It's completely beyond me why these 'hunters' (sic) receive congratulations and admiration from a sizable portion of Western society for this kind of gratuitous and senseless butchery.

It's not brave, it's not manly, it's not clever, it's not a benefit in any shape or form.

These are pathetic, inadequate personalities who believe it adds to their status if they can put a bullet into a defenseless animal.

Americans and Canadians are particularly idiotic in thinking it demonstrates ballsy manhood to go out 'seasonal hunting' for moose, deer, bears, goats ~ any goddamn thing that is just minding its own business out there in the forests and the tundra.

An Alaska hunter killed a nearly 9-foot-tall grizzly bear last year that was officially named on Friday the largest ever bagged.

Larry Fitzgerald, 35, was out hunting with friends near Fairbanks when they spotted the behemoth and tracked it for three hours before Fitzgerald took it down with a single shot to the neck from 20 yards.

'We knew it was big,' he said. 'It was a rush.'

"It was a rush".

That's all this magnificent creature meant to this pathetic individual.

Let's hear it again:

"It was a rush". Wow! Makes it all worth the butchery.

link

mantra wrote on May 7^th, 2014 at 11:03pm:


Well said, and you might be right: the paper-trail could lead back to the bedroom.

I too was thinking how many years it took this magnificent creature to grow to his size, with his survival having depended entirely on personal effort, with battling the elements of rain and snow, and various hardships of hunting and competing with other male bears.

And then all that reduced to a corpse because the law allows some immature little squirt with feelings of male-inadequacy to go carry a gun into the wilderness to blast away at anything that moves.

Somehow it must all come down to ... money. Gun lobby groups must be paying certain people in government NOT to legislate against people being allowed to cause magnificent beasts of the field to drop dead at the pulling of a trigger.

I understand culling of camels and horses, etc to prevent the natural food resources not being depleted by over-breeding. Farmers also ask people to come and get rid of the feral pigs and goats that are causing problems. That's all very understandable.

But otherwise, the wanton slaughter in the wilderness areas should be considered a crime.

Ok I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but I once shot a rabbit that had myxo.
I missed it three times and it didn't move. I went up to it and it was blind. So I shot it in the head. Myxo is bad but you want to see what 1080 does to animals. The fox eats the bait and the poison sucks the oxygen from its body . They go berserk, try to climb trees. It takes hours for them to die as they slowly suffocate. A nightmare for the poor buggars.
1080 should be banned. Ask any Vet.

bludger wrote on May 8^th, 2014 at 10:41pm:


Jesus. That's awful. 1080 ... never heard of it.

As for guilt ~ I'm right up there with the best. As a kid I shot birds with a .22 on my friend's farm in the West Country in England. Used to shoot rats on his farm as well.

And then used to pinch an egg from nests in the UK hedgerows .. puncture both ends and blow the guts out of them to add the eggs to my proud collection in a box bedded with cotton wool.

But the biggy was when I was camping alone on the Barwon river halfway between Walgett and Lightning Ridge, and one evening shot a magnificent kangaroo that had come down for its evening drink at a nearby billabong.

That moment was when I had my epiphany. I was one person before I shot that beast, and another person afterwards. There was a 'Before' and 'After' me. I never felt more pathetic in my life when I came to look where it had dropped.

I could shoot a thousand roos for culling purposes and feel justified because it meant farmers weren't going to get eaten out of hearth-and-home by plagues of them, but that one roo standing there in the evening light was personal. It stood up and looked at me before I shot it.

That was 50 years ago, and I'm still paying the penalty for having been such a thoughtless idiot.

well you cant beat yourself up Herb because our roadkill alone would out number some of this hunting for FUN...thats what most of us dont get... or is it the thrill...I am not sure..

either way we are armed to the teeth I have yet to see the bird or animal that can out run a bullet..

it isnt a fair level playing field..and if by chance an animal does win and takes down the man.. well all hell breaks lose..do I understand it?... no I dont.. and never will.I do not see a thing good about hunting with a rifle..

for food I can forgive.. or maybe to save someones life yes all things b eing equal..we cannot stand by and watch.. but for fun.....OMG when will we grow up and realise these are living breathing creatures that deserve better..

Sprintcyclist wrote on May 9^th, 2014 at 9:47am:


That's very laudable.

What do your neighbours think about this.

A woman up the road is playing foster-mum to 10 cats at the moment, and one of her neighbours are complete idiots about this. The occasional cat strolls onto their property to bury a turd ~ and they go batshit. A father and 4 bogan sons.

Macho-men who are probably closet homosexuals.

Lord Herbert wrote on May 7^th, 2014 at 8:37pm:



Can't argue with that.

Very sick puppies.

Lord Herbert wrote on May 9^th, 2014 at 2:26pm:


It's called canned hunting. I'll search for the article that says they are also taken out of the wild. I would post more pictures, but they're too heartbreaking. The bloke in the picture has used arrows which is even more inhumane.

