Hunting is Stupid

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I actually thought you might have been directing that at me, that maybe I seemed to be trying to look more morally superior or something. That's why I said what I said.

Something I forgot to say was that obviously people who eat meat have justifications for it, and obviously people who don't eat it have feelings against it. Most people eat meat, so most people here are somewhat against what I am saying...

I accept that we evolved to eat meat as a small part of our diet. And it would seem that we do best when our diet - including meat types - varies over time. But we certainly don't need to eat nearly as much as the average person does from a health perspective. We do so because we live in a Capitalistic, consumer-based society - notice that the health of the individual is not part of that equation so long as there are masses of individuals.

So, if we each only ate as much meat as falls into the "healthy" range we could as a culture raise enough livestock to do the job and those industries would remain somewhat small. But that's not the world we live in. We've been convinced in just the last 150 years that it is *best* to eat meat at least once a day as the main course. Twice or three times a day if we can. And our organs pay the price. That's to say nothing about the havoc over time and populations caused by the crap we feed livestock that shows up in easily measurable amounts in store bought meat, nor the way we have already created disease bacteria that is strongly resistant to existing antibacterial drugs.

There's the argument, too, that we have to hunt things like deer and waterfowl because if we didn't they'd overpopulate. That's largely because we kill the carnivore and omnivore predators who would otherwise interfere with our crop and livestock production. The system is wildly out of balance.

But for me, what it comes down to is that every person I've met that hunts or fishes when they don't actually need to do so...likes it. They like the killing. They like the challenge and the power. They like the "sport" of it. And I can't reconcile that with a healthy society.

yeah i just realized that i probably said something stupid. i hate that sometimes i talk before i think. for sure that wasn't directed to you my friend. i actually agree with almost everything u said. =)

That is the (main) reason I don't like hunting...



That's good And no, you didn't sound like you said anything stupid, sometimes it's hard to tell exactly what someone means unless they are being extremely concise and clear.

I was just starting to go into defensive writing mode so ambiguous things seemed like things that I might as well address...

i know what u mean, and of course i understand. =) xD

Many different types of diets can be healthy, and are found in ancient human societies, except for veganism and its relatives. There have been no successful vegan societies until modern times. Because we do not on our own produce the necessary nutrients to survive on plant foods alone. Nor do we possess the proper digestive enzymes to get the most out of plant foods, or have the necessary type of suggestive system.

Inuit people and related peoples are able to survive on basically nothing but animal products for long periods of time, and have done so successfully for thousands of years, however.

For those that think it's ok to eat dairy and eggs: Even "free-range" chickens aren't usually actually free-range, as in free to roam about in a vast area of land. "Vegetarian-fed" hens are actually not healthy, because chickens in nature eat bugs and all sorts of things on the ground, and are not vegetarian. I should know, we owned chickens growing up.

Cows must bear young in order to give milk. What happens to the calves? The males are slaughtered for veal, while the females are separated from the mothers and bottle-fed.

Cheese is almost always created using enzymes from calves' stomachs called "rennet". These enzymes aren't gotten from live calves, obviously. So calves must be slaughtered, and their stomachs processed to get rennet. There is vegetarian rennet substitute available to make cheeses, but it's not widely used and difficult to find in most areas.

So there really are no "cruelty-free" animal products, no matter what vegetarians would prefer to think. Unless people raise their own chickens for eggs. And since the consumption of animal products is best for our health, we can't escape the fact that eating healthy is going to cause suffering in one way or another.

Humans competed with other predators and won. This was back in the 1800s, when peoples survival was dependent on not having children and livestock eaten by predators. Basically, you're taking moral umbrage at people fighting back against something that would see them dead.

I might add that the only reason we have wolves again now is through efforts from the governmental environment protection agency, in cooperation with a not insignificant number of hunters.


Another example would be our wild boars. They live in packs, and represent a challenging prey even for wolves. They reproduce at a rate that can only be described as "explosive", and they wreak absolute havoc in agricultural fields and in traffic. Lives and livelyhoods depend on raising the hunting pressure on boars.

On the flip side of that; the boar reproductive cycle is controlled by food availability, and with food being this abundant, they reproduce extremely fast. With packs growing larger faster, the Matriarch will drive off increasingly younger females to start their own packs. Outside the pheromonal influence of the Matriarch, they go into estrus, and have a very real risk of dying from getting impregnated long before being old enough to be able to handle that. Does that sound like the sort of thing that would happen in a population that's kept at a healthy level?

I strattle the fence on hunting, though I think this should be posted in the politics forum. But that's just me, do what you like, bruh.

I raise my own chickens and goats.

Our chickens are pastured and roam the yard freely. They do a wonderful job keeping the ticks and other bugs at bay.

Slaughtering young male animals is appropriate for the same reasons that hunting is appropriate - to keep the population in control. In my experience, many more male goats are born than females. Many males are not needed for breeding and keeping them alive would divert resources away from the females who provide the kids and the milk. Out in the wild, many male animals kill each other off, or at minimum fend for themselves separated from the herd. In domesticated settings, the males are used for meat. They are not wasted.

