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ncrockclimber
climber
The Desert Oven
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Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 5, 2014 - 11:03am PT
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Here you go, Ron (and other hunting zealots). This is a thread where you can dazzle us all with your intellect and explain why hunting is a really good thing.
Cheers!
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Trad is Rad
Trad climber
San Luis Obispo California
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Who cares?! Hunting is great, has been a part of human culture and will continue to be. So what if we step on a few tree huggers' toes.
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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I grew up in the southeast. In a hunting and fishing family. About 75% of the meat we ate was venison that either me, my brother, or my dad had killed. We did aim to take "trophy" specimens, not for the trophy aspect, but because it allowed the younger animals to grow up, reproduce, etc. And in truth, we might have taken one of those every few years. Mostly, we would stock the freezer with fat does during archery season or the few "doe days" at the end of the firearms season.
The east is highly developed with roads. Deer-car collisions are ramapant. Both my brother and I had full-speed collisions withing a mile of our home, almost exactly a year apart, that probably would have killed either of us if we hadn't been driving full sized pickups. With no natural predators (are wild domestic dogs considered natural predators? about the only thing that threatened them), and increasing edge habitat development from new construction and housing development, hunting them helps avoid starvation events and/or disease events in the population.
I personally think that everyonje who is not a vegetarian should be required to hunt, kill, and butcher an animal at least once. We'd have a lot more vegetarians, I can guarantee you that. If I'm going to eat an animal, I'd rather it have lived a free and natural life, rather than stuffed full of drugs and confined to a filthy and smelly feedlot for their entire existence.
I hunted for food. We ate everything we killed. And yes, being out in nature and putting your skills to the test while providing for your family can have an element of "fun".
Now back to your regularly scheduled sanctimonious posturing.
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ncrockclimber
climber
The Desert Oven
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 5, 2014 - 11:36am PT
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Thanks for the response. You bring up a lot of good points. I am not 100% anti-hunting, and I think that it is healthy for people who eat meat (I do) to understand that there was a living animal at the other end of the fork. I also agree that hunting provides a connection with the natural order, albeit a watered-down version with 99% of the risk removed.
Cheers.
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zBrown
Ice climber
Brujo de la Playa
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You takin' to me?
You takin' to me?
You takin' to me?
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Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
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Autombiles probably kill billions of animals every years, but I don't hear the anti-hunting crowd clamoring to ban automobiles.
I'm not a hunter, I'm just sayin'....
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WBraun
climber
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Admit it.
Americans are the most violent people on the planet.
They're basically just polished animals and not human beings .......
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this just in
climber
north fork
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It's particularly good for the environment if the animals killed are human.
Very true, but do we have to eat them?
I personally think that everyonje who is not a vegetarian should be required to hunt, kill, and butcher an animal at least once. We'd have a lot more vegetarians, I can guarantee you that. If I'm going to eat an animal, I'd rather it have lived a free and natural life, rather than stuffed full of drugs and confined to a filthy and smelly feedlot for their entire existence.
I agree 100% with this statement. Anyone who has seen or worked at a slaughter house would think twice about the beef they eat. And being the butcher gives a new perspective on what it takes to eat your kill. More respect for the meat you get.
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John M
climber
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I believe that there are things about hunting that are inhumane, yet there are also things about slaughterhouses and farms/ranches that are inhuman. Our current mass production of meat is incredibly inhumane. I like the German methodology of small farms and small butchers in which you can know the farmer/rancher, know the butcher and know the methods they use to raise and butcher the animal. The end result is the same, but how you go about it is also important. So I do realize that by eating meat, however indirectly it is happening, I am killing another animal.
I would ask those who are against hunting how they would thin some population that has overgrown. Is it more humane to let them starve just because that is how nature does it? I would go on to ask, am I not part of nature?
It would be nice to get an answer from ncrockclimber, since his disdain of hunting is so obvious.
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ncrockclimber
climber
The Desert Oven
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 5, 2014 - 01:00pm PT
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John.
I have no distain for hunting for many of the reasons that you and ElCapinyoazz point out. I think we actually have very similar views about hunting. I do have nothing but distain for Ron and others of his ilk, that oversimplify a complex issue. I have a TON of distain for pure "trophy hunting," and varying levels of distain for the "culture" that permeates much of the hunting community.
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Chewybacca
Trad climber
Montana, Whitefish
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Hunters are the best conservationists....
...just ask the next passenger pigeon you meet.
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John M
climber
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Okay.. thanks ncrockclimber. It was hard to get that understanding from your first post, so I appreciate the clarification.
About Ron, I agree that Ron seems to oversimplify. tree hugger=bad, hunter=good. But I don't dislike him like some here seem to. In fact, if I was to go only on your first post, I would say that you were oversimplifying things. I see now that it is disdain for certain attitudes, rather then disdain for hunting itself, which wasn't clear in your first post.
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ncrockclimber
climber
The Desert Oven
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 5, 2014 - 01:19pm PT
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Again, good points John. Cheers!
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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I personally think that everyone who is not a vegetarian should be required to hunt, kill, and butcher an animal at least once. We'd have a lot more vegetarians, I can guarantee you that. If I'm going to eat an animal, I'd rather it have lived a free and natural life, rather than stuffed full of drugs and confined to a filthy and smelly feedlot for their entire existence. I also agree with Elcap's comment. I am not a hunter and probably never will be, but I believe people are a little far removed from the food chain and often remain willfully ignorant of the often less than pleasant means of getting meat to their table.
