What are your thoughts on hunting? I'm not anti-meat and I understand that a pork chop or a haddock filet doesn't show up on my plate out of the clear blue sky, but I guess the idea of killing animals for entertainment is just not something I can get my mind around.
I work in a rural school (like, a very rural school), and hunting is a popular pasttime for many of my students. I mean, in a way I can see getting pleasure in the concept of hunting. Going out into the woods, enjoying the peace and quiet, spending some quality time with friends and family also into being outdoors ... yeah, that sounds great.
It's the killing part that gets me.
I was talking to a friend the other day, and he was telling me about a piglet that he and his friend Todd bought with the intention of eventually slaughtering for meat. When the time came, neither one of them could do it easily, and nobody enjoyed the meat from that particular pig. I think that's how I'd feel as well--I mean, after feeding and raising a pig from babyhood to adult-sized, there'd have to be some sort of connection, I would think.
I understand that many people that hunt use (and in a number of cases actually need) the meat they catch. I have no problem with that at all. You do what you have to do.
What I don't get is, what is the point of hunting just so you can say, "Hey, I got a ten point stag last weekend"? (Note--I don't know if a "ten point stag" is the right terminology). There are uncountable ways to get thrills, adrenaline rushes, and accomplishments in ways that don't involve shooting a deer in the middle of a forest then following the blood trail to come upon it injured, suffering, and dying.
Couldn't you just play laser tag or paintball? Can anyone explain this to me?
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Well I can't explain it either. I'm a vegetarian. I was raised as a vegetarian by my two vegetarian parents. So I'm way over to the other side of this arguement.
ReplyDeleteAubrie please don't be offended by me, but I'm a total meat lover. That being said, I have never fired a gun (unless paintball guns or BB guns count) and I myself don't hunt. I can say that there are two sorts of hunters: Sport hunters and meat hunters. Of course, that's just a rough categorization.
ReplyDeleteMy friends who hunt are in it for meat. Yes they get excited about big trophy bucks and if they can choose between those and a regular deer they'll choose the big boys. But the truth is that every scrap of meat they take down, they either utilize themselves or give to others (me) or to the local food bank. They also do our area a service by thinning the deer population as we lack any large predators to do the job and without the hunters we go through bouts of starve off which is horrible for the deer.
I don't know any trophy hunters, those who pay to shoot big game animals and travel to different places for it. And I don't support that at all. But I can tell you (not that it'll make you like hunting) that at least in Alaska, where big game hunting is big sport, hunters are required by law to harvest all edible meat from their 'trophy' animals and donate it to food banks in whatever area they're in where it's distributed to local residents.
Thanks, A. Grey : ) It's nice to know that there are positives (such as required food bank donations : )) that make even the "trophy hunters" serve some sort of purpose.
ReplyDeleteAubrie--Kind of off-topic, but I was just wondering if you ever felt inclined to try eating meat (after being raised a vegetarian). I've always wanted to ask a lifelong vegetarian that. Incidentally, I'm seriously considering the vegetarian lifestyle myself (for medical reasons).
Thanks for the comments : )
My dad loves to hunt. So do my brothers. While I was growing up, that's just how we got through the winter. That's still how they get through the winter so I understand the neccesity of it at times, but for sport? Maybe it's a guy thing... I'm not sure. I don't get it either.
ReplyDeleteI've actually tried to eat meat because it would be so much easier for me since my husband eats meat, but it makes me sick to the stomach. Kinda like food poisoning. I don't know if it's the enzymes in my digestive track or what, but I can't.
ReplyDeleteWe're having baked ziti for Thanksgiving!
A. Grey- no offense! My husband loves meat adn I love him so it's okay!
I totally feel the same way you do. It confuses me. I don't get it either.
ReplyDeleteWe have hunters over here in the UK whose idea of 'fun' is to follow a pack of dogs hunting a fox and then watch the hounds rip it to pieces.
ReplyDeleteIt was supposed to be banned but there are many get-out clauses.
Whilst I understand the need to control the fox population in a farming area, I don't understand the need for forty people to follow it on horseback and watch the spectacle.
If you're going to eat your 'kill', fine. If you're controlling a population, fine. If you're watching it or involved in it for fun, then that's cruel.
I'm a vegetarian, but was a meat eater. As a child growing up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) my dad hunted for the pot and we had many wonderful bush experiences where we pitted our wits against the wild. Martin made an excellent point which I semi-endorse (I'm ambivalent about culling - if we cull animals to control their population, shouldn't we cull the human species which is vastly more overpopulated than any other species on earth? But that's another discussion!!!) What horrifies me is "hunting" like fox-'hunting' or like the so -called "canned lion" 'hunting'. That's just slaughter and an indictment of the darkness to which humans - supposedly a higher species - can too easily descend.
ReplyDeleteI think hunting's fine, if you're going to eat it. It's not fine if you're hunting for "sport." Sport is tackling a bear when you're armed only with a knife. Sport is not shooting a deer from 400 yards with a 7mm Remington Magnum. That's not sport.
ReplyDeletePeople argue that fish don't feel pain. I can see that they do. So I stopped fishing.