While it *may* be possible that the killing of predators is the SOLE cause of an overpopulation of deer, I highly doubt it. First, wolves killed many human children and also domesticated animals. There was a reason they were killed! Too many were killed off, yes, but the reasons were good ones.

Second, the overpopulation of deer is very much related to human population growth. Their habitats are shrinking due to increases in house building, etc. They can no longer be sustained on the land they have available to them. This has nothing to do with wolves. To fix this, I suppose we would have to kill all the people and tear down all the houses and return the land to the wild. I don't know anyone willing to do this.

Hunting is highly regulated and expensive. I do not personally know any hunters that hunt just for fun. All the hunters I know (which are many) eat the meat. I even know one family whose red meat needs for the year are met *solely* through deer hunting. They stock up during hunting season and keep it in the freezer for year-round use. IMO, this is much more ethical than buying factory-farm raised beef. My family has benefited many times from the generosity of others who could not use up all their deer meat and shared it with us.

Hunting fees go to the agency that oversees environmental concerns, to help them do their work in managing the areas where hunting is taking place. It is a self-renewable system. They will adjust hunting season each year to make it shorter or longer, if needed, depending on the population levels of the hunted animals and environmental conditions. Hunters are also allowed to bring down only a certain number of animals per season. I don't think those that hunt "just for fun" would find satisfaction in only being able to bring down 2 deer a season. Frankly, I think those that hunt "just for fun" are just unsuccessful hunters.

The same kinds of regulations apply to fishing as well. Some of the fees for fishing licenses go to the farms where the baby fish are raised for restocking the nearby lakes and rivers.

Hunters and those who oversee hunting are generally very responsible about the environment. They know the animals they are hunting and the ecology of the area. I cannot say the same for people who just pick up meat at the grocery store and don't know where it came from. Many people don't even know pork comes from pigs. Hunting one's own meat and/or slaughtering one's own farm animals is a very, very sobering experience. It is much easier to go to the store and pick up something shrink-wrapped in plastic. (Compare also the environmental impacts of shipping that store-bought meat and the packaging it comes in...)

Overall, hunting is an environmentally-friendly activity when everyone follows the rules and regulations set by the overseeing agencies. Most do!

I'm not against hunting. I think it's preferable to farming, actually. I was saying that the people who are vegetarian believe that hunting is cruel, and eating meat is cruel, without realizing that what they are eating is likely not cruelty-free either.

There was also mention that hunters hunt because they like to kill things for no reason, and that people eat meat only because it's tasty, and that it's not necessary.

I would be happy to live in a world where killing things was not necessary. But it is. And, things live and die and suffer over and over again, all day long, for as long as living creatures exist. That is the way that life is. It's natural, and it's how the world's ecosystems evolved. It's how humans evolved.

In my opinion, large animal farms and factory farming should be done away with altogether. Humans should hunt for their meat. It's is a more natural and fair way of doing things, as it was done for thousands of years.

Humans would eat less meat, because hunting is difficult. They'd (hopefully) respect the animal more, as they'd be required to actually kill it. They'd use as much of it as possible, because they wouldn't know the next time they'd be able to get a deer or other animal. The animal would be healthier from eating a natural diet, and the meat would be more nutritious. Farmland would be freed up for other things. Food that is used to feed livestock would go towards other things. Animal waste and pollution created from farm factories and large farms would no longer exist.

We'd all likely eat more fruits, vegetables, and seafood. And more meals would be vegetarian. Except maybe for rich people that would hire people to hunt for them.

How about nut or oat milk? That is free from any animal fats. You could boycott cheese and eggs altogether, I never have them.

I drink almond milk at the moment. I actually hate the taste of cow's milk. I usually don't eat yogurt or other dairy products.

I haven't given up cheese or butter. I'd like to find cheese made with vegetarian rennet. I'm half Italian, and so many of my family recipes absolutely require cheese, and especially butter.

Ideally, I'd like to eat wild-caught fish, crustaceans, clams, mussels etc. And then eat cheese made from vegetation rennet, with milk from grass-fed cows, and also butter from the same source. I would get eggs from chickens in a cruelty-free environment. Our chickens seemed happy running around the property. I really rarely eat eggs, anyway.

Then I'd of course eat many vegetables, legumes, and some grains, as I already do.

But I can't afford to do any of that at the moment. So I eat as healthy and ethically as I can, which is still better than how the majority of Americans eat.

I drink unsweetened almond milk but you can make your own with almonds. I have a Brazil nuts, cacao oats and chia seeds for breakfast, you can have a very nutrient dense diet without any dairy. Kale, parsnips, carrots and spinach are relatively cheap in the UK. If you have access on an allotment, even better. Fresh salmon, seafood and Atlantic cod can be expensive but it is still cheaper than red meat.

I have read that organic or healthy foods in the US are much more expensive to buy. There is a premium in the UK for gluten and dairy free foods but it is still reasonable.