I appreciate Elcap's family history approach to hunting. Humans evolved and endured due to their hunting skills. However, I see far too many lazy, overfed hunters who seems to have only a trophy mentality to hunting and make the woods the scary place to be during deer hunting season.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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And everyone who eats vegetables should grow his own, at least for one season.
That way you'll see what a challenge it is.
You'll need some land, first. Then you'll need water. And there'll be pests - from microscopic organisms to moose-sized moose. You'll need to be on constant watch most of the year. Assuming you're successful, you'll need to find a way to preserve enough to get you by until next year, because everything doesn't grow all the time.
Maybe you'll find it easier to simply plunk a critter, and dress it. Get your nutrients that way.
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Jingy
climber
Somewhere out there
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Weeks back I heard a Joe Rogan Experience podcast and an outdoors guy named Steven Rinella, some of you hunting show geeks may know the guy from some reality show about survival or something (obviously I cannot give a sh#t less).
I thought he did a pretty good job of explaining the "Land Management" side of the American hunting mind. He brought up "stewardship" and how it was mans job to make sure that animal populations don;t get out of hand, while at the same time having a somewhat hands-off approach to much.
I feel that I understand a little better.
I cannot care less about hunting, but I understand that it may be needed in areas of the US, at the very least.
But, I also see things differently with regards to the guns and ammo side of things… If you were a real hunter, you would not need to have a clips of ammunition in order to complete the task of shooting an animal with one shot. That is of course if you had any merit or real applicable skill…. but than again what do I know, I'm no hunter.
As if all a man needs to do is hunt in order to be a real man. Yeah, that and lifting weights seem to be the best ways of project ting an image of pure manliness to the world…
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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There is a land management issue clearly. Deer are everywhere in places like the southern Sierra. However, that argument falls flat when, for example, you have hunters in states like Idaho who call for an increase in hunting mt. lions because they take too big a bite of deer population so the hunters feel there aren't enough left for them. If the only goal was population and land management, you would think the cougars would have simply done the hunters' job for them.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Okay zBrown, I haven’t time look it (I have slow braised lamb going, and rataouille ready to be cooked).
That photo of the seven gunmen you posted. Correct me I am wrong.
Right to left (Clark Gable (hmmm, maybe not), Errol Flynn, James Garner, hmmm not Roger Moore, is it? then Jack Kelly, gosh the second from the left, from Laredo wasn’t he?
I do not hunt, but fished on boats in Alaska one summer. But yes, I am an omnivore. Killing for sport, fun or trophy, barbaric IMO.
For food and clothing, yes. I do love elk meat.
And I love all seafood and fish (bar urchin and eel, don’t know why, as I have eaten rattlesnake many years ago, but eel?)
I used to be an anti-hunting person, but my pig-headed nephew who thinks I am a low-life commie because I live abroad, convinced me as others have, that in the right “hands” many but not all hunters can be conservationists, in a way.
But back to my one estranged nephew. He would collect abalone at low tide illegally, on foot. Caught California Fish and Game warden got him), busted and fined for hunting deer with his headlights. Fine “hunter” was he, eh?
And, sorry Ron, I just don’t get taxidermy. Michael had a stuffed beaver, a deer head on the wall and a stuffed marmot in his living room in Davis.
My former Irish girlfriend (Marie, not Jennie now) when visiting him in Dixon (oops, not Davis), thought it was weird to have stuffed dead animals in a house, I couldn’t agree with her more. WEIRD. Primitive, IMO. Why not stuff your dead grandma in a back bedroom if you want to remember her.
As a note, I will eat, if properly "hunted/fished" what others kill if done within the law and as humanely as possible (andy different that shooting a bolt threw a cow's head in the abattoir?), but I hate guns (though I used to be good at archery in the Boy Scouts). Trophy hunters and those who kill needlessly, like savage domesticate dogs, are not on my agenda.
I say the latter, because when we would have a chicken (or rabbit) missing, a raccoon. Eggs eaten? Skunks. A whole chicken coop of some dozen chicken slaughtered for no reason but blood lust and pack animal instinct… domesticated dogs.
When I moved to Enniskerry, I was warned, keep your dog (3/4 border collie, 1/4 Lab from north Wales), I was warned to keep my dog away from pastures, especially doing the lambing season, who he would be shot. "But," I protested he would never kill a lamb. He's a Welsh dog.
Yes, I may be a hypocrite. I eat meat, I wear leather shoes, probably even have some climbing gear made with leather.
As for the ThreadHead©, I would like to think that not many people kill animals for fun, they we know they are out there "And good for the environment"??? Yeah like I live in a cave eat deer sh#t and do not use fossil fuels. Don't kid yourself OP, some good hunters and not so much good hunters.
Wow, my food is burning.
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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What's a "sport climber" in hunting?
What would be "trad" hunting?
Sport = guns
Trad = bow
Here's one way it can help the environment: Deer are overpopulated in the sierra (and coast range) and eat the leaves of baby valley oak and blue oak. Take a look around next time you drive through an oak woodland and see how many baby trees you can find. Of course cattle do the same thing so it's even worse on ranches.
Here's one reason it's fun: Take a shotgun and go chase some squirrels and you'll understand.
I'm actually an ecologist, don't really hunt and am neither pro- or anti-hunting. Killing animals that are overpopulated is ok with me, otherwise it seems messed up. To each their own, I don't get emotional about it.
PS: the portion of the brain that controls higher order emotions isn't present in animals, so they don't get emotional about it either. Sorry to everyone who thinks their dog "loves" them, they just have instinct :)
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