Originally posted by Major Biggles
yes, but i disagree with all those fat losers who sit their with their gun and blast loads of animals for fun to make them feel like a man.
i've killed a lot of stuff, mostly to eat (damn, pheasants really are some of the tastiest meat around, imagine a really rich taste and textured chicken/duck mix). that said though, anything i've killed i want to kill in the quickest most humane way possible. it's our responsibility not only to protect the animals from excess harm and pain, but also to protect these animals as resources for future generations. shooting things just as a trophy i do have a problem with. the animal should be shot for a good reason.
a lot of hunters don't think about their responsibility to nature, which is a big problem. i agree however that there is a primitive urge in all predators to kill.
i can't stand vegetarians, where are they supposed to get their protein, quorn? lolz.
Tofu, is the protein source of choice for vegetarians. Have you ever tasted it? Yuck!!!
There is nothing wrong sitting around and shooting a bunch of varmints, as long as it is not done to great excess.
I lost my best ever Rock Chuck hunting spot in Eastern Oregon many years ago. I only had 3 great seasons hunting there. It was the biggest Rock Chuck colony that I have ever come across. There were huge rock piles that made ideal habitat for them. The landowner also let several other hunters hunt there too. Yet, each year we had plenty of animals to shoot at. We never made any attempt to try to wipe them out, or just shoot for a huge body count.
Well, that all ended, when an enterprising fellow from Portland convinced the landowner that he could make money off of the varmint hunting, instead of giving it away for free to sportsmen. So he signed a lease with the owner, obtaining all exclusive hunting rights to his farm that the colony resided on.
He then advertised on the Internet, and charged individuals several hundred dollars a day, for an ultimate varmint hunting experience. He had clients flying in from all over the USA to Oregon, to go hunt on that farm that I used to shoot on.
Well, after only two years of this private hunting concession in operation, the rockchucks were totally wiped out. Not a single one was left. Pregnant females were shot early in the year before they could give birth, and later in the Spring when the little babies were out in the field, they even shot them too. Those were things that I would never, ever do.
Anyway, the landowner ended up very happy. He totally got rid of his rockchuck problem ( they would consume the entire corner of that section of his alfalfa crop each year ), and also got paid thousands of dollars to allow it to happen.
The vast majority of hunters are good sportsmen. But there are some that are idiots, and they give the sport a bad name.
Much like the idiot operators of that hunting concession in Alabama, where that 11 year old boy shot the biggest hog on record, weighing in at 1,150 lbs. It created quite a stir for such a young kid to kill such a huge animal, with only a handgun ( although a very big one in .500 S&W Magnum ).
However, it was later revealed that another farming family had raised it as a pet, and that it was actually totally domesticated. They had to sell it after it got so huge, and these guys then used it to make a lot of money by offering it as a "hunt" that could be purchased. So a story that initially made hunters really proud of the boy's accomplishment, turned very, very sour once the truth was finally revealed.
Here is a photo of the kid with his pig:
It was featured prominently in the press last May and June. At first there was another controversy, as people thought the photos were not real, and had been doctored to exaggerate the size. However, that was quickly discounted and proven to be false. The hog really was that big.
The true story was actually much worse. For the reason why it was so gigantic was because it had lived its entire life on a farm, and had been fed so much food. No wild hog has ever come close to becoming that large in size.
Anyway, it is folks like that who are the ones really harming the image of hunting.
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