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 Redbeard wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

If a bull manatee was down there killing off younger males and doing damage to the population, and the state invited me to kill it for a fee, how is that reprehensible.

You're arguing that it's better for the population to drive itself to extinction. And that is asinine.

Well, again, your source is hardly reputable. Ted Nugent, "I never did drugs". Have you heard what he recorded in the 60s and 70s? The man will lie when it is to his advantage.

And, also again, somehow nature survived for thousands of years without human assistance. Man did not need to step in here.

Are we not encroaching in on a lot of their territory though. The human race impacts Nature. I'm just saying. Dodo bird comes to mind

 Redbeard wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

If a bull manatee was down there killing off younger males and doing damage to the population, and the state invited me to kill it for a fee, how is that reprehensible.

You're arguing that it's better for the population to drive itself to extinction. And that is asinine.

Well, again, your source is hardly reputable. Ted Nugent, "I never did drugs". Have you heard what he recorded in the 60s and 70s? The man will lie when it is to his advantage.

And, also again, somehow nature survived for thousands of years without human assistance. Man did not need to step in here.

Your right, nature did survive, but how many millions of species didn't?

Would you rather the lions and rhino's went away? Because I will bet my next 10 pay checks that without these efforts, they would be gone. The damage has been done to the species already, and without are help, they will go extinct. But hey, who am I to take the side of world wide conservation agencies, government agencies, biologists, and career game wardens, and the like. You've got that righteous anger going, so obviously you're right.

And the Nuge's hunt of the Rhino is a matter of record, you can look it up if you want to.

From what I can tell these are the slightly unpleasant things needed to keep a species alive.

Yes, it would most likely be in a better state had man not been around.

That matters fething nothing now. What's done is done. You'd rather they just backed off and let them die out now they've damaged them beyond the normal means of self sustaining?

I'd rather rich people got their jollies off culling animals that were going to be culled ANYWAY, and paid big money for the privilege so that money can go towards keeping the species as a whole alive.

I don't fething like it, but it's better for that species.

djones520 wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
If they are endangered why would they need to be culled? It seems odd that a species would be low enough on population to get on the endangered list while simultaneously having enough numbers that we need to organize hunts to keep the population in check.

Because even though they may be endangered, it does not mean they act that way. Alpha lions tend to kill other males to keep their genes the only ones reproducing. When your population is low, that just makes it go even lower.

I understand, it is just one of those incongruous things that sounds odd, like using a fire to stop a fire. Mind I don't mean normal hunting, but specifically hunting something listed as endangered.

Redbeard wrote:There's a sane source. Is this the same Ted Nugent who was investigated by the secret service over his plans to shoot the president? I like Cat Scratch Fever as much as the next guy, but Nugent's basically a laughing stock and a caricature at this point.

He is the poster boy for the anti-gun crowd because of how insane and ludicrous he has become.

Jihadin wrote:Spear Fishing is now open in the topic....

Well it is about time.

 Redbeard wrote:

NuggzTheNinja wrote:
People hunt. People are biologically adapted to hunt. Nothing wrong with being proud of a kill. Not everyone agrees with your version of morality, but thanks for imposing it upon everyone and calling wealthy hunters "evil."

You're welcome. Nothing about their wealth is at fault, it's what they choose to hunt. You're right, people are biologically adapted to hunt - but to eat. There's nothing in our biology that screams "go kill other predators". In fact, nature has designed predators in such a way that they recognize each other and can convey warning messages such that they don't need to fight each other. Lions and leopards are not prey animals, so your half-baked biology doesn't mean much.

So predators don't prey on other predators? Apparently you missed this day in elementary school:



And if these predators had evolved warning messages to humans that worked, they wouldn't be getting shot up by teenage girls. It's called natural selection. Believe it or not, humans are part of the ecosystem.


With that out of the way, we are left only with the question, "Is it acceptable to kill some animals so that the species can survive?" This doesn't really have a concrete answer, as even keeping a species alive is of questionable value. We are perfectly fine with dangerous bacteria becoming extinct. What are lions doing for us, precisely?