Quote:

It is a depressing thread, but it's real. We are regressing when it comes to preserving and treating animals humanely. First world countries used to protest and boycott second and third world countries who slaughtered animals so recklessly, but we are joining them now, not for survival, but greedy exploitation to make people wealthier.

We won't be around hopefully, but there will come a day when our progeny won't have enough to eat. The animals will be gone, either through disease caused by captivity, or slaughtering just for the sake of it. Money won't buy food or clean water when all our natural resources have been eradicated.

Lord Herbert wrote on May 9^th, 2014 at 8:55pm:


Good. I hate these subjects. These days I bury my head in the sand to avoid thinking about it all. Too sad.


Quote:


This could be considered a cruel subject also. How long does it take - and what methods does your cat use to kill a rodent?

Ruffy kills them instantly. Sia plays with them. When I've take them away from her - they're always paraplegics. There's the dilemma - should I bash them over the head with something or pretend I haven't noticed. A couple of times I've put them in a little box hoping they'd recover or die, but neither happens. I can no longer break their necks.

Pretending you haven't seen the poor creature is the easiest option, but it goes against my ethics.

mantra wrote on May 10^th, 2014 at 11:51am:


I use a bucket myself.

Quote:




God! Why am I laughing! It's Male Menopause, Lady Mantra. I'll be better next year.

The mice Gizmo teases me with are always in first rate condition ~ no wheelchair or defibrillator needed. 'Crunch time' comes later ... 

mantra wrote on May 10^th, 2014 at 11:51am:




Pretend you haven't noticed.

Just go to the kitchen to make yourself a cup of tea while doing this ...  ... and ignore the crunching sounds you can hear from the lounge room.

mantra wrote on May 10^th, 2014 at 11:51am:




Do a double-header.

Pretend you haven't seen anything, and for the duration of these little dramas ... pretend you haven't any ethics.

Problem solved. 

Oh, trapping mice is allowable in my code of ethics. Logical reason for it, see.
And I am not against spider slaughter either.

sherri wrote on May 11^th, 2014 at 6:45am:


I've had otherwise intelligent people telling me that "Man is a hunter, and it's a basic right of Nature that humans should stalk 'beasts-of-the-field' to satisfy an ancient urge to assert his dominant position in the hierarchy of predatory creatures" ... blah blah blah.   

sherri wrote on May 11^th, 2014 at 6:45am:


Here's some interesting information on fish feeling pain.

Previous studies looked for pain receptors in fish with cartilaginous or non-bony skeletons (creatures such as sharks or manta rays), and could not find any.

But trout (like us humans) have a bony skeleton, which is why the researchers chose them - and the results were startling.

The first thing that the scientists showed in their study of the 20 volunteer trout, was that they each had some 58 specialised receptors on their head. Some of these receptors responded to just one stimulus, while others responded to a bunch of stimuli.

In humans, receptors that pick up heat and mechanical pressure are identified as being pain receptors. So in the rainbow trout, 22 of the 58 receptors could be counted as pain receptors. In fact, under the microscope, these receptors look virtually identical to the corresponding human receptors. They also had very similar mechanical and thermal thresholds. These fish receptors send signals to the fish brain via nerves.

So the rainbow trout have the complete "neuro-apparatus" and wiring needed to experience pain.

Some of the fish took on a "rocking" behaviour, which people who have been through a close encounter with death will often do. (If you look closely at TV footage of the survivors of train accidents, earthquakes, etc, you will see some of them with their arms clasped to their chest, rocking back and forth.) Some of the fish refused to feed for a long time after the injury. Other fish rubbed their lips in the gravel of their tank, something they would normally never do.

So, the fish had post-traumatic stress reactions. Some of these were almost identical to human post-traumatic stress reactions (eg., rocking, not eating). Some reactions were the fish equivalent (eg, rubbing lips in gravel is their equivalent of us using our hands to rub our sore lips.)

The final test also suggested that trout can feel pain.

Then she gave them a pain killer, morphine. The fish behaviour returned to normal.

So what can you do next time you catch fish? Take some ice and icy water with you, and plunge the freshly-caught fish into the icy water. As the fish cools, its metabolism will slow down, and it will go (painlessly, we think) into hibernation and then anaesthesia. Then place it gently on the ice, but out of the water. It will suffocate to death, but while being anaethetised.

So just because fish are cold-blooded animals, doesn't mean that we have to be cold-blooded killers...

link

I have fished and I have shot bunnies. But I ate what I caught/shot. Have trapped/poisoned mice, threatening my livelyhood. But gave them a tap on the head with a hammer—no long drawn out death.

If you eat meat—be prepared to kill some of it yourself. But shooting a lion or elephant? NEVER!