Hunters Unethical?

[RaySendero]

Guys,

Think y'all are being played - Google Eli Cash:

[huntinaz]

My point again, the animal is not aware of "playing" the game.

They're playing it every day of their lives, sir. Spending 70 days a year afield, I don't understand how you have not seen that.

[Eli Cash]

Origin of Jack-Wagon for those unawares:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaFy0x_Uixo

EC

[Eli Cash]

Origin of Eli Cash:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeKjKWXWZOE

"Why would a reviewer make the point of saying someone's "not" a genius? Do you especially think I'm "not" a genius?

You didn't even have to think about it, did you?"

LOL

EC

[Eli Cash]

@Huntaz:

"They're playing it every day of their lives, sir. Spending 70 days a year afield, I don't understand how you have not seen that."

No they're not…they have no conception of guns or bullets.

Predators yes but not long distance killing.


EC

[2damnold4this]

Yer out of line!...

....You simply missed a post or misread. I said previously I came across plenty that bolted before I was aware of their presence, I only caught a hoof over the hurdle. But in all seriousness I can not recall an animal that paused for a moment all of a sudden bolting as if their life depended on it. Usually walked or at most jogged away.

Well, that isn't what you wrote but even when giving you a pass for poorly conveying your thoughts in the OP, I still think saying "in all seriousness I can not recall an animal that paused for a moment all of a sudden bolting as if their life depended on it. Usually walked or at most jogged away." is suspect.

Perhaps you think hunting is unethical because you have some sort of godlike powers given to you by Gaia to get and stay close to hundreds of big game animals in the wild without any of them spooking. The rest of us don't have those powers so you shouldn't be troubled by us getting too close. Maybe these encounters you have had are all on land where hunting is prohibited or places called zoos. We don't hunt where it's prohibited or in zoos, so you shouldn't have to worry.

If hunting is unethical because it's easy to get close to animals, why is handgun hunting, which requires getting closer, more unethical?

[Brian Pfleuger]

Troll calling and other insults will be dropped or infractions will be issued.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Originally Posted by Eli Cash

I hope y'all are smiling and not taking this all to seriously.

Whether you call it "unethical" or you call people who do it names, you can pretty well bet that they ARE taking it personal. Insults are pretty damn personal things.

[huntinaz]

No they're not…they have no conception of guns or bullets.

Predators yes but not long distance killing.

Of course they don't. They understand predation and their role in that. They recognize humans as predators. Connect the dots for me on what I'm missing.

[Eli Cash]

@Brian

"Whether you call it "unethical" or you call people who do it names, you can pretty well bet that they ARE taking it personal. Insults are pretty damn personal things."

OK Brian you edited my first post removing the "jack wagon" reference. You then reintroduced it and now complain I used it.

I will offer an apology for any name calling. I just happen to get a kick out of terms like jack-wagon and meant no offense. Please see the video I posted about jack wagon if you want a laugh:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaFy0x_Uixo

Now that there is funny, I don't care who ya are!

EC

[Eli Cash]

@BrianAZ

"Of course they don't. They understand predation and their role in that. They recognize humans as predators. Connect the dots for me on what I'm missing."

They give space. They can tell how much space they need to get away from animals they have observed. They have observed say a wolf attack and seen the process. While there are plenty of hunters there are more hikers so I doubt animals can properly size up human threats. They don't allow me to get too close. The big horns kept a ~25m buffer zone. I was "hunting" stalking them with a camera but can a big horn tell the difference from a camera and a rifle? I don't know...

They hear a noise, they see one drop, they see humans descend upon carcass. I imagine a disconnect since they do not grasp guns.

Try firing a warning shot first to give them a chance, let them know your intentions…. unequivocally.

EC

[huntinaz]

I respectfully disagree; the rant is about human and animal interactions. I could have killed numerous animals numerous times, I chose not to.

Uh yeah, I've "not killed" thousands of animals that I "could have" when I wasn't hunting. What you have not done is gone out with the intention of killing a particular legal animal, and done it. It is not the same thing as walking around, stumbling across animals when you are out there 70 days a year (which is a lot), and not poaching them.

This is a perfect example of your disconnect, you truly do not understand the concept of a successful hunt and probably will not unless you try it. I assume you are unwilling to do this. Not randomly shoot an animal you happen across, but legally obtain a permit and punch it in the specified area, in the alotted time. It's worth taking a picture so you can remember it. If you don't want to, you don't have to. I recommend you try it, especially since you think the only moral way to eat meat to to obtain it that way.

