I'd Like your views on this

stevoman

From as long as i have been on boards on the hunting thread we have always discussed and debated on the reasoning why we hunt, being it pheasents for sport, foxes for vermin control and deer to keep the numbers down etc. As i was driving on the motorway last night i spotted some deer near the forestry at the side of the motorway which is fenced off to stop them from crossing the roads.

I began to think about what we consider wild and what nature itself considers. To us the deer and the forestry is all wild but what about from natures eyes? As humans are we ignorant to the balance of life, im sure the deer, the birds and other creatures consider the their life natural and the motorway the only thing that is wild. It got me thinking, are we ignorant using excuses to say that we keep down numbers, when the only reason numbers have to be kept down is to facilitate us humans and our cars the destruction of some creatures natural habitats and natural ways of life?

Gunter Mauser

Even if we put down more rail track and less tar, the need for man to
intervene in some way with nature will always be so, it is the ethical question that hangs over us all. As the deer and the fox have no natural
predator here in Ireland unless the wolf is reintroduced along with the Eagles realeased in kerry, man will need to take some intervention regardless.

damo03

Yeah its an interesting point. A lecturer of mine told me this week that the planet is only supposedly capable of supporting 1 billion humans properly. The world population is currently 6billion and by 2050 will be 10 billion. I dont know where he got this information but it is interesting. My point is if you think mans destruction of habitat is bad now wait till another 30 or 40 years. And we think old people today complain about the price of turnips.:D

drunkmonkey

It's a sad day when you can't ride a horse from Tipperary to Dublin.......we've sold our soles to the motorcar....future generations will look back and wonder how we could have been so blind and there problem will be what will they do with all those roads that are no longer needed......

Society really needs to get a grip, if were serious about going green, it's time to recalim the land.....


I was thinking of suggesting this to Gay Byrne.....if we let the animals roam free on the roads all traffic will need to slow down or will certainly crash.....we'll also be helping the environment as less fuel will be burnt..

Just a thought....

nice1franko

As humans are we ignorant to the balance of life? Yeah.

As humans, we're naturally greedy; always striving for more and better - and our population has exploded like no other in the history of the planet.

We could very well become victims of our own success if we "tip the balance" of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: the climate'll be thrown into turmoil and countless people will die - primarily, in poorer regions of the world - but nonetheless, mother nature will have expelled at least part of the problem from her system.

Hunting does not rank as a crime against nature.

The worst, and most unnatural thing we've ever done is to pollute. It has killed ridiculous amounts of animals, birds and fish (and humans) - and purely as a haphazard side-effect. Greed at it's most spectacular and lamentable worst.

In my opinion, the most unnatural thing we've done directly to animals is to mass-farm them, keep them in cruel environments and feed them unnaturally, etc. It's happening on such a grand scale and it's cruel.

Hunting is a natural activity and when done with due respect for the animals and consideration for numbers, it's a good thing.

However, more care has to be taken nowadays, especially with consideration for numbers. Again, the reason is we've to be mindful of time lines and be careful we don't become victims of our own success; up until say four generations ago - such a tiny fraction in the course of human history, nevermind the planets - we didn't hunt with guns. Now, we *could* go out alone with a gun and take every deer, fox, pheasant, etc we see. Fish in a barrel stuff compared to the way we used to hunt.

I hope, and I'd like to think, that most hunting men have the upmost respect for nature and take the time time to consider it and our place in it every now and again.

fathersymes

Something we hunters are not allowed say in townie company is that actually we enjoy hunting, not necessarily the killing part, but our "hunting gene" is perhaps stronger than others. I believe this gene can be switched on in anyone and Bambi is soon forgotten. In the history of so called civilised mankind it has only been a tiny amount of time that the media has been there to humanise animals and portray hunters as bloodthirsty savages.

We don't need to hunt anymore, but then again we don't need to have sex to have babies anymore either!

