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Agreed. I'm vegan but I would definitely not turn down eating animals caught in the wild, especially if I was part of the hunt. But I would also never hunt just

• agumonkey 8y ago
  Even gun hunting feels too sadistic to me. I'd use a bow or a rope and that's it. When I'll be too old to jump .. I'll hope I made enough kids to fulfill that role :)
  • mikestew 8y ago
    Even gun hunting feels too sadistic to me. If you think it's sadistic to hunt with the stopping power (and typically quicker death) of a rifle, you're not going to like bow hunting much.
    • agumonkey 8y ago
      No it's the overwhelming ease of killing a gun offers.
      • hoorayimhelping 8y ago
        Right. I think the point is, it's much better than the alternative. Which is realizing you missed your shot and the deer you were trying to kill humanely (ya know, to show respect and commune with nature) will now take eight hours to die in slow agony with an arrow sticking out of her cause you can't find where she ran off to.
        • agumonkey 8y ago
          I got it, but if you're hunting to feed, you don't harm and let it there.
      • agurk 8y ago
        A well aimed, correctly placed shot of the right type can be exceedingly fatal but it doesn't follow that waving any gun in the general direction of something and carelessly pulling the trigger will achieve that. Firstly one has to get in the right position to get a good shot. Of course bad hunters could take carefree pot shots, but they would be widely condemned by their peers. The right position means you have to be: - close enough. Many forms of hunting will take all day to carefully track an animal and if you're lucky at the end of the day take one careful shot - from the right direction. You wouldn't take a shot from behind the animal - able to fire safely. You wouldn't fire at an deer on top of a hill as you have to think about where the bullet will go afterwards Some forms of hunting, like a driven bird shoot can involve just standing and waiting for birds to come in your direction then take careful shots at them. With this type of shooting I can see more resonance with your objection but hitting a moving target is easier said than done and etiquette on these considers a well execute hard shot much better than going for easy ones. For many other forms of hunting the actual shot is a very small part of the whole activity and whatever weapon is being used makes much less difference. Then one also has to remember that there are many different types of gun. Take for example using a large caliber rifle and distances over 1km vs hunting with a handgun. Both require huge amounts of skill in handling the weapon on top of the other general hunting skills. Some countries require a permit to go hunting, which follows a lot of study and then an exam. This material goes into a lot of depth, and actually discharging the weapon is a surprisingly small amount of this material. Technology-wise a gun is an improvement on exhaustion hunting, or using more primitive projectile weapons, but is far from making the whole process overwhelmingly easy.
      • int_19h 8y ago
        What of it? If hunting is actually utilitarian (i.e. for food), there's no ethical issue here. How difficult it is only matters if hunting is a sport, but that's exactly the ethically dubious part of it. So even in that sense, using a bow is more "sadistic", since it amounts to causing suffering to a living being for the sake of more challenging entertainment for oneself. (And, of course, a bow would be a lot more painful to the animal, even in the best case of a non-botched shot.)
        • agumonkey 8y ago
          it's not entertainment, it's about not overpowering, I used bow as an example, maybe it's still too strong (you can kill from afar) but compared to a gun, at least it requires skills to actually kill. Anybody can pull a trigger.
          • agurk 8y ago
            I spoke to an older hunter in New Zealand once who said he initially started with a view like yours. He was into rifle marksmanship, and didn't see the point in shooting at a live target. He had a friend who said it was harder than he thought, and invited him to come along sometime and see if he found it easy. Of course he went out, and even when lead in the direction of the deer couldn't manage to get one. After that he was hooked. He had a similar story about eating the offal from the deer, and now thinks it's among the best bits.
            • agumonkey 8y ago
              It might not be trivial but it's infinitely easier. The speed and energy, the range ..
            • exclusiv 8y ago
              I've seen it surprisingly easy. I went on a deer hunt in Texas and the ranch owner had all these automatic feeders that ring a bell when they drop the feed. So the deer just show up on cue and they had blinds all over the property. More like target practice than hunting in my opinion. They did get a ton of game management tags and they were really targeting the non-typical deer (ones with messed up racks). So it was a sad kind of "hunting" but did seem to serve a purpose.
• quantum_magpie 8y ago
  Personally, I'm on completely opposite side. Nothing detests me more than killing a free creature. I absolutely loathe hunting and fishing, and I wish it was either made completely illegal, or the hunting of the hunters legalized (I heard comments that they do it for the thrill, so having another hunter on your back should be even more exciting!). I do eat pieces of farmed meat from time to time, though.
  • spurgu 8y ago
    Can't argue against how you feel and yeah I agree it's sad to see a poor animal being hunted down and killed by another animal, or a human, but wild and free animals are constantly getting preyed upon and generally don't die of old age so you're not really adding to their suffering in any way by hunting/killing them. That said I wouldn't have anything against making hunting hunters legal. :D At least if they're above a certain income level and thus don't have a practical need to hunt.
    • LyndsySimon 8y ago
      > That said I wouldn't have anything against making hunting hunters legal. :D At least if they're above a certain income level and thus don't have a practical need to hunt. I know it's in jest, but I hunt (very occasionally) mostly to remind myself of the reality that the meat I eat comes from the taking of a life. It has nothing to do with physical need. I think it's much more wrong to eat meat and hide how it is obtained from one's self than it is to stay at least tentatively connected to the reality.
      • spurgu 8y ago
        I think that's very good reasoning.