hunting for sport/meat

hurlsey

Hey Lads,
just looking for some opinions/stories really on how its received if you ever try and talk about hunting to people you know who dont hunt/ even own a firearm?

I got into a "debate", if you could call it that, about hunting/vermin control and eating the meat, rabbits and deer. Now i should point out i have never hunted deer, yet, however I've hunted rabbits and foxes, never ate fox meat now, and game birds too.

Her indoors and her mother were of the opinion that because we have such a wide variety of meat nobody should need to hunt for meat. It went back and forth for ages, i tired to show logically why certain species needed to be controlled and hunting was a method to do so, eating the meat was a bonus, I'm not exaggerating here but they provided only emotive melodramatic arguments and told me i was just trying to justify the "senseless killing of animals" to myself. There was some serious tongue biting after that one and i did get a bit hot under the collar!

To be honest i found them to be very naive in respect to where their meat comes from, and I couldn't understand how they thought its ok for an animal to be stunned and stuck, however what i do they found to be wrong!!(i also get meat from the butchers too)

Paraphrasing here but apparently "...its ok for cows etc to be killed because they are bred for it, but theres no need to shoot innocent animals..."
Now that to me seems like a contradiction!!

anyways what do you lads think?!!

garv123

Do they eat chicken and eggs? If so bring them to where their food is sourced from and they'll never open their mouths again..

And also wide variety of meat? cow, pig & chicken is the only choice you really have here from farmed animals.. which most of is processed and packed with preservatives.

hurlsey

oh trust me i pointed out the chicken argument, we had just had a chicken curry!! they found that to be acceptable because they were reared for it!! Honestly i think its the personification of animals in stuff like Bambi/The Fox and the Hound that had them worked up so much about it!! I also tried to point out that wild animals are a higher quality of meat this was to no avail!!!

vapour_trail

Look at it this way lad, when I go out shooting pheasants, the pheasant is always going to have a better chance of getting away than I am of shooting it. 1) If pheasant numbers arent healthy, I just amnt going to go out shooting, In fact conservation is just as important.
2) I am in the pheasants territory. He knows every ditch, every tuft of grass in his area and is able to escape and give me the run around with ease.
3) If a bird does get up, nobody is forcing me to pull the trigger. I tend to let strong and healthy birds fly and only shoot the smaller weaker looking birds if I can. This is where conservation comes in again.
5) When I pull the trigger there is an enormous chance I could completely miss the bird, it often happens.
6) When Im out, I get to see what conditions the birds are in, their diet and at the end of the day I know what meat Im eating. You'll find no horsemeat in my freezer :cool:

I tend to raise all of these points before the person Im talking to has a chance to start telling me what a monster I am... Then I finish with a final statement which kills them--- " I dont interfere with or tell people how to live their lives, people shouldnt tell me how to live mine especially when they are so incredibly ignorant as to what hunting is. "

cruisedub1

Several years ago I was traveling home on vacation and had to layover on the East Coast to make a connecting flight . I was sitting in the bar having a pint when an older gent from Dublin struck up a conversation with me , usual chit-chat when he asks me how i like it in California , Weather Job , pastime/hobby . When I tell him I hunt he looks at me like Ive got two heads . Starts going on about how he dosent understand how anyone could kill beautiful birds/animals . Anyway conversation goes on I try to explain to him why I hunt , he just goes on about beautiful animals , wasn't so much what he said just the way he said it ( i'm superior to you because I don't hunt/kill animals ) . Anyway I get tired listening to him so I ask him does he eat meat , Of course he does . So I tell him the only difference between him and me is I kill my own meat , he just pays someone else to do it for him .
Conversation just kind of died after that and he went to find someone else to talk to .

pheasntstalker

vapour trail i take my hat off to you, i couldnt put it better any other way, an amen to that:D it also cuts down on the shopping bill coz lets face it the biggest exspense in the food bill is meat(well it does be in my hse at times) and what we hunt and prepare an fill our freezers with is far healthier than farmed meat any day my missus and young lass love what i bring home from adays hunting, i,d rather me humble rabbit over yer overpriced aberdeen angus steak any day(tho! i wouldnt refuse a bit of angus if it was on offer;))

clivej

Main trouble is we kill beauitful looking animals. They are portrayed on TV as kind loving animals. It would be a different story if they were vicious and ugly.