[huntinaz]

Try firing a warning shot first to give them a chance, let them know your intentions…. unequivocally.

Is that how your native american friend done it? How about your niece?

[tahunua001]

alright at this point both public and OP have completely left all common sense and reasoning to the wind.

to the OP
1. last year, in two states you spent 35 days living in a tent. therefore you assume that nobody else in this little chat room have the outdoor experience you do? some of the people here are ranchers that own quite large back country ranges, they spend 365 in those areas. I personally have never been out 35 days at a time but I have spent 2 weeks in a wall tent in north central Idaho. you may have spent a great deal of time in a number of states but those 35 days you spent in WY are nothing compared to someone who has lived in WY for 35 years. you can not argue a single trip as indication that your experience is greater than everyone elses.

2. you appear to believe that animals do not become skiddish around hunting season, yet you even said that animals that are being chased are skiddish. you completely discredited your own argument. pick one side or another, but don't play devil's advocate and expect to win both sides of the same argument.

3. you spent a single year on a single indian reservation, and you have now become an expert on native american culture, beliefs, and hunting tactics? I have lived my entire life on indian reservations with the exception of 4 years spent in the navy. I was born on the Sioux reservation, spent 14 years on the crow reservation and have lived on the Nez Perce reservation ever since. I grew up playing with Indians(and no they rarely refer to themselves as "Native Americans"), I grew up hearing stories, seeing entire rooms full of trophies and yes, looking at pictures of them posing with giant grins. my first hunting trips were with my older brother and his Indian friends, they giggled, joked, grinned and posed with the animals taken that trip just like the jackwagons from magazines. your experience may have varied, but it is limited experience at best.

4. unless you spent much time on the plains and badlands of WY, MT, and other areas you should know that there is no getting close to animals in some regions. line of sight can be as much as 5 miles and animals have much better vision and smelling than any of us. sometimes long shots which you may think are unethical are necessary and those same indians that you have come to respect so much will take those long shots and some of them will do it just for the horns. my family went through a very rough patch after my father had a head injury and one of the things that kept us going was meat given to us by indian friends that hunted year round for no reason but for horns and they were more than willing to give us an entire deer without even asking for gas money because they would have killed the animals anyway.

[dakota.potts]

At least you are not completely hypocritical. I can't stand people who call hunting immoral and evil yet eat slaughterhouse meat.

Humans eat meat. It is no more immoral than the cat that eats the mouse or the wolves that eat livestock. In fact, did you know cats kill over a billion lizards each year and are considered one of the biggest ecological concerns to small reptile species and will kill things as large as chickens just for the thrill of killing and often ignore eating them?

I guess the question is if you think we have some responsibility not to kill things because we're smarter than them and we can subsist off of a vegetarian/vegan diet. If you want to do so, more power to you. My girlfriend is a pescatarian and only gave up veganism because it's so hard to always find vegan meals in our current society. I am a meat eater of all sorts, including that which McDonald's sticks on a bun and calls meat.

I have thought about switching my meat diet to that which I can exclusively catch and hunt, but I suppose that's getting off topic.

I'm not sure what it is that's unethical about hunting. Is it the killing of an animal? Animals die and they have always died. There have always been predators and there have always been prey, and that dichotomy will likely never disappear. Deer populations overgrown result in people being trampled or cars hitting deer in the road. Wolves and coyotes will take livestock while boar will destroy land.

In all of this, in the hunting in USA, there are strict limitations in what can be hunted, with what, when, and in what amount.

I don't see what about hunting you suppose is unethical - unethical hunting is unethical. That is, riddling a deer with bullets that you can't properly place, taking an animal out of season without necessity, poisoning populations, etc All huntsmen should strive to hunt ethically with clean kills and make as much use of the animal as possible - but even if they don't make use of it, the environment will. Scavengers will eat the bits some hunters find undesirable, cleaning it down to bones which will then be reabsorbed into the earth as nutrients. The animal will be used.

[Eli Cash]

Clarifications:

I didn't spend 35 days in a tent. I spent ~70 nights in a tent. I spent the days mapping and covered well over 200 miles of hiking as per my GPS.

I don't recall using the terms moral or ethical and certainly did not isntigate the discussion with either term. I used "jack wagon" and it was edited to those terms. If you don't get that you have not followed close enough as that was point number 1.