Grizzly 45

Maybe we shouldn't be saying" keeping the numbers down" but "keeping the balance." Since we are the dominant animal on this planet,and have the power to influence our enviroment.We have taken on the responsibility of influencing the pouplation of wild animals in our enviroment and culling[hunting]/conserving[game seasons ,regulation,stock re introduction] as needs be. Ergo we are keeping the balance of wild stocks of game appropriate to it's local conditions.However there are plenty of things we can do to minimise our impact on the animals habitat.Germany has over its motorways flyovers that look like forest or whatever the local cover is to allow game to cross from one side to the other.They have left the old East/West border line as a green line which is now a natural wild corridor thru Germany.Which has actually brought up from the old east block countries migrating wolf packs as far as north of Munich. Nature can adapt pretty quickly to us and vise versa.

meathstevie

Like it or not, humanity has impacted on every square millimetre of the Earth's surface and beyond. Heaps of space debris are orbiting us, mines have dug miles deep into the ground etc, etc. The only areas with minimal impact are the ones that are too harsh too be productive for anything and even those are touched by pollution and effects generated elsewhere.

In my opinion it's up to us as people to become a bit intelligent about what we do but unfortunatly a lot of huge financial and commercial interests are involved and as long as Wall Street is going to dictate behaviour we can just as well forget about it. Places like China and India would be prime examples at the moment.

They're both involved in a massive industrial revolution at the moment but instead of going for the most modern minimal impact technologies like for example state of the art nuclear plants or solar energy generation as they both have huge arid areas they throw up oil and coal powerplants to beat the band. I would not begrudge them their stab at success and improvement of living standards but the least they could have done is learn from the West's mistakes.

On a personal level, I don't think as a hunter I should be too overly worried about what I'm doing as long as I go by the rules of sustainability on a local level.

John Griffin

The biggest threat facing the planet is the growth in the human population. We need to take control of our future and the future of all species on the planet. If we don't there will be many extinctions and one of those may be Humans themselves. We are in a lot of trouble and alot will change in our lifetimes and those of our childeren. There was a very interesting interview with David Attenborough this year on The Late Late Show, well worth watching, the man is my hero and a legend!

Link to interview
http://www.rte.ie/tv/latelate/av_20080229.html?2344466,null,228

nice1franko

yeah, it's a great interview alright. he's one of the good uns

bellapip

It rarely fails to amaze me how often those that hunt justify it and those who feel it is wrong justify our reaction to it.

When man could not waltz into tesco and get the makings of a meal to drag behind him in a 22cent bag, he was expected to go and hunt and feed the family.

Now, well the culling is on a mass level where meat is reared to supply a need and anything that needs to accompany a meal is simply listed by aisle number and not by anything else.

I have watched the hunt chase down a deer, watched as the poor animal ran in ever decreasing circles frantic to find a way to escape what he must have known was eventual exhaustion and death.

He was reared in captive surroundings, never running wild, never having to search for water, it was always supplied, never having to run from the wolf as he was always in a protected environment.
He somehow expected that the atmosphere he was raised in was safe and protected.
It is sad to think that this same poor animal watches as those he thought were there to protect him are in fact those sending him off to the chase of dogs.

I am sure there are those who will think this is a simplistic way of looking at things, but surely we have moved beyond a barbaric way of life,.


B

foxshooter243

bellapip wrote: »

It rarely fails to amaze me how often those that hunt justify it and those who feel it is wrong justify our reaction to it.

When man could not waltz into tesco and get the makings of a meal to drag behind him in a 22cent bag, he was expected to go and hunt and feed the family.

Now, well the culling is on a mass level where meat is reared to supply a need and anything that needs to accompany a meal is simply listed by aisle number and not by anything else.

I have watched the hunt chase down a deer, watched as the poor animal ran in ever decreasing circles frantic to find a way to escape what he must have known was eventual exhaustion and death.