People see the meat, cows lambs etc. they eat in the fields everyday so it has come to be seen as acceptable as their food source.

Just the way I see it.

Grizzly 45

Never argue with your missus and her mother in the first place...You are never going to win.:(:p
However the point should be made that isnt it hyprocritical to say its ok to kill one type of animal for its meat,and not another because its cute??Bit "Anirasist"[such a word?] isnt it??Either they quit eating meat then of all types as all ainmals are sentinent beings[using animal lib speak].Or they get over the fact that game is just as much a harvestable crop that has lived under better conditions than most domestic reared animals,and cuteness doesn't come into it.Some people might find a swine more cute than a bunny wabbit.:)

How is an animal "innocent" in the first place??Anyone explain this BS emotive term to me??Innocence and guilt are human terms relating to a concept of wrong and right of comitting a crime against fellow humans.
What crime has an animal comitted.I suppose theft might be a concept if a fox makes off with your chickens??Or a deer eats all your garden lettuces??
Then they are guilty and not innocent.Do I suppose you could issue the death penalty for theft??:D

stoeger

If there so worried about the animals way are thay eating all there food

hurlsey

trust me nothing i said swayed them, it was just one naive emotive comment after another, what started as a debate did kind of turn into an argument!! the minute i called them vermin that was that(the prey now not the women folk)

I just dont understand how people think its ok for an animal to die in a slaughterhouse, get carved up and bought from a butchers!! Yet i must be some sort of weirdo because id like to get my own food!!

bravestar

I tend to avoid these types of conversations with people as its not worth the grief. I will say this though, my missus is a veggie, not because she doesn't like the taste of meat, just because she doesn't like the way in with animals are bred, kept and slaughtered. Everything has to be free range in my house.

That being said she has never once given me stick about anything that I kill and eat. Her thinking is this...
If I have to eat meat she would prefer if I and any other meat eater went out and killed an animal quickly and humanely that had led a happy, free life.

she is realistic, knows people are going to eat meat and that's no problem. They led a happy life and chances are, never knew what hit em. So she is happy with that. She also thinks it shows a lot more respect for the animals life by going out and doing it yourself rather than some poor chicken that's been pumped full of juice and never allowed to run free.

Anyway, that's the thoughts of my veggie missus who fully supports my hunting and has no problem cooking meat for me and the kids.

sniperman

tell them its all about the thrill of the hunt,like when they go shopping for shoes

Tommy87

Naive is an understatement. I agree with garv123. If they saw where chicken and eggs come from, they wouldn't eat it again. I got this pic off Facebook, it sums it up for me!!

SeeZee

I dont hunt for meat as I hunt foxes/, crows etc also. The meat off rabbits, deer and birds etc is just a bonus.
I don't do vermin control late at night and spend €€€€ on kit as I'm charitable to farmers.
I am a hunter, that's the long and short of it. If some people can't get that they never will.

One shot on kill

Ah jasus lad. Hold on a minute you didn't get into it with the missis and her mother.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Worse thing is they will never let it go now because they know it bothers you.

If your house is anything like mind your working for even enjoying yourself never mind hunting.

My brother use to give out when I went hunting. ( poor defenceless animal sitting there eating grass minding his own business and yor going around killing them ).
Not long after that he had a pheasant in his garden and the pheasant takes his runner every time he leaves them outside. And brings them to the top of the garden.

Needless to say I got a phone call to take care of it.

But I couldn't do anything because it wasn't sporting as the bird was practicly Thame at this stage. :-)

Sometimes its the small thi ye inure that get you through.

The missis and her mother. Ha ha :-)