Not a troll but did spend some time hanging out under bridges with Budweiser and buddies

EC

[Art Eatman]

70 nights in a tent? 'Scuse me, I'm underwhelmed. What does that have to do with the ethics of hunting? I spent nine damned months in a squad tent in Korea, but that's got damn-all to do with anything regarding ethics.

Homo sap's an omnivore. Some of us meat-eaters are do-it-yourselfers. So? Some folks have gardens. Otherwise, non-hunters and non-gardeners are just hiring somebody else to do the scutwork.

Ethical hunting is not about obeying game laws so much as understanding why they have been enacted. There are reasons. Ethical hunting merely means fair chase of an animal which could escape, and where the hunter makes a clean kill in order to minimize suffering.

Anything much beyond that is just mental masturbation.

[spaniel]

"I had been on several "hunts" up to about 16 yrs old. Only an experience at ~10 years old was a kill involved."

Wait a minute. According to you, hunting is no harder than walking up on game and putting a gun to its head. So each and every one of these "hunts", as you call them, should have resulted in a pile of kills.

I find little more annoying than people with absolutely no actual experience with a subject sitting in high judgement of those who do. Spending all summer trotting around remote public land gives you absolutely no knowledge of what it is like to get close to highly pressured animals during November hunting season.

It is clear that you have a negative opinion of most of us here. So why are you here? Are you the type that simply likes to stir up trouble and enjoy negative attention? Because you don't seem very open to actually learning from people with real experience in the matter. Your mind is as closed as a vault.

[Kreyzhorse]

One needn't have experiences to understand they would not enjoy them. I KNOW I wouldn't like a homosexual experience and prefer not to try it.

The point of course isn't if you would enjoy it, it was if you could actually do it. Those are two very different actions.

And if this is the best retort you can come up with, you have proved your real mettle and intent.

[Tuzo]

Consider these points:

70 days in the field and sleeping in a tent resembles a extended standard summer field geology course. This does not qualify a geologist as a field expert, merely means they are often outside.

Ethics refers to behavior within an established code of conduct, not whether an act such as hunting is intrinsically right or wrong.

I know what I am talking about because I am:

1. A registered professional geologist with 30+ years experience.
2. Field work (boots in the boonies) spanning western US, southeast Asia, and central Asia. Sometimes I slept under the stars because a tent was not comfortable.
3. A moderately successful casual hunter who eschews camo and does not equate professional field work as a qualifier for judging hunters.

This thread has become rather pointless with little to no educational or informational value. Almost like good old "Gecko 45" without the entertainment factor.

[Eli Cash]

Sorry I can't respond to very post and it's getting repetitive.

I'm outta here


Thanks again,

See ya around the pistol forum.

Adios,

EC

[Panfisher]

OK I got a laugh out of all this, I don't care if someone wants to refer to me as a "jackwagon", been called much worse. The whole "Hunting is ridiculiously easy" thing tickles me too, reminds me of days when I see an NFL player drop a pass that was perfect, I yell at the TV and say things like "Sweet mother, how could he drop that pass, it is ridiculous, I could catch that thing all day long and twice on sunday". I've caught footballs before, I've been on a football field, therefore I KNOW about football. Sorry dude, you are more than welcome to your views, if you don't want to hunt and can easily get that close to animals you should be able to make a pretty good living as a photographer.

[Againstthewind]

I got a kick out of the Jackwagon conversation. My wife has been calling me a jackwagon for years. I thought it was her thing, but I hear it more and more. It is certainly older than the youtube video.

[Againstthewind]

I just wanted to say that this forum has been tolerance of my soap box moments, and I appreciate it. It kindof feels good and cathartic to vent sometimes, even if it makes no sense. I wanted to say here that I agree with what a lot of the post said. I am glad the OP is not reading anymore, he would have a ball editing my stuff. Coherent thought? Not from this guy.

http://wgfd.wyo.gov/web2011/hunting-1001861.aspx
Here are Wyomings Harvest surveys. Elk success overall about 46% with almost 18 days per harvest, cake walk. I am not sure if my math is right, but if you were to go hunting with your buddy for nine days, one of you would get an elk and one wouldn't. If things held out for the average. Mr. Eatman pointed out that hunters have various degrees of skill, too. Nine days of elk hunting is pretty rough on anyone. Not exactly like shooting your neighbor's dog. To say that the animals don't know that two forward facing eyes, walking on two legs, with a boom stick is trouble for them is disrespecting the animal too much. They are smart enough to know that when they start hearing the big booms, they need to be more cautious around people. Sure in the spring they are all lovey dovey and cute hanging out in your yard (another problem area someone else pointed out), but once one in the group goes down, they know what is going down. I have had elk stick around after one of their herd goes down, but I thought of it more as group compassion and concern, not knowing what to do to help instead of being stupid. They are far from stupid, and the predators that hunt them are even smarter. They have to be.

