Animal rights groups want age limits for hunting

Post Reply New Topic

It seems that you consider hunting itself wrong more than you consider kids hunting as wrong. It is a sport like it or not, and it is also a population control. When the population of deer grow too high they extend the hunting season. That is so people don't run over the deer in their cars and manage to hurt themselves in the process. Despite what people would like to believe, the length of the hunting season is based on the population of the animals at the time. Hunting is used as a means to control overpopulation.

to control the population? don't you think we have a worse popular situation with humans than with other animals? why don't we just go to an overcrowded country such as India and start killing off random people?

hunting is not used as a means to control population. its used as a means to satisfy the sadism in most of us.

Of course not Sean But in many civilsations they had this rule - as a right of passage as you say. There are obvious safeguards already in place. If you don't understand what it means to kill, then should you kill? If your brain cannot process what it means to kill (below the age of responsibility). If a five year old turns around and shoots their parents they cannot be tried for murder because they are not capable of understanding what it truly means. A 12 year old might not either if they are pre-pubescent. It is so very subjective. You could find an 8 year old who is perfectly capable of understanding what it means to kill.

As for the monkeys - why do we need real monkeys when we already have a bunch of faux monkeys who already shoot?

Well, in all fairness, I think a lot or even most of it is example from parent to child. If the parent takes a sadistic pleasure in shotting an animal in a very gory way and is macho and crude about it, chances are that the kid will think this is appropriate behavior as well. In Wyoming, for example, at a lamb docking (where you castrate, dock tails, mark, and vaccinate all the lambs- thousands of them) I overheard a few boys talking about the previous day's initiation rite. One of them had had to castrate a lamb by mouth and swallow the testicles. Not only is this disgusting, but it wasn't sanitary or humane for the lamb. It was necessary to castrate the lambs, but not to do it in that way or to make it any harder on the animals. I thought that was horrible.

For any disagreeable or painful procedure that I do with my animals, including killing them, the children are made to understand that it is necessary, not funny at all, and that the animals are to be treated with respect and care up til the time they die. Truth be told, I think it's good for kids to see where their meat comes from and to gain an appreciation of the life/death cycle. I don't even let my kids torment insects by pulling their legs or wings off....but I would allow them to particpate in butchering if I thought they were ready and could be mature about it.

I do think it's possible to teach a child to hunt responsibly- but a bear hunt???