Poor animals

It's just fine to hunt animals and eat meat, so long as you're OK with another creature doing that to you.
Same goes for eating McDonald's meat and stuff like that.
Same goes for taking pictures.

I'm personally fine with one day seeing an alien taking a selfie with the bloody fat head of a human, so long as that human practiced that way of life as well.

rickymouse
The new chickens are so bred out that they are grown fully in ten weeks, and if they are allowed to live longer, they die of heart attacks. Their bodies grow to fast for their hearts, this is not good. The chickens can't even get up and walk around, they have all their energy targeted for meat growth. That is no life, these chickens would never have survived a hundred years ago.

Sounds eerily familiar...

liquorstorebear.files.wordpress.com...
cutelypoisoned.files.wordpress.com...

boymonkey74
reply to post by satellite1

 

So put your energy into saving those in the third world countries instead of whining about the poor animals...
Makes me so mad that people care more for animals than their fellow human beings.
Like Organizations like PETA who sponsor people to kill humans....scumbags.

edit on 9-12-2013 by boymonkey74 because: (no reason given)

Where did I say I care more for animals than humans? This is a rant thread and I had a rant, get over yourself.
I have been hungry and I have tried to imagine if I was starving and there was an opportunity to kill in order to survive and I can't bring myself to think I would, but how would I know until i'm there? Who knows. I do know i'm not there now, neither are you are you? But like I say, each to their own.

boymonkey74
reply to post by satellite1

 

Ever been hungry? I mean starving? you would bash the head in of those fluffy animals If you ever had been.
We eat meat...get over it.
Like I said respect and treat them well right until we butcher them for food.
Killing for sport is wrong many have said so, many of the hunters have said so and respect the animal they kill for food.

I think i'm over it, thanks though. I have a wife and 2 kids. I am the only vegetarian in my house. I respect what they want to eat as they do me. I decided not to eat meat very early on. My kids can make up their own mind, each to their own but that's not really the point. I see a life in a deer etc and couldn't even conceive the thought of hurting them. I'm not a neanderthal who hunts to survive, and that is not meant to be offensive, just fact. I see animals as equals. I love and respect all life.

Peace

iRoyalty
reply to post by satellite1

 

You do not want to see how chicken nuggets are made, that made me physically sick. Production lines covered in baby chicks getting throw about, clamped, injected and poured (live) into a grinder... Heart wrenching... I don't know how those people could do that job..

I would post the video, but it's nasty, think it might get removed.

edit on 8-12-2013 by iRoyalty because: (no reason given)

I saw a portion of this process in the video Food Inc... just dozens and dozens of tiny baby chicks on a conveyor belt rolling towards the grinder. I'm not a particularly emotional guy, but I teared up seeing that.

Everyone out there should go youtube "Food Inc." You need to know where your food is coming from, and the sheer amount of suffering animals go through to keep the profits rolling in for bigagro.

satellite1
Well actually you have a point, be it a silly one or not. Who says humans get to play god and kill what they want? No one can help killing a bug while driving, as I say, silly.

It's the intent to kill that matters, the volitional choice to take a life.

Eating meat is making the conscious decision that the few hours/days of extra life you gain (via the caloric energy for the meal) is worth more than the X years of life that animal would've had if you hadn't killed it.

No matter how you try and rationalize it, that equation will never balance to the good. The act of killing is an act of theft, pure and simple... and it's theft that takes place at an usurious exchange rate.

If you're adding x days to your life at the cost of x years of an animal's, you better be doing some damn important things with that stolen time.

reply to post by rival


When you said "bugs on the windshield" I kinda laughed. I used to drive a 24 ft. box truck like 8 hours a day on the highway, I used to think that thing looked like an insect holocaust had occurred.

I eat meat. I've never hunted. But recently, for some reason, I've really wanted to start hunting. I was thinking of what it would be like to kill and process my own animal, and it irked me. So for whatever reason, now I want to do it. I wanna be able to do it, like, its a skill I feel I need and some people don't have. A lot of people in my area hunt, I live in Oklahoma. I've been wanting to get a crossbow so I can hunt pigs. Anyone got any tips for me?

