4 ms·

>It's basically the same as claiming that hunters don't care about animals Is there a suggestion here that people who kill animals for fun/leisure care for the

>It's basically the same as claiming that hunters don't care about animals Is there a suggestion here that people who kill animals for fun/leisure care for them? In the same sense that one might use the word 'care' when referring to a loved one or a pet?

caput770 3y ago
You clearly have little idea of what you're talking about if you think hunters kill animals for fun and leisure.
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  I know many hunters, and they do.
- riversflow 3y ago
  I know a lot of hunters. Fun and leisure is exactly how I would describe it. Do you really think most hunters kill animals out of necessity? There are exceptions of course but, lol. There is certainly a place for hunting and there are certainly hunters who care deeply about ecology. I don’t see how it’s not a combination of fun and leisure though.
- 000ooo000 3y ago
  You're probably right. I might be reading too far into them posing for photos with the dead animal, or them having the animal's head mounted on a wall in their home, or travelling to far away places to hunt a particular type of rare animal. These are no doubt very important parts of maintaining a healthy ecosystem.
mrweasel 3y ago
Yes... I mean you probably won't shoot the family dog if it's sick, you'd take it to the vet. Arguably hunters don't think in terms of single animals, unlike farmers, they care about the overall welfare of the ecosystem so that it may support sufficient number of animals to allow for hunting. I don't know how it works elsewhere, but I'd bet that Danish hunters do more to protect nature than any vegan or vegetarian organisation and they almost always work with nature preservation organisations.
- 000ooo000 3y ago
  So hunters 'care' for animals in the ecosystem so that they can continue to kill the animals in the ecosystem? Not very convincing..
  - depressedpanda 3y ago
    Like it or not predators hunting prey is part of any natural ecosystem. A necessary part. I don't know what it's like where you are from, but in general I'd say hunters care a lot more about, and do more for, nature in their local ecosystem than your average city dwelling vegan hipster.
    - abeppu 3y ago
      I've heard people casually make the argument that human hunters function similarly to natural predators in terms of increasing population fitness -- but does that actually make sense? A natural predator is incentivized to identify and go after a weak prey animal, b/c it's easier. Maybe this shifts the prey population to be a bit faster, or have sharper reflexes or something. But a modern human hunter may feel drawn to try to take the choicest specimen (e.g. a mature male deer with large antlers), and shoots from a distance, and a bullet moves too fast for the variance in reaction time or running speed of the animals to matter. Do human hunters using modern tech really select for fitness? I do know that in fisheries around the world, when regulations said that only fish of a given species above a given size could be kept, fish got smaller. I.e. they were "fitter" in the sense of being more likely to be released by a human fisher, but not in the sense of having gained any advantage wrt the natural parts of their ecosystem. There are a lot of fishing competitions where the size of the largest fish trends down over time (and the records were set decades ago) not because individual competitors got worse at fishing, but because we selected against large fish. I think the most plausible argument for human hunters being a net environmental good is just that in many places the fees associated with hunting licenses are a source of funds for actual conservation work.
      - civilitty 3y ago
jemmyw 3y ago
I guess there is the idea that hunters wish the animal species well so they can continue hunting. Tell that to the passenger pigeon, whose last existing flock was knowingly hunted, making the species effectively extinct.
- Ensorceled 3y ago
  In 1900 ... 123 years ago. Not all hunters are conservationists but most are and laws and regulations are in place to protect animal species from over hunting (at least in Canada most of the US). Some conservation efforts are almost entirely run by hunters, for instance Duck's Unlimited has majority of its members as hunters.
- throwway120385 3y ago
  The people who hunted the passenger pigeon to extinction were driven less by the usual desire to get meat for their families and more by how much money they could make by bringing hundreds or thousands of birds to market for sale in cities. I would argue capitalism killed the passenger pigeon. The people with shotguns were its designated representatives.

caput770 3y ago

You clearly have little idea of what you're talking about if you think hunters kill animals for fun and leisure.

BiteCode_dev 3y ago
I know many hunters, and they do.
riversflow 3y ago
I know a lot of hunters. Fun and leisure is exactly how I would describe it. Do you really think most hunters kill animals out of necessity? There are exceptions of course but, lol. There is certainly a place for hunting and there are certainly hunters who care deeply about ecology. I don’t see how it’s not a combination of fun and leisure though.
000ooo000 3y ago
You're probably right. I might be reading too far into them posing for photos with the dead animal, or them having the animal's head mounted on a wall in their home, or travelling to far away places to hunt a particular type of rare animal. These are no doubt very important parts of maintaining a healthy ecosystem.

mrweasel 3y ago

Yes... I mean you probably won't shoot the family dog if it's sick, you'd take it to the vet. Arguably hunters don't think in terms of single animals, unlike farmers, they care about the overall welfare of the ecosystem so that it may support sufficient number of animals to allow for hunting. I don't know how it works elsewhere, but I'd bet that Danish hunters do more to protect nature than any vegan or vegetarian organisation and they almost always work with nature preservation organisations.

000ooo000 3y ago
So hunters 'care' for animals in the ecosystem so that they can continue to kill the animals in the ecosystem? Not very convincing..
- depressedpanda 3y ago
  Like it or not predators hunting prey is part of any natural ecosystem. A necessary part. I don't know what it's like where you are from, but in general I'd say hunters care a lot more about, and do more for, nature in their local ecosystem than your average city dwelling vegan hipster.
  - abeppu 3y ago
    I've heard people casually make the argument that human hunters function similarly to natural predators in terms of increasing population fitness -- but does that actually make sense? A natural predator is incentivized to identify and go after a weak prey animal, b/c it's easier. Maybe this shifts the prey population to be a bit faster, or have sharper reflexes or something. But a modern human hunter may feel drawn to try to take the choicest specimen (e.g. a mature male deer with large antlers), and shoots from a distance, and a bullet moves too fast for the variance in reaction time or running speed of the animals to matter. Do human hunters using modern tech really select for fitness? I do know that in fisheries around the world, when regulations said that only fish of a given species above a given size could be kept, fish got smaller. I.e. they were "fitter" in the sense of being more likely to be released by a human fisher, but not in the sense of having gained any advantage wrt the natural parts of their ecosystem. There are a lot of fishing competitions where the size of the largest fish trends down over time (and the records were set decades ago) not because individual competitors got worse at fishing, but because we selected against large fish. I think the most plausible argument for human hunters being a net environmental good is just that in many places the fees associated with hunting licenses are a source of funds for actual conservation work.
    - civilitty 3y ago

jemmyw 3y ago

I guess there is the idea that hunters wish the animal species well so they can continue hunting. Tell that to the passenger pigeon, whose last existing flock was knowingly hunted, making the species effectively extinct.

Ensorceled 3y ago
In 1900 ... 123 years ago. Not all hunters are conservationists but most are and laws and regulations are in place to protect animal species from over hunting (at least in Canada most of the US). Some conservation efforts are almost entirely run by hunters, for instance Duck's Unlimited has majority of its members as hunters.
throwway120385 3y ago
The people who hunted the passenger pigeon to extinction were driven less by the usual desire to get meat for their families and more by how much money they could make by bringing hundreds or thousands of birds to market for sale in cities. I would argue capitalism killed the passenger pigeon. The people with shotguns were its designated representatives.