | |||
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NO,I never prayed over the soul of a departed deer,or any other animal that I had killed.Animals,in my view,have no soul,they were created by God for Us. I do however,have respect for Life.Insects,and other critters,that are lower then Mammals,do not concern me nearly as much as animals that I shoot for Sport. I consider people like Mary Tyler Moore,who made a big splash by rescuing a lobster from a restaurant,fools. On the other hand,the very worst incident in my hunting life,was when I shot a doe,just as she began to run.I shot in more haste then was necessary,and hit her brodside in the shoulder.The bullet passed through and destroyed the other shoulder. She dropped like a rock,but,as some of us know,there is nothing between the shoulders that is necessary to Life.She cried like a baby;I hope none who read this,ever have to hear that sound. If I had only taken the extra second to take aim,this would have been a success story. As it is,it is the only thing that I would take back,if I could. I had a similar experience with a buck shot in the spine.There is no guilt involved,because I had to shoot fast,or lose my chance. ------------------ | |||
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When I lived in Nevada, I had the privelige (sp) of hunting on several private ranches, all year round. I had to obey the rules, EI leave all gates as I found them and that sort of thing. One rule was destroy and coyoyte, bobcat, feral cat, pocket gopher and any other varmint I came across. There ranches all held excellent Mule deer, Quail, and Pheasant hunting, and were closed to the general public. Kind of a weird deal really. I was trying to get permission to hunt deer for the upcoming season. There was a commotion, and this coyote took off with a chicken in his mouth.My rifle was in my truck, and I got him at roughly 200 yards or so. Permission was granted. In the spring when the alfala was coming up, pocket gophers would literally eat the fields down to bare earth. A friend and I would go out and literally shoot hundreds daily, if not close to a thousand or so. The rancher even supplied ammo to augment what we brought. A couple of bricks a day was nothing, and there were darn few misses. During late fall, coyotes were our main target. At that time, coyote hides that were prime were selling for $100 plus. I made enough in one season to buy a new 4x4 pickup. Jack rabbit were on the list too. We shot them all year round and froze them in bags of 10. Come trapping season, we sold the bags of rabbits for $10 each. It was a fun way to supplement the income of my family which included four growing children. Living where I do now, I deeply miss those days. Paul B. | |||
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If the line, ''All God's creatures, big and small,'' is used by anti-hunters to justify their position and beliefs, then I propose a virus and bacteria right-to-life movement. They are living creatures and deserve their place on this planet, no? It's an absurd example but one that's never been satisfactorily countered by the extremists I've posed it to. Btw, just what purpose does a virus serve? | |||
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| <yorick> |
quote: Culls the herd, only the strong survive...the survivors will be strong enough to conquer the universe!! (just finished reading guns, germs & steel by jared diamond) | ||
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| <SafariOfTheMind> |
Good one Jim. Existentialist would say "because it's there" Me, I just hunt because I like blood. Trying to justify it to myself or others on moral grounds is a losing proposition. As has been said when is a life worth saving not a life worth saving. It's better to do what harms the environment the least, preserves the wild and all that's in it and stay close to our instinctual selves. Men are killers. Period. RJ | ||
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