 Redbeard wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

If a bull manatee was down there killing off younger males and doing damage to the population, and the state invited me to kill it for a fee, how is that reprehensible.

You're arguing that it's better for the population to drive itself to extinction. And that is asinine.

Well, again, your source is hardly reputable. Ted Nugent, "I never did drugs". Have you heard what he recorded in the 60s and 70s? The man will lie when it is to his advantage.

Presumably you have substantiation for that?

And, also again, somehow nature survived for thousands of years without human assistance. Man did not need to step in here.

Convenient to say, considering we have no idea what species have been made extinct prior to humans.

We do have some idea due to fossils and such. We don't know all of it obviously.

Conservation efforts being necessary, in all shapes and forms, I don't really see how anyone wishing the survival of the species can condemn the practice in it's entirety. You may disagree with the manner in which in was carried out, or who it was carried out by, or what paying to hunt big game implies about a person's nature, but the practice is sound.

I suppose the best response would be, if you find her photos reprehensible, unfriend her on facebook. Otherwise you're thrashing against a practice that is trying to prevent the damage humanity has already done from growing.

Are the people who pay to participate in the managed hunts permitted to take the animal afterwards? I hunt, I support hunting, but to call it 'hunting' I think you have to use the animal in some fashion. Otherwise it's just thrill-killing. (Even in the name of conservation, which I agree is a good thing, it's still just allowing someone to pay to indulge in their little blood fantasies).

Second question...what percentage of her new Facebook friends are 'chicks with guns' fetishists looking for spank material, you think? I bet greater than 50%.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Are the people who pay to participate in the managed hunts permitted to take the animal afterwards? I hunt, I support hunting, but to call it 'hunting' I think you have to use the animal in some fashion. Otherwise it's just thrill-killing. (Even in the name of conservation, which I agree is a good thing, it's still just allowing someone to pay to indulge in their little blood fantasies).

Second question...what percentage of her new Facebook friends are 'chicks with guns' fetishists looking for spank material, you think? I bet greater than 50%.

Probably upwards of 70% in my opinion.

And in regards to using the animal, I'm not sure. It should be used to support the local community. Though if you gave them rhino horn or elephant tusks there's a quite large possibility they'd end up straight onto a ship to china for use in "traditional medicine" which is a huge part of the problem and reason these animals are being poached so much.

I vaguely recall in other cases of this kind of thing, they distribute the meat to nearby villages. I could be recollecting wrongly though.

Everything I've read of these types of hunts, the animals are donated to local communities for their use.

Tons of hunters out there donate their kills to the needy rather then keep them. Nothing wrong with it.

 cincydooley wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:

And, also again, somehow nature survived for thousands of years without human assistance. Man did not need to step in here.

Convenient to say, considering we have no idea what species have been made extinct prior to humans.

Of all the species that have ever walked the earth, only around 1% are not extinct today.

 MrDwhitey wrote:
From what I can tell these are the slightly unpleasant things needed to keep a species alive.

Yes, it would most likely be in a better state had man not been around.

That matters fething nothing now. What's done is done. You'd rather they just backed off and let them die out now they've damaged them beyond the normal means of self sustaining?

I'd rather rich people got their jollies off culling animals that were going to be culled ANYWAY, and paid big money for the privilege so that money can go towards keeping the species as a whole alive.

I don't fething like it, but it's better for that species.

Sad thing is most endangered species are going to be stuffed no matter what we do now. Koalas in Australia got bred with koalas from one sanctuary because that sanctuary was doing quite well and having over population, now a fair few koalas in Victoria seem to be suffering dwarfism of the head . The gene pool was too small and now the koalas are suffering the consequences.
When I hear groups saying there are now 400 individuals in the wild due to conservation efforts I just shake my head and cry inside. Have conservationists ever heard of gene pools or are they just trying to "save " things for the sake of "saving" them.
Shooting them may have been a better policy in the long run.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Mr Nobody wrote:
Why can't we hunt poachers instead? It makes for a great movie.