He was reared in captive surroundings, never running wild, never having to search for water, it was always supplied, never having to run from the wolf as he was always in a protected environment.
He somehow expected that the atmosphere he was raised in was safe and protected.
It is sad to think that this same poor animal watches as those he thought were there to protect him are in fact those sending him off to the chase of dogs.

I am sure there are those who will think this is a simplistic way of looking at things, but surely we have moved beyond a barbaric way of life,.


B

zzzz zzzz zzzzzzzz oops sorry fell asleep !

bunny shooter

bellapip wrote: »

It rarely fails to amaze me how often those that hunt justify it and those who feel it is wrong justify our reaction to it.

When man could not waltz into tesco and get the makings of a meal to drag behind him in a 22cent bag, he was expected to go and hunt and feed the family.

Now, well the culling is on a mass level where meat is reared to supply a need and anything that needs to accompany a meal is simply listed by aisle number and not by anything else.

I have watched the hunt chase down a deer, watched as the poor animal ran in ever decreasing circles frantic to find a way to escape what he must have known was eventual exhaustion and death.

He was reared in captive surroundings, never running wild, never having to search for water, it was always supplied, never having to run from the wolf as he was always in a protected environment.
He somehow expected that the atmosphere he was raised in was safe and protected.
It is sad to think that this same poor animal watches as those he thought were there to protect him are in fact those sending him off to the chase of dogs.

I am sure there are those who will think this is a simplistic way of looking at things, but surely we have moved beyond a barbaric way of life,.


B

Take it you never killed a vegetable then. Ever heard a carrot scream when you first skin it then chop it up, all while it's alive

nice1franko

just because you pluck your food from tesco shelves doesn't mean that's where it grew.

don't eat it if you can't kill it

meathstevie

bellapip wrote: »

It rarely fails to amaze me how often those that hunt justify it and those who feel it is wrong justify our reaction to it.

When man could not waltz into tesco and get the makings of a meal to drag behind him in a 22cent bag, he was expected to go and hunt and feed the family.

Now, well the culling is on a mass level where meat is reared to supply a need and anything that needs to accompany a meal is simply listed by aisle number and not by anything else.

I have watched the hunt chase down a deer, watched as the poor animal ran in ever decreasing circles frantic to find a way to escape what he must have known was eventual exhaustion and death.

He was reared in captive surroundings, never running wild, never having to search for water, it was always supplied, never having to run from the wolf as he was always in a protected environment.
He somehow expected that the atmosphere he was raised in was safe and protected.
It is sad to think that this same poor animal watches as those he thought were there to protect him are in fact those sending him off to the chase of dogs.

I am sure there are those who will think this is a simplistic way of looking at things, but surely we have moved beyond a barbaric way of life,.


B

Just to point out that most people in here would be rifle hunters when it comes to deer and that they're after the ones that were born on bogs and woodland etc without human intervention and care.

kerrysgold

humans are the ones that are overpopulated, not the animals that supposedly need to be killed to keep their numbers down :rolleyes:
we are the ones that live completely unnatural lives and are ruining the planet, not the animals.

IRLConor

kerrysgold wrote: »

humans are the ones that are overpopulated, not the animals that supposedly need to be killed to keep their numbers down :rolleyes:

The vast majority of animals killed in Ireland are killed for food or to protect food. They're not just killed for some abstract population control experiment. :rolleyes:

Yes, humans are overpopulated. What's your suggestion for keeping the numbers down? Shoot them? Starve them? Stop treating preventable diseases?

kerrysgold wrote: »

we are the ones that live completely unnatural lives and are ruining the planet, not the animals.

Yes we're ruining the planet, but "unnatural"? What's the dividing line between "natural" and "unnatural"?

It wasn't me!

To be honest, someone already nailed it when they mentioned practising sustainability in your local area. That's the key. It's not on the individual hunter to solve global animal population issues, just local ones.

