Politics The Politics, Economics, and Ethics of Hunting

No no. Clear version:

1. Omega claims that he needs meat as an omnivore. I'm also human and don't need meat (or at least haven't in 6 years) so think it's hilarious when humans claim they need an omnivore diet. Because, you know... I am typing this and as far as I know I'm not dying.

2. I agree that animal protein is an efficient macro-nutrient but that we eat too much of it.

 

Oh, I see. I must have missed a post. Oops.

 

Plants have been shown to show responses to music and the spoken word. I used to pump music out to my garden all the time. So you know they don't feel pain how? Read some of Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, research and get back to me.
--- merged: Nov 14, 2013 at 1:38 PM ---

We're all dying dude (dudette?) Life is fatal... no one gets out alive.
--- merged: Nov 14, 2013 at 1:43 PM ---

You know Oregon has no such system. On occasion when wild game is hit and killed a game officer might take it to the local prison where it is suppose to be fed to the prisoners. More often then not, in my experience, the staff divide it up based on who's senior at the time it arrives. Another PO recently told me they've started allowing food banks and soup kitchens, if so I feel better about it going there then the DOC.

 

I'm human. You know, the species of primates that walks upright and eats everything. You can choose to withhold certain types of food, that's your choice. I do eat too much meat, but I also know that going vegan would increase the suicide rate. At least by one.

 

You seem to be fairly exceptional, which I alluded to previously.

I've spoken to a number of hunters as an adult, and when I was young, and we used to go fishing, we would often see and speak with hunters while we were out by streams and lakes. I have run into one or two thoughtful, careful hunters like yourself, who go out, get one animal per season, and use the thing up, bones and hide. But the vast majority I have seen seem far less thoughtful, very clear they were there to take part in a sport, and many spoke of having to put two or even three shots into an animal to kill it. They took what meat they wanted, and stuffed the heads as trophies. I saw many of them drinking beer while they were out hunting, which I can only suspect factored into their inability to kill an animal instantly, with a single shot.

If there were some way to guarantee that non-subsistance hunters were thoughtful, careful, took one animal apiece, and used the animal completely, I would probably be more inclined to cut hunting slack.

I also found, in speaking to hunters, that a lot of them were gun nuts. They kept all sorts of weapons, which they gleefully described and related to me, none of which sounded particularly convenient for killing an animal for food. I particularly recall one gentleman out hunting deer who related to me (can of Budweiser in hand, I might add) his joy in having recently procured an M-60. I cannot imagine what use in hunting a 25-pound belt-fed machine gun might have, since it seems likely that not much would be left of an animal killed by such a weapon. But it seems clear to me that for many hunters, hunting is a way they have to justify their obsession with guns, especially weapons that appear to have little value in securing game for the pot, unless the game in question is a squad of Marines.

If the United States was not plagued by the glorification of firearms, and the loudly-proclaimed right apparently granted to us by our muzzle-loading musket-bearing forefathers to own high-end military-grade assault weapons, I might be inclined to cut the culture of hunting more slack.

If you will say that you, and some others you know, are not like this, I will gladly believe you, without doubt. But I find it hard to believe that most hunters do not contribute to these problems within our culture, to one degree or another. And so, while I regretfully admit that my desire (undoubtedly to remain unfulfilled) to curtail hunting and severely curtail the accessibility of firearms probably would end up tarring some good people in together with the bad, I think reducing the recklessness, indifference to bloodshed, and love of weaponry for its own sake that blights our culture would be worth it.

 

Mm, I'd say you haven't been hanging with the right crowd.

It's super easy to find the Fudds out there and write the whole thing off as drunken frat boys in camouflage with machine guns. As with anything in a "free" nation, you get to bitch about the negatives so that someone else can enjoy the positives.

 

When first hired by the State of Oregon I had to do ride alongs and shifts in different types of closed and not so closed custody institutions. At the time I was not a hunter. My dad fished but never hunted, least not to my knowledge. So I didn't grow up around a hunting culture. During this training/trial period I spent three days with a State Trooper assigned as a game enforcement officer, probably the most sought after position with the Oregon State Police. The officer I was assigned with came off in my opinion as an asshole at first. By the end to the first day I realized a few things. One- he works alone, in the middle of nowhere often out of radio range and encounters often armed and hostile people daily. Two- he took seriously the effects of humans on the environment, folks dumping trash or poaching were spared nothing. That first day he took joy in confiscating expensive rifles and a 30K 4X4 while issuing fines worth thousands of dollars to a group of half drunk poachers. He got in a guys face, I'd not seen anyone behave like that since boot camp. He told him he'd seen him dump trash up a road we'd never even been on that day. The guy admitted and we followed him up there while he loaded the trash, which had some of the guys mail mixed in with it, back in his newer Ford hatchback. He left with a large fine and a hatchback that had to reek. On the second day we came across an old guy in beat up truck with a flat tire. We helped him get a jack stabilized under the truck so it could get off the ground enough to change the tire. The Trooper asked him what he was doing up on the road with such a rusted out old wreck. The man point to his bed and said "fire wood, got a permit wanna see it." "No, that's fine." At sometime during the encounter I noticed a what I thought was a deer leg sticking out from under the blue tarp the guy had over his firewood. Now at the time I was really clueless when it came to wildlife laws and the Trooper had made it very clear to keep my mouth shut and my ears open. I was just a spector in his life for a few days and he didn't seem thrilled about it much at all. So I didn't say anything. About 20 mins after getting the old guy back on the road we stopped on a ridge line and had lunch. While munching what smelled like a herring sandwich he asked me "so bull or cow?" "Bull or cow what?" "The elk in the back of the old guys truck." "Ah, I thought it was a deer and had no idea if it was the entire animal or just hoof and leg." "Nah, it's an elk, too big for deer." "So he has a special tag or it some special season?" "Yeah, poor old starving bastard season. He and his wife live down on _____ road, wife's just had cancer. The two of them wouldn't eat if he didn't hunt." Later that day we stopped by a trailer in the middle of nowhere. I figured he was going to tell them, as he'd told many others, over two weeks without a permit was a fine. They had a plywood attachment built on to their POS trailer. He grabbed a bag from behind the seat went up and knocked on the door. A woman and a young child came out. He told them "here's some taters, cooking oil and couple ham hocks. I'll be back in a few days to check on you."As he walked back to the truck I had a little grin on my face. He looked at me and said "shut up rook, I'm a hard ass and don't you forget it." The next day he seized a guy 15k boat for snagging salmon out of season.. with a big "go fuck yourself" look on his face.