Cancerwarrior
reply to post by satellite1

 

Hunting is one of the most challenging things you can do. Animals are very smart, and you are hunting them in THEIR habitat. They know where to go to hide, to sleep, to eat, to mate. You have to learn about them and study them and think like one. And even then there is no guarantee. I've spent countless hours sitting in my deer stand to see absolutely nothing pass by. That's what makes it all the more exciting when you do bag one.

before i get into it i have to say that i have never hunted so i really dont know what i am talking about but i still have an opinion.
how is it so challenging? you said you spent hours sitting in your stand right?
what is hard about that?
how does that equal studying them? thinking like them? learning about them?
i dont see that at all.
from my perspective you go to the store to buy your ammo gear. you get your big ass gun, bullets, scope. you have your hand warmers and heated socks. maybe a compass. you take some of that female scent that you can buy and spray it. then, you wait.
then you wait some more and when the deer passes near enough you take the shot. then, you drag them over to your 4 wheeler or big ass polaris atv and load them on the rack and ride your gasoline powered vehicle back to your truck.
does not sound all that challenging to me.


i am in no way against hunting. its just not something i choose to do. i eat meat but i dont think i could take part in the killing. it bothers me.
buying a piece of faceless meat is different than taking down the living animal imo.

i just dont see the challenge. yeah, there is no guarantee but come on.
sure taking a good, well placed shot and hitting your mark is a challenge but thats it.

I didn't have time to read through this entire thread but I was surprised to read what I think is the cover story in the latest issue of Time Magazine today dealing with over population of virtually every game animal out there. White tail deer are worse than rabbits or feral cats everywhere but here in west Texas where the exceptionally dry times we've been having over the past few years have devastated their population. Only a few counties east and you have deer marching all over rural residential areas. Several cities in the article have resorted to allowing bow hunting INSIDE their city limits to reduce the population of deer and other animals. Relocation, contraception and other methods simply have run their course and failed but the animal activists still troll on with their whimpering and whining about man's cruelty to their fellow Earthly inhabitants.

I was stunned to read such in a magazine that I'd left behind years ago because of its leftward leading anti-gun, anti-hunting ways but there it was all in black and white, things that I'd written to the likes of Cleavland Amory and his bleeding hearts bunch back when I was a kid in the early 70s.

What's the solution? Let the deer die of starvation? I've seen what's left of the poor souls on my ranch in the worst times with no food. Watched a beautiful buck settle down to his neck in a water trough to cool off one August only to stand and try to walk off when he saw me but he didn't make it far. He looked more like something out of Walking Dead ... his demise was only a short time after that and not by my hand. It's a painful, horrible way to die. The only way to keep a healthy population of any food animal is to ensure only a proper number share the land as it will provide for them. Bambi and Mom be damned - if there ain't no food Mom is going to walk away from Bambi and say "See ya later kid. It's been real but there just ain't enough for the both of us." Bambi dies starving and Mom survives for another season. It's life. It's nature and people have been mislead since Disney made his millions on a lie. Felix Salten's original book was a great read but had a very different story line.

i cant watch that video. i have tried several times and its too rough.
i try not to be a hypocrite. i do eat meat as i enjoy the taste.
the way these animals are farmed really tears me up. i have thought about becoming a vegetarian many times but it has never gone further than that.
maybe now is the time. i think tomorrow i will have a nice long talk with my wife about phasing the meat out of the family diet.

separate issue from the 'it takes so much skill to hunt' issue though,
i dont mind people that hunt for food. i couldnt do it but if you can then get after it.
i just dont like when it is hidden behind the skilla argument.
modern day hunters have no skill(besides a well placed shot)
they do not track these animals.
how does the hunting day go from start to finish?
probably pretty close to what i said. maybe even further.
maybe you gps your hunting spot. probably have the sick gear. im thinking the gun is top of the line with scope and such. probably went to gander mountain to buy some sort of deer hunting stand/fort/hut type of deal.
probably drive the big f-150 with the trailer hauling the atv to the closest parking lot to your special spot.

can someone please explain to me where the skill is ? when does the tracking the deer. thinking like them. studying them come into play?
i really would like to know cause i am trying to figure it out and i cant

thanks

VoidWalker
reply to post by satellite1

 

I believe there is a hunter in us no matter how advanced we become as a society. Yes is it sad and it only took one time for me hunting to realize this wasn't for me. I can respect the people that hunt to eat and survive.