Here's how I see it: I've yet to see any partridge around here (just an example) so if I were to see one, I wouldn't shoot it, I'd start asking around and see what the story is, see are they taking residence. If it turns out they're being released by a gun club, it's not so important, but if this is a population taking root, I'd be inclined to see it foster, maybe knock off an extra fox or two in the locality, see whether they take well to the area. If they do, great, another thoroughly sustainable food resource for me and those I choose to supply food for. If not, well, I probably won't be giving them any hassle. Same applies to any species really. If they're plentiful, and you're not a complete clown and can keep an eye on it and manage your local populations, then let loose and eat well for your trouble. While you can enjoy it all you like, however, as a hunter there's an onus on you to show some restraint and respect for populations of species establishing themselves, as long as they fit into the environment. (Let's say I won't shed too many tears if someone killed every mink in the country overnight) Just my thoughts.

.243

kerrysgold wrote: »

humans are the ones that are overpopulated, not the animals that supposedly need to be killed to keep their numbers down :rolleyes:
we are the ones that live completely unnatural lives and are ruining the planet, not the animals.

thats grand so,you let me know when i can shoot tourists during the "tourist season" and not deer in the "deer season" that should keep human numbers down

ivanthehunter

kerrysgold wrote: »

humans are the ones that are overpopulated, not the animals that supposedly need to be killed to keep their numbers down :rolleyes:
we are the ones that live completely unnatural lives and are ruining the planet, not the animals.

Start the human cull:eek:
Issue the hunters of Ireland licenses to hunt polish between 7pm and 6am;)

tbh

and sure as long as you do it with a crossbow, it's legal. right? :rolleyes:

kerryman12

As a species we are good at culling our own numbers from time to time look at the last century for god sake...

stevoman

My point is, i prefer personally not to defend my sport with statements that im keeping numbers down or anything. Also i beleive it sounds ignorant to nature by sayind that im trying to keep numbers down (thats personally my opinion) Im very quick to simply tell anyone who asks, that i hunt for the love of it, and im proud to do so!

tiny-nioclas

i suppose my favourite thing about my sport would be that i can hunt and eat my own wild organic food, its human nature for us to do this, only some people dont see the point when you can go to the shop and get prepared food, animal populations need to be managed realistically aswell, we have no real predators in ireland thanks to man, so we need to do the job ourselves. and enjoy it in the long run?!

It wasn't me!

If it comes down to it, wild game is delicious, low fat, highly nutritional meat. It's not always about numbers control, though it can be an incentive in many cases (crows, grey squirrels, fox). Ultimately, you do it because you wan to, because you see something special about it, because you enjoy the better, more ethically sourced meat it offers and because you want to be a more natural part of things. Personally, the quote that stuck with me from that Theroux documentary was "You'll eat the meat, but you won't kill it". Fair enough, but nobody has the right to judge anyone else for taking responsibility for what they eat. Nobody feels remorse about eating a Tesco chicken, so nobody can expect a hunter to feel remorse about killing and eating a wild pheasant. It's neither reasonable nor appropriate.

bunny shooter

It wasn't me! wrote: »

If it comes down to it, wild game is delicious, low fat, highly nutritional meat. It's not always about numbers control, though it can be an incentive in many cases (crows, grey squirrels, fox). Ultimately, you do it because you wan to, because you see something special about it, because you enjoy the better, more ethically sourced meat it offers and because you want to be a more natural part of things. Personally, the quote that stuck with me from that Theroux documentary was "You'll eat the meat, but you won't kill it". Fair enough, but nobody has the right to judge anyone else for taking responsibility for what they eat. Nobody feels remorse about eating a Tesco chicken, so nobody can expect a hunter to feel remorse about killing and eating a wild pheasant. It's neither reasonable nor appropriate.

Well said !

whitser

every man hunts because he enjoys it,wether he likes to admit it or not. other wise we wouldnt do it. my enjoyment comes from watching my charges work and from the trill of the hunt. if its good vermin control or puts food on the table is a benefit and a bonus. no matter what type of hunting we all do we do it for the enjoyment,its our SPORT.