How ironic and entertaining it would be to hunt poachers.

Because poachers can shoot back.

It's only "fun" if you're not really in actual danger.

I support the right to arm bears. As bears are epically cool, they should be armed with M14s and Bren guns. Because they are that cool.

Someone wanted to hunt poachers?

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0210/life.html

Hunting has never appealed to me. Killing a defenceless animal (I guess lions aren't defenceless, but with a decent guide you won't get within 60 feet of one anyway) with a high-powered rifle? Is that.... fun?

To each their own, I guess. A pity hunting is so necessary to conservation efforts, since we decimated so much natural habitat, but oh well, it is preferable to extinction.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hunting has never appealed to me. Killing a defenceless animal (I guess lions aren't defenceless, but with a decent guide you won't get within 60 feet of one anyway) with a high-powered rifle? Is that.... fun?

To each their own, I guess. A pity hunting is so necessary to conservation efforts, since we decimated so much natural habitat, but oh well, it is preferable to extinction.

Blackhoof wrote:
Hunting has never appealed to me. Killing a defenceless animal (I guess lions aren't defenceless, but with a decent guide you won't get within 60 feet of one anyway) with a high-powered rifle? Is that.... fun?

To each their own, I guess. A pity hunting is so necessary to conservation efforts, since we decimated so much natural habitat, but oh well, it is preferable to extinction.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hunting has never appealed to me. Killing a defenceless animal (I guess lions aren't defenceless, but with a decent guide you won't get within 60 feet of one anyway) with a high-powered rifle? Is that.... fun?

To each their own, I guess. A pity hunting is so necessary to conservation efforts, since we decimated so much natural habitat, but oh well, it is preferable to extinction.

So you're a vegetarian then?

No, are you kidding?

Killing for food isn't killing for fun, or entertainment.

If I had to hunt my own food I would, but I don't think I would take pleasure in it.

Blackhoof wrote:
No, are you kidding?

Killing for food isn't killing for fun, or entertainment.

If I had to hunt my own food I would, but I don't think I would take pleasure in it.

Sure it is. I have plenty fun hunting. And then I have even more fun enjoying the tasty yields of my hunts. Be it in steaks, jerkies, or sausages.

I'm just trying to understand how people can get so outraged over kills made by hunting while not having that same outrage for all the kills made by slaughterhouses and kill-farms.

 cincydooley wrote:

Blackhoof wrote:
No, are you kidding?

Killing for food isn't killing for fun, or entertainment.

If I had to hunt my own food I would, but I don't think I would take pleasure in it.

Sure it is. I have plenty fun hunting. And then I have even more fun enjoying the tasty yields of my hunts. Be it in steaks, jerkies, or sausages.

I'm just trying to understand how people can get so outraged over kills made by hunting while not having that same outrage for all the kills made by slaughterhouses and kill-farms.

Because people are hypocrites by nature and keep themselves purposely ignorant of the horrors of factory farming. And while Factory Farming is 'accepted' because it is generally viewed as a necessary evil to keep the world fed, the truth is it isn't really needed.

 cincydooley wrote:

I'm just trying to understand how people can get so outraged over kills made by hunting while not having that same outrage for all the kills made by slaughterhouses and kill-farms.

As you noted earlier, it's about how many of the species there are. Cows and chickens are numerous, killing them doesn't contribute to the demise of a species. If our teenage huntress were out there killing Wildebeest and Zebra, I wouldn't bat an eyelid.

 Redbeard wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

I'm just trying to understand how people can get so outraged over kills made by hunting while not having that same outrage for all the kills made by slaughterhouses and kill-farms.

As you noted earlier, it's about how many of the species there are. Cows and chickens are numerous, killing them doesn't contribute to the demise of a species. If our teenage huntress were out there killing Wildebeest and Zebra, I wouldn't bat an eyelid.