I killed an animal once and it devastate me, it felt like I killed a person.

I won't hunt even to survive. I realized that if you give yourself time to adjust, you could survive off wild plants even in winter if you don't mind the sometimes horrible taste and if you can identify the non-toxic ones and know how to perform the "universal edibility test"...

Just give your body time to adapt and it will. However, this may not do well for any person who takes medicines and dietary supplements as helpful bacteria in the gut which may help in digestion of plants and elimination of toxins may be absent.

I'm a sportsman I hunt/fish for sport and food. Mankind has always been hunter gatherers we've been doing it since we were 2 generations from swinging in the trees. I have just as much appreciation for nature as anyone else. There is nothing wrong with harvesting food from the land.

Swimming with dolphins is fun until a great white rips you in half. It's what they do there is a food chain you know. Baby fish eat plankton....bigger fish eat baby fish.... bigger fish can eat people. It's in our nature to eat other animals.

I figured I'd add a side note about nature if anyone is interested. The world of nature is not a kind place. There is catfish in lake Tanganyika in Africa. The catfish waits for other fish to breed and when they do is swoops in and drops it's own eggs. The cichlid scoops them up in her mouth with he own eggs and keeps them there incubating them. The catfish eggs hatch first and eat the cichlid fish's babies. The mother cichlid goes on to raise the baby catfish not knowing they are not her own babies.

Heres a video about it.

www.youtube.com...

i dont mind people that hunt for food. i couldnt do it but if you can then get after it. i just dont like when it is hidden behind the skilla argument. modern day hunters have no skill(besides a well placed shot) they do not track these animals. how does the hunting day go from start to finish? probably pretty close to what i said. maybe even further. maybe you gps your hunting spot. probably have the sick gear. im thinking the gun is top of the line with scope and such. probably went to gander mountain to buy some sort of deer hunting stand/fort/hut type of deal. probably drive the big f-150 with the trailer hauling the atv to the closest parking lot to your special spot. can someone please explain to me where the skill is ? when does the tracking the deer. thinking like them. studying them come into play? i really would like to know cause i am trying to figure it out and i cant

reply to post by CardiffGiant


I am a hunter and I agree with you here. For me when deer hunting, I use a 1964 lever action 30-30, no scope as my gun. No "gear" in any form. Head out in the evenings and look for tracks, scat, scrapes and breaks showing movement on the mountain. When I do find fresh signs I track it if possible. The next morning before the sun comes up, find a place downwind of that sign of movement and settle in and wait. That choice, if you don't know how deer move and how weather, wind, water and current food sources are can be bad or great. If you aren't familiar with deer then its just sit and hope for the best. That's not hunting. Out of season a hunter will notice animal signs and notice trends in movement of different animals. So yeah I agree with you, there are alot of people that are not "hunters". They simply try and draw the animal to them and use whatever they can to have a successful shoot. I don't like those rules. You have to have a little bit of chance or it's just like going to the store. Hopefully next year I will be decent enough with a bow to use it hunting but right now I can't. I could take the chance and risk wounding one then track it but I personally have a rule for hunting. If its not a take down kill shot, you don't take the shot period. There is zero need to injure one since this isn't a situation that my family will go hungry if I don't bring something home. Another would be, if I'm not eating it then it doesn't need to die.
So your right in your assertion there are many, many hunters that have no skill outside of being a good shot. Hunting, especially trying to track, takes alot of skill. That skill is something I for sure haven't mastered but I enjoy it. I can't tell the number of game animals I come across and never fire, I just simply sit and watch. Alot of hunters don't understand that aspect of it but I enjoy seeing the animals in the woods unaware of my presence. They are fascinating to say the least. But, they are tasty as well.

reply to post by CardiffGiant

how is it so challenging? you said you spent hours sitting in your stand right?
what is hard about that?
how does that equal studying them? thinking like them? learning about them?
i dont see that at all.
from my perspective you go to the store to buy your ammo gear. you get your big ass gun, bullets, scope. you have your hand warmers and heated socks. maybe a compass. you take some of that female scent that you can buy and spray it. then, you wait.
then you wait some more and when the deer passes near enough you take the shot. then, you drag them over to your 4 wheeler or big ass polaris atv and load them on the rack and ride your gasoline powered vehicle back to your truck.
does not sound all that challenging to me.

