Posted on 04/08/2002 4:23:46 PM PDT by Sungirl
Fall is the time when forest greens begin to blaze orange, as hunting seasons open around the country. Each year, hunters kill more than 100 million animals, and while individual reasons for hunting vary, the industry that promotes and sustains hunting has just one motive: profit. According to the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, America's 14 million hunters spend $22.1 billion each year for guns, ammunition, clothing, travel, and other related expenses.
To justify hunting to a society ever more concerned about wildlife—including its conservation and humane treatment—the industry intensively promotes a set of tired myths. Learn the facts behind these myths.
Isn't hunting a worthy tradition because it teaches people about nature?
There are many ways to learn about nature and the "great outdoors." At its best, hunting teaches people that it is acceptable to kill wildlife while learning about some aspects of nature. However, the very essence of sport hunting is the implicit message that it's acceptable recreation to kill and to tolerate the maiming of wildlife. Even those who claim that wounding and maiming is not the intent of hunting cannot deny that it happens.
It is folly to suggest that we can teach love, respect, and appreciation for nature and the environment through such needless destruction of wildlife. One can learn about nature by venturing into the woods with binoculars, a camera, a walking stick, or simply with our eyes and ears open to the world around us.
Does hunting help create a bond between father and son? We do not know, but there are countless recreational and other activities that can strengthen the parent/child bond. Generally speaking, bonding has less to do with the activity and more to do with whether the parent and child spend significant, concentrated, and loving time together. Yet the particular recreational activity is also important, because it can send a moral message to the child about what constitutes acceptable recreation.
Hunting as a form of family entertainment is destructive not only to the animals involved, but also to the morals and ethics of children who are shown or taught that needless killing is acceptable recreation. The HSUS rejects the notion that a relationship of love and companionship should be based on the needless killing of innocent creatures. Killing for fun teaches callousness, disrespect for life, and the notion that "might makes right."
Isn't hunting a popular and growing form of recreation?
No. The number of hunters has been steadily declining for decades. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, there were 15 million licensed hunters in the U.S. in 2000, compared with 15.6 million in 1993, 15.8 million in 1990, and 16.3 million in 1980. This drop has occurred even while the general population has been growing. Currently only 5.4% of Americans hold hunting licenses. Hunters claim their numbers are growing to give the impression that recreational killing is acceptable. The facts are that more and more hunters are giving up hunting because it is no longer a socially acceptable activity.
Isn't it more humane to kill wildlife by hunting than to allow animals to starve?
This question is based on a false premise. Hunters kill opossums, squirrels, ravens, and numerous other plentiful species without any notion of shooting them so that they do not starve or freeze to death. Many species are killed year round in unlimited numbers. In addition, many animals that are not hunted die of natural starvation, but hunters do not suggest killing them. While it is true that any animal killed by a hunter cannot die of starvation, hunters do not kill animals based on which ones are weak and likely to succumb to starvation. Hunters who claim they prevent animals from suffering starvation are simply trying to divert attention from an analysis of the propriety of killing wildlife for fun.
Aren't most hunts to limit overpopulation and not truly for recreation?
No. Most hunted species are not considered to be overpopulated even by the wildlife agencies that set seasons and bag limits. Black ducks, for instance, face continued legal hunting—even on National Wildlife Refuges—despite the fact that their populations are at or near all-time lows. If hunters claim that they hunt to prevent overpopulation, then they should be prepared to forgo hunting except when it really is necessary to manage overpopulated species. This would mean no hunting of doves, ducks, geese, raccoons, bears, cougars, turkeys, quail, chuckar, pheasants, rabbits, squirrels, and many other species.
What's more, hunters are usually the first to protest when wolves, coyotes, and other predators move into an area and begin to take over the job of controlling game populations. The State of Alaska, for example, has instituted wolf-control (trapping and shooting) on the grounds that wolf predation may bring caribou populations down to a level that would limit the sport-hunting of caribou. Finally, hunters kill opossums, foxes, ravens, and numerous other plentiful species without the pretension of shooting them so that they do not starve or freeze to death.
Is hunting to prevent wildlife overpopulation usually effective?