I love venison. It is tasty. I am not an expert, but Inuit's diet was primarily meat for centuries wasn't it? Buck made some good points about gorillas and chimpanzee's diets. We are omnivores. We have the teeth for it and the digestive system. Humans have been eating meat since we were all hunter/gatherers. I am pretty sure it is natural to do so. Buck460 made some good comments about the various homo's (that is not the correct term, is it?) learning to cook meat and veggies, and how good the protein is for us, and the Northern climates requiring more calories, and protiens. Along those lines, Wyoming's climate is not very well suited to growing veggies and fruits (well most of the state). There are places where they are lucky to get three frost free months. We are good at growing grass, so grazers like sheep, beef, deer, elk, antelope, these are our natural resources.

There was another good point about the impact of farms. Pesticides, dams, lack of diversity in crops, loss of habitat, etc. Transportation, roadways, infrastructure, fuel, electricity to microwave your vegan veggies. There is a lot of impact there, too. Not sure where I am going with this, but farming implements are dangerous to the humans using them, even more so to the field mice and whatever caught up the fields.

Cruelty to animals was brought up. Hunting is conservation. Without the management that goes on, the animals would starve, succumb to disease like chronic wasting disease, roadkill, etc. That is cruel. Seeing deer after a after a hard winter is pretty sad. Without hunting they would overpopulate until they starved and the would cycle that way. That is pretty cruel. I think it was Buck again who brought up the lack of other predators. People are part of the ecosystem, part of nature, and we are learning (sometimes by disaster) how to be better stewards of the land.

There are absolutely bad eggs in the bunch. That is unfortunate, but unavoidable with any group. Most of the posts on here were from responsible hunters who enjoy it. I enjoy hunting and try to be responsible. I have left some meat in the field. I was with a successful hunter in Grizzly country, and Mr. Griz got there before we got it all out. No contest. Sweet little guy probably wanted to give us a big ole bear hug. Not only is it illegal to waste game meat, but by the time all the costs are figured in, you need every pound to break even.

I usually hunt for the meat, but a population needs far fewer males than females to be healthy. The TV shows can be a little much, give some fuel to the anti-hunter fire. They are geared towards getting the trophy it seems. They try to show being responsible and everything, but I can see how they could be fuel for the fire, so don't watch them. I had better edit myself and not say my thoughts there. I am learning, slowly.

Trophy hunts bring in a lot of money to my state. The hunts should be fair chase, though. The farms where they grow huge whitetails and then bring in the film crews, that is more along the shooting not hunting lines. The feral pigs, now that is crazy. Trophy pigs are sometimes domestic ones that are fed till they are huge then let loose. Like a four legged Three Mile Island running around. I thought feral cats were bad.

One last thing ... it was brought up about how having a chance to kill an animal and killing one were very different. I agree. I have hunted all my life, am proud of my family's hunting heritage, hunt for meat to feed my family, and still it is hard to make the kill. It is really no small thing. So basically I don't care if he was baiting us all into a fight (I have done it) some good points were brought up. I do love a good fight, too. I really need a hobby for the winter. Sorry about that. Crap apologizing while you are doing it is arrogant, too. I will work on that. See I am learning, just slowly.

[shortwave]

IMO, it was clear from the opening post that the OP was only out to state his disdain for hunters. It was apparent from the tone of his subsequent posts that he did not want to have a discussion, but rather, had his mind made up and was just looking for an argument.

Similar to a rabid anti-gun person that has their mind made up about guns
that wants to strike up a gun conversation with a known pro-gun person. They really don't want to hear the 'other side', let alone valid points made by the other side ...they just want to argue. No sense in giving the satisfaction or engaging in a conversation with a person like that...Just a waste of time.

My only suggestion for the OP is that before he chastises hunters as a whole, he should do some research as to the conservation and conservation programs that are paid for by the millions of dollars generated by hunters. Maybe the next time he is out in the field enjoying the wildlife he encounters, he might think of thanking hunters for the opportunity to enjoy what he's enjoying. Most likely it is hunters money that is helping pay for it.