She killed a zebra.

Bullockist wrote:

 MrDwhitey wrote:
From what I can tell these are the slightly unpleasant things needed to keep a species alive.

Yes, it would most likely be in a better state had man not been around.

That matters fething nothing now. What's done is done. You'd rather they just backed off and let them die out now they've damaged them beyond the normal means of self sustaining?

I'd rather rich people got their jollies off culling animals that were going to be culled ANYWAY, and paid big money for the privilege so that money can go towards keeping the species as a whole alive.

I don't fething like it, but it's better for that species.

Sad thing is most endangered species are going to be stuffed no matter what we do now. Koalas in Australia got bred with koalas from one sanctuary because that sanctuary was doing quite well and having over population, now a fair few koalas in Victoria seem to be suffering dwarfism of the head . The gene pool was too small and now the koalas are suffering the consequences.
When I hear groups saying there are now 400 individuals in the wild due to conservation efforts I just shake my head and cry inside. Have conservationists ever heard of gene pools or are they just trying to "save " things for the sake of "saving" them.
Shooting them may have been a better policy in the long run.

And good conservation programs take that into consideration.

That's how you end up with Zoos killing a giraffe because his DNA is already abundantly present in the population being sustained so that they can make room for a new animal that is not genetically represented in the program.

Of course then you also have the news going crazy and misrepresenting anything that is actually happening...

To be fair, and totally honest, if I paid $500,000 to a wildlife conservation, I'd also want to be able to hunt myself something for it. No lie.

Can't say that I've never killed an animal. Learned my lesson about what conservation is really about. It isn't about killing an animal.

Hunted some particularly dangerous stuff also. Never got to "kill" it though.

But shooting an animal at 300 yards away after a guide pointed it out to you, is not hunting. It will never be hunting. It is thrilling killing at its most pure.
Worse still is that this girl is a sad sad attempt by her handlers to get rich(er) and famous. It is all right there. She wants to have her own tv show. Adorable young white girl of christain texan values that loves guns and shooting stuff is practically money already printed. And her handlers are really hoping to cash in on this.

That is what really bothers me. Other than that I was always taught that you eat what you kill or you don't kill it.

 BrotherGecko wrote:

Other than that I was always taught that you eat what you kill or you don't kill it.

I'd normally agree with this, but I don't have a problem with the meat being donated to others, either.

 BrotherGecko wrote:
Can't say that I've never killed an animal. Learned my lesson about what conservation is really about. It isn't about killing an animal.

Conservation costs money. Killing the animal generates money. Standing around for internet outrage to fund conservation causes animals to go extinct. If these conservation programs were not paying millions of dollars to these african countries, that land would be overrun by ranchers or god knows what else. Conservation has a lot more aspects to it than 'killing animals to maintain genetic balance' but all of it costs a crap-ton of money.

You shouldn't eat meat unless you have slaughtered and butchered an animal yourself to know what is experienced in taking a life to feed yourself. If you don't have the explicit knowledge of what your eating of meat does to that animal you can never have actual respect for it. If you can't do it and require anonymous murder-machines to prepare your food for you, then you should be a vegan.

Not really true. Humans are mighty accomplished omivores and scavengers. If some one happened to corpse something and it is still edible then chew away. There is no inherit respect that comes from guting and animal and removing its skin. Possibly less for killing something that you do not require but understand tastes good.

If you don't grow your own plants then you shouldn't eat them. If you don't play football you shouldn't watch it on tv. Yadda yadda.

However you should not remove a life for the sake of enjoyment and grabbing lucrative endorsement deals. All the while playing it off as conservation. I understand the whole neccessary evil arguement. That does not mean it should be glorified or celebrated. Rather a symbol of peoples failure or unwillingness to do the truly hard thing and just you know care without having to get your rocks off.

And I do happen to donate. Eat some meat and lots of veggies. An totally okat with hunting for food even if I don't.

I find the lack of discussion on the appropriate firearms bears should employ to be....disturbing.