First off, you cannot stalk a deer. You must let them come to you, that is the reasoning behind sitting there and waiting. Sometimes you see a deer sometimes you just sit there all morning and watch the squirrels play. That is why you need to look at where you are hunting, see where they can get water or acorns or corn feeders. Look for natural paths that they might take through the woods and overwatch those areas.

Second, deer are very attuned to their environment and they spook easily. They are very very quiet too, I always see them before I hear them. They are also amazingly fast and full of stamina. I've had to track deer for sometimes hundreds of yards after a clean shot that blew out both lungs and heart. Sometimes they run off to far and you spend the whole day looking in the woods for them. Sometimes they bleed alot and don't run too far and you can track them easily, sometimes there is no blood at all even when you know you hit em and tracking them is almost impossible.

Thirdly, you are assuming I'm a "trophy" hunter and blow all my cash on hunting gear and fancy gadgets.
A hunting license and maybe some ammo is all I buy in prep for deer season. These guys that spend thousands of dollars on deer hunting have more money than sense IMO.

I have an old Enfield 303 fixed sight (no scope) bolt action rifle that I hunt with. Its about 100 years old, but I keep it clean and sighted and I'm a very good shot with it. I have old camo from my army uniforms I usually wear hunting. I don't use the urine, feeders or anything like that and I hunt on my uncles land as much as I want to. I don't have a polaris, last time I bagged a doe I tied a rope around her neck and drug her back to the camp to clean her with my grandads old skinning knife.

Keeping it simple is always better, for anything. If I can get maybe two does/spikes then that's plenty of meat to fill my freezer and give away to people. I never have to buy meat in the wintertime through spring usually.

I also have a recurve takedown bow I want to use next season. I think bowfishing/bowhunting might be fun to get into.

I can see how it's easy to say, "well, you have a gun, the deer don't". If you have ever tried hunting an animal in its own environment its much more challenging than you might think, and then when I DO get lucky enough to bag one I can say i feel pretty good about myself.

Another reason I go is to see my uncle and my dad and his brothers. They are all getting older and it gives me a good excuse to see them from time to time.

Also, deer breed like rabbits. If they were not hunted their numbers would absolutely explode in a few years. Last year Louisiana had unlimited doe days because there are so many deer in the state. They have no natural predators in the wild.

Folks say killing is killing and that's the end of it. I don't see it that way though, I get to do something challenging that's putting food on the table. It's how humans lived for thousands of years before we had supermarkets and Walmart, but today we like to think we are so much more evolved and better than our ancestors that killing "poor animals" is a travesty, but it's as natural as a baby crying. If you have ever watched the discovery channel you will know that nature is very unforgiving by itself, so why are humans so bad for doing the same thing the "poor animals" do to each other?