He worked those woods and knew every inch it seemed. He enforced the law as he saw fit and that's the way his territory was operated. I can't say I completely agree with him being the judge and jury all the times he did but I understood his reasoning.

 

I'm currently working for a market research study regarding firearms and ammunition. Most of the people buying both at this time of year are doing it to prepare for hunting, and it is not at all a cheap endeavor. So, no, hunting is not for those lower on the socioeconomic scale, as was already explained by @Borla. I did interview quite a few people who talked about hunting as a social event, including drinking, but most drink at the end of the day when it's too dark to hunt. During the day, you'd make too much noise and scare away any game.

As for myself, I have not hunted, but I have helped process deer who were taken by an ex boyfriend who hunted. He and most of my friends who hunt use a compound bow - extends the season and, to them, felt "less artificial." Every deer he took was a single shot and down, and hide was donated, bones were given to the dogs, and I helped cut and grind the meat. I love venison and I'm more than okay with hunting if done well and where the animal is taken for meat. I do take issue with a novice going out hunting without having spent time and money learning accuracy with a firearm, as that's a recipe for an injured deer that won't be caught.

 

Borla, you are actually very exceptional. Especially your barbecuing.

 

Your post leaves to to wonder what type of area you live and travel in. Most hunters in areas I hunt you wouldn't see during day light hours. If you did they'd be packing an animal out. From a couple hours prior to day light and a few after they're hiking to or from where ever their going to hunt. Guys driving up and down logging access roads with a fifth of jack in their lap hoping a bull or a buck loses it's bearings and wanders on to the road are not hunters. The last place I regularly hunted, over eight years ago now, the hunters entered the woods around 0330-400, would not enter an area if another truck were parked there, would move on to plan B. At around 1900 about 20-25 of is would gather at an intersection about 200 yards off the Hwy. We have a bonfire and share beer and hunting lies. I guess if you didn't know the group and dropped in you could mistake the conversation. some of the lingo might throw you. For example "I threw on my Romeo, hop on Sally and went for a looper, never did get close enough to kill the old SOB." Romeo's are slip on boots many use if they don't have time to lace up their regular hunting boots. Sally was a common name guys used to refer to their truck and a looper was trying to drive around to a spot they could enter the woods to possibly get a shot at a bull they saw from camp or the road. An outsider hearing that might be really confused but make no mistake no one in that group was not the same type hunter I am.

The rest of your post is really a gun debate and I'm not engaging in that here. I will say when I moved out of Oregon I owned 17 firearms, loaded my own rounds. Now I worked in law enforcement and was on a rotation for the SERT team. so at least four of my weapons were tax write offs. The rest I owned because I like to shoot. I liked loading my own rounds and making my own mix of varying grains in different ammo. I had a "Lee Load Master" that would crank out a round with ever pull of the lever after the first four pulls. The first pull inserted the primmer, the second measured and poured the powder, third pressed in the round and the last sealed it. So I like shooting and I like firearms. If I ever harmed anyone it would bother me greatly. Most gun owners I know feel about the same. Many talk a big game, esp. the old farts I know, about "offing some punk who steps foot on my property." None of them has done anything other then ask why "the punk" was on their land and often helped them out.

 

Re hunting: I just don't get it. But there are lots of things I don't get. Doesn't mean that just because I don't get it, other people can't.

 

BG I'm not convinced that just because hunting seems like a useful option for the poor, that they are actually doing it. Where is your evidence?

 

I just remembered a story my sgt shared a couple months ago. His young son shot a bird with a bb gun, a swallow or something. So dad cooked it and made him eat it to teach him a lesson about responsible hunting.

 

Sure it wasn't crow? I've had to eat crow on occasion.

 

you know it could have been. His two boys are only like seven or eight.

 

What exactly is the photo in your Av? If I might ask.