No. Wildlife, to a large degree, will naturally regulate its own populations if permitted, eliminating any need for hunting as a means of population control. Discussions about supposed wildlife overpopulation problems apply primarily to deer. Hunters often claim that hunting is necessary to control deer populations. As practiced, however, hunting often contributes to the growth of deer herds. Heavily hunted states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, for instance, are among those experiencing higher deer densities than perhaps ever before. When an area's deer population is reduced by hunting, the remaining animals respond by having more young, which survive because the competition for food and habitat is reduced. Since one buck can impregnate many does, policies which permit the killing of bucks contribute to high deer populations. If population control were the primary purpose for conducting deer hunts, hunters would only be permitted to kill does. This is not the case, however, because hunters demand that they be allowed to kill bucks for their antlers.
Does hunting ensure stable, healthy wildlife populations?
No. The hunting community's idea of a "healthy" wildlife population is a population managed like domestic livestock, for maximum productivity. In heavily hunted and "managed" populations, young animals feed on artificially enhanced food sources, grow and reproduce rapidly, then fall quickly to the guns and arrows of hunters. Few animals achieve full adulthood. After 20 years of heavy deer hunting at the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey, for example, only one percent of the deer population lived longer than four years, and fewer than ten percent lived longer than three years. In a naturally regulated population, deer often live twelve years or longer.
What are state wildlife agencies doing to maintain interest in hunting?
Most states actively recruit children into hunting, through special youth hunts. Sometimes these youth hunts are held on National Wildlife Refuges. Some states have carried this concept even further, and hold special hunter education classes to recruit parents and their children. In addition to encouraging children to buy licenses and kill animals, the states are reaching out to women as well. If enough women and children can be converted into hunters, the state agencies can continue business as usual.
Isn't hunting a well-regulated activity?
No. While there are many rules which regulate hunting activities, enforcing the regulations is difficult, and many hunters do not abide by the rules. It has been estimated that twice as many deer are killed illegally as are killed legally. Hunters will sometimes kill a second deer because it has bigger antlers or "rack" than the first. In addition, duck hunters often exceed their bag limits or kill protected species because most hunters cannot identify the species of ducks that they shoot—especially not at a half hour before sunrise, when shooting begins. Secret observations revealed by ex-duck hunters demonstrate that illegal practices and killing permeate this activity at all levels.
Aren't animals protected through "bag limits" imposed by each state?
Those species favored by hunters are given certain protection from over-killing—killing so many as to severely limit the population—through what are known as "bag limits." However, hunting of some species is completely unregulated, and in fact, wanton killing is encouraged. Animals such as skunks, coyotes, porcupines, crows and prairie dogs are considered "varmints," and unlimited hunting of these species is permitted year-round in many states. At the base of this is the notion that these animals are simply "vermin" and do not deserve to live. Hunters frequently write and speak of the pleasure in "misting" prairie dogs—by which they mean shooting the animals with hollow-point bullets that cause them to literally explode in a mist of blood.
Moreover, hunters' influence on state and federal wildlife agencies is so strong that even bag limits on "game" species are influenced as much by politics as by biology. Many states, with the sanction of the federal government, allow hunters to kill large numbers (20–40 per day) of coots and waterfowl such as sea ducks and mergansers, for example, despite the fact that little is known about their populations and their ability to withstand hunting pressure, and the fact that these ducks are certainly not killed for food. This killing is encouraged to maintain hunter interest, thereby sustaining license sales, because the decline in other duck species has resulted in some limitations on numbers that can be killed.
Though hunting clearly kills individual animals, can hunting actually hurt wildlife populations?
Yes. Hunters continue to kill many species of birds and mammals (e.g., cougars, wolves, black ducks, swans) that are at dangerously low population levels. While hunting may not be the prime cause of the decline of these species, it must contribute to their decline and, at a minimum, frustrate efforts to restore them.
Even deer populations may be damaged by hunting pressure. Unlike natural predators and the forces of natural selection, hunters do not target the weaker individuals in populations of deer or other animals.
Rather, deer hunters seek out the bucks that have the largest rack. This desire for "trophy sized" bucks can and has had detrimental effects on the health of deer herds. First, hunting can impact the social structure of a herd because hunters kill the mature males of a herd and create a disproportionate ratio of females to males. It is not uncommon to find a herd that has no bucks over the age of three. Second, genetically inferior bucks may be left to propagate the species, thereby weakening the overall health of the herd.
Because hunters largely want to shoot only bucks, hunting may cause artificial inflation of deer populations. When these populations reach levels that available habitat cannot support, increased disease and starvation may be the result.