To answer, in part, the question of what skills are needed to hunt I’d like to contribute this -
I got my first deer when I was nine which would make it winter 1966. It’s the only set of antlers I’ve ever kept and it’s nothing to write home about, believe me. I had been hunting small game with everything from a BB gun to a .22 and .410 shotgun prior to that so hunting was something I was taught very early on in my life. It was also a rite of passage for a boy here in West Texas. It also made me stand apart from my fellow students in the various schools I went to as I grew up. By then the world was starting to get crowded and access to hunting areas was becoming more restricted. Thank God I had an uncle with a ranch that taught me what I needed to know back then. I also had another uncle that was rabidly anti-gun and anti-hunting so I know both sides of the issue well.
I have to laugh, today, when I see all the merchandizing that goes on for hunters because all the camo and gear you see on people like “Duck Dynasty” just wasn't part of the experience when I was a kid. Long underwear was the pajamas I wore the night before under my outer clothing which consisted of many layers of hand-me-down clothes. I don't think I owned a pair of insulated boots until sometime in the 80's so 90% of all the gear you see marketed to people for outdoor sports is superfluous. This was back when we had REAL winters, too!
I was taught safe firearms handling FIRST and then marksmanship. Afterward I went hunting with any adult I could pester into taking me for a while until they thought I was competent enough to go out on my own and find my way back to the house in time for supper. It was an idyllic time for me and I’ve tried to recreate it for my kids but have only been partially successful. At least I’ve transferred the safe firearms handling skill to them. That’s the most important part. Times change.
All this and a little more that ATS won’t allow time or space for in a forum like this is what goes in to making a good hunter and, believe me, I’ve run into more bad ones than good. If you have the opportunity to go hunting go with someone that knows the land intimately and, if possible, always go back to that piece of property until you know it well enough not to have a guide. Our neighboring ranch is stocked with exotics for high paying “hunters” and I have a visceral disdain for that type of operation. We have truly wild Black Buck antelope that have escaped from neighboring ranches on our place but our hunters we lease to have been coming to the ranch for almost 40 years and we trust them in all areas of the ranch and hunting. They come for the white tail and turkey since getting close enough to a black buck requires a lot more patience.
FORGETstalking. Especially in areas that have wide open spaces like West Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Know where the game is and its habits and have the patience to sit still in a comfortable spot and not make a spectacle of yourself with noise or a lot of movement. In other words leave your ADHD back at the house. This is the most important skill you’ll ever need. Enjoy the woods around you and allow yourself to be amazed at the amount of activity going on in sight as it unfolds to you. You’ll never see it while you rush through the land. This is 90% of the joy of hunting for me. You’re shopping in nature’s grocery, browse like a pro and you’ll find what you’re after.
Skipping to the moment of truth – there is one thing a hunter OWES to his or her prey and that is a quick and merciful death. It is something humans have the capability for that sets us apart from other predators but, unfortunately, doesn’t always happen. If you’ve made the decision to hunt this is where marksmanship comes into play and knowing the animal you’re after. For a large animal like a deer make sure the animal is dead before it hits the ground. It’ll never know what hit it if you hit your mark in the right area. My favorite spot is high up the neck (saves a lot of meat). You’ll either hit the deer or miss it so your rifle needs to be reasonably accurate – meaning your shot needs to be a result of a good amount of time at the range knowing how your rifle shoots in a variety of conditions, loads, rests and such. Keep it clean and well maintained. Don’t be a slob. Learn how to sight it in and a fair amount about how the slug will perform in the conditions you’ll be hunting under. Some technical knowledge is necessary.
Here’s a little information on deer. They aren’t smart, they just know the area they live in really well so they notice any changes that are fairly obvious. I’ve never used scent killers or anything like that. I pay attention to which way the wind is blowing when I find a good spot for a blind and try to wear neutral colored clothes. Deer are color blind, at least the ones in our area, but they see movement very well. I’ve had a doe and fawn walk behind be within about 20 feet while I was sitting exposed next to a small cedar bush and they never knew I was there. The wind wasn’t blowing toward them and I wasn’t moving at all. I could have stood up and given them both a heart attack.
Small game follows much the same path, just don’t use a deer rifle to shoot rabbits with. Not enough meat gets left.
There’s a lot more I could write and will be happy to contribute if asked but the main issue of this thread is the moral and, ESPECIALLY, emotional issue of eating meat. There is a big difference in eating wild meat you or a friend have “harvested” yourself vs. meat from a mass production farm factory that’s been bread for correct muscle tissue/fat ratios and fed tons of hormones, antibiotics and crap like that then thrown into a meat grinder so it will be unrecognizable as ever having been a living thing. That type of animal will never have a future outside of the barn it was born and raised in. Imagine any of you “citifolk” reading this dropped in the middle of our back pasture even on a good day and left to fend for yourself and you’ll get the idea. Our pastures are a square mile – each and so are our neighbors’.
I fought back and forth with that uncle I mentioned earlier that hated guns and hunting. He tried every way he could to force feed me Disney’s Bambi. From that experience I can honestly attest to the fact that this issue is an emotional one, not a moral one. It’s been a long time since I pulled the trigger on a deer but when I do all the aforementioned training and skills come into play. You’re taking a life, yes. You do it quickly, which is the merciful part about all of this. You’re dealing with an animal that has NO, repeat N-O expectations of living past the moment as most of them never live past ten years anyway. It’s their world view, not YOURS. This “problem” didn’t really exist until most people were crowded into our concrete jungles and cut off from what the real world actually is. With National Geographic, World Wildlife Fund and the like we only see through a glass very darkly and project all kinds of false doctrines and assumptions onto that glass. PEOPLE are the ones that are out of touch here and the animals wait for us to retake our proper place in the world.