We don't understand the full effect of hunting on wildlife behavior or health because wildlife agencies will not conduct the studies necessary to find the answers (e.g., "spy-blind" observations of duck hunting, in which undercover authorities secretly observe hunters).
Is hunting for food a good way to save money on grocery bills?
Almost never. When all costs are considered (i.e., license fees, equipment, food, lodging and transportation), hunting is not an economical way to provide food. Statistics gathered by the University of Maryland's Extension Service revealed that hunters spent more than $51 million to kill 46,317 deer in Maryland in 1990, approximately $1,100 for each deer killed. Assuming that the meat of each deer killed was preserved and eaten, and that each deer provided 45 lbs. of meat, the cost of venison in 1990 in Maryland was $24.44 per pound. For most hunted animals, such as ducks, doves, rabbits, squirrels, and crows, among others, use for food is now minimal, and the expense of equipment far outweighs the value of any food that is obtained. For the vast majority of hunters, hunting is recreation, not a means of gathering food.
Pretty much every deer dies within minutes, or at least within a half hour. That is precisely why we practice to make a humane quick killing shot. I shudder at people who shoot at moving game. It is the rare person who can reliably "wingshot" a running deer and we hunters know it.
With a bow shot the initial sting of the arrow, which at the speed it's traveling is going to feel not much worse than a hornet sting and then will pretty much be over. Then the animal will feel tired and dizzy as blood pressure is lost immediately to the lungs. It will run and fall down, often they don't even realize they are in danger. An animal that is gut shot and isn't frightened in the process may suffer, but animals don't realize they are going to die. They don't form emotional bonds with others the way we do. So they aren't lying there panicking with thoughts of their own mortality and sayig goodbye to their friends/children/loved onesthe way we humans would. It's all very matter of fact to them.
We only shoot the ones that don't have "cow" or "chicken"painted on them.
Because hunters largely want to shoot only bucks, hunting may cause artificial inflation of deer populations. When these populations reach levels that available habitat cannot support, increased disease and starvation may be the result.
It is untrue that most hunters ONLY want to shoot bucks. State Game Wardens often limited deer hunts to bucks only as a way of increasing deer herds. Now, (I have heard) deer are more numerous in America than they were at the time the pilgrims landed. As a result, to the farmers of the midwest deer are laregly viewed as rats with antlers. I kill several deer a year...one for my freezer and one for my mothers freezer. While these are usually does, If I see a good buck I'll nail him, too. Nothin' wrong with having some hardware on the wall to look at while I'm chewin' on some venison.
As to dogs, I've killed several that were killing my chickens. You see sungirl, you PETA types who like those cute little puppies get tired of them when they pee on your fancy $5,000 carpet, so you drive them out to the country in your $50,000 jaguar and turn them loose. They get mean and hungry, try to kill my chickens, and I've got to kill them and bury them.
My daughter turns 16 this year. Going to get her first deer this year...and she's really excited about it. She's a great shot.....she can drop a prarie dog at 200 yards with that .243 of hers. Oh yeah...prarie dogs have cost me and my neighbors over $40,000 in the last 5 years in injured livestock...almost enough to buy one of them thar fancy jaguars.
I wish they were all like you.
I bet you have never gone hunting or are friends with a hunter. You PETA propaganda officials really need to grow up and live in reality instead of your groupie drug induced dreamworld.
You need to be banned from spreading this leftist propaganda on a forum dedicated to truth, justice, and the American way, you lying sack of doorknobs!
Actually I thought I would cry when I got my first deer. But I felt very strangely calm and serious, and full of awe.
Of course you are. When do you plan to start?
Cyrano
Primarilly the enjoyment of the hunt itself. Getting out in nature, seeing more wildlife in one day than most people see in their entire lives. But also the challenge of matching wits and skill with animals or birds that been evolving for millions of years to learn better ways of avoiding predators... including man. The kill is of secondary importance to whether I have a great day hunting, but I DO get enjoyment out of killing my own food... as I get enjoyment out of eating vegetables I've raised myself. Feeling of self-sufficiency... feeling of getting back to accepting the challenge of taking on nature one-on-one. Hunting is NOT just shooting or killing... it's a LOT more challenging than you'd expect. Takes a lot of preparation, skills learned over time. You have to learn to think about what the animal or bird is thinking... what do you have to do to be in the right place to get a shot.
And how do I feel? Satisfied... and even a better feeling when I watch my son hunting with me shoot a duck or goose.
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