wantsome
I figured I'd add a side note about nature if anyone is interested. The world of nature is not a kind place. There is catfish in lake Tanganyika in Africa. The catfish waits for other fish to breed and when they do is swoops in and drops it's own eggs. The cichlid scoops them up in her mouth with he own eggs and keeps them there incubating them. The catfish eggs hatch first and eat the cichlid fish's babies. The mother cichlid goes on to raise the baby catfish not knowing they are not her own babies.

Heres a video about it.

www.youtube.com...

No, the world of nature is not a nice place. But you, as a human being, have the free will to rise above the "kill or be killed paradigm." You have the choice to remove yourself from the killing, from inflicting suffering on others; or the choice to continue it into perpetuity under the shield of self-delusion emblazoned with the illogical creedo of:

"It's what most humans have always done, so it's what I should continue to do."

You have the option to rise above your animalistic instincts, or sink down and embrace them. But don't hide behind the tired maxim of "this is what humans do." Because all humans don't live like that, and don't have to.

And whether you continue to do so is, has always been, and will always be, your choice.

IkNOwSTuff
I cant believe people still use the BS excuse of " the animals are overpopulated"
That is ignorance and idiocy at its very finest.

Animals form a natural equilibrium within their environments that goes in cycles, the smaller animals (mice, rats, insects etc etc) grow in numbers and so do their predators due to the abundant food supply. Eventually predators will have reduced the numbers and due to this they will produce less offspring, due to them breeding less the number of smaller animals builds up again and the cycle repeats.

What morons mean when they say "they are overpopulated" is that the animals are an inconvenience to humans or their death is valuable in some way. It comes down to economics pure and simple.

Anyone who says otherwise is lying or has their head deep up their own a$$

edit on 8/12/2013 by IkNOwSTuff because: (no reason given)

I was taught never to kill anything you can't eat. Never kill for fun, only for food. Life is precious even for us hunters. One anyways gives thanks for the life taken. Having to clean it yourself changes things. Keeps you in touch with the realities of the world. It isn't just a piece of meat. If you have never done it yourself try it some time.
Please consider that in the wild the killing goes on continuously. Nature is not kind and can be quite capricious.
While you talk about "they are overpopulated" please consider Australias plight with the fuzzy rabbit. Don't tell them overpopulation will take care of itself.
Haven't been hunting in over twenty years. Moved into the city so I gave my guns to my brother where they can be used. I still miss the quiet connection you make with nature while hunting. Even when you don't bring anything back there is a great peace granted from the immersing yourself in the wild.

reply to post by iRoyalty


umm im not sure where you worked by i spent time in a chicken processing factory in Australia about ten years ago, i wateched nugget mince get made all the time, from clean, dead birds that usually had bloody bits or broken bones that wouldnt be fit for packaging. No where have i ever seen live birds fed into a grinder, although im sure in some places that may be the case. I definitely dont think the conditions they are housed in and transported in are good by any standard, but where i was they were treated at least decently from my experience, and yeah, many of the process workers can be pretty roug around the edges and sometimes you get some bad apples who seem to enjoy it too much

reply to post by datasdream


You are right and I should have been clear and mentioned that introduced species will be a problem.
In OZ we got Rabbits, Cain toads, some sort of nasty starfish and a host of others that are concerns.

But once again the animals arent to blame its humans taking animals from where they belong and putting them were they dont thats the issue.

I hear ya about killing and cleaning your own meat.
Once again I am a carnivore but Ive never had to kill for my meat, I actually want to!!!!
Not in a sick "I wanna kill something" way, just in a way where Im facing up to the reality of my choices.

Im going to buy a cow or goat, tell it Im sorry and try to slit its throat. If I cant do it and I dont think Ill be able to, it means Im a hypocrite and I will turn veggie. If I do go through with it Ill eat it out of respect and hopefully be so traumatised by the experience that I turn veggie.

I really do wish I was already veggie but meat tastes so good