Shooting animals for the sake of shooting them?

[ZeroJunk]

I like to hunt deer, quail,and rabbits. Coyotes like to eat fawns, rabbits, and quail. They also kill beagles occaassionally when they catch them out. House cats also, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it aggravates my wife. They weren't here until recently.

So, coyotes are persona non grata.

[zukiphile]

Originally Posted by 44 AMP

We used to call them "city hunters", and other less savory names.

I might be one of those.

I am a city lad. I grew up around people who thought squirrels and pigeons were "nature". I still live in the city and semi-regularly shoot skunks. I have small children and prefer to let them out without worrying about an enormous smelly weasel with rabies biting them. I've shot an irritating crow in town as well.

I also have to note that I did enjoy the challenge of shooting groundhogs out int he country. One had made its home in the ramp of our bank barn in the country. It seemed to know when I didn't have my rifle or had used my ammunition from my morning walk. He would just look at me from his hole. It took months for me to find him sitting, looking around, but not at me and when I had a round left.

Zuk, you just admitted to being regularly outsmarted by a rodent.

It isn't a proud moment.

[FyredUp]

I live in a small rural village in south central Wisconsin and the wildlife abounds here. It is not unusual to see anywhere from 4 to 7 deer make their way across my front lawn on any given day. Or to see numerous small birds, including 3 kinds of woodpeckers, at my bird feeder. Or to see the paw prints of racoons down by my pond. Or the occassional opossum roaming around late at night. I enjoy watching the redtailed hawks that perch in the trees around here and of late there has been a bald headed eagle soaring over the creek across the street.

I have dogs and quite a supply of outside barn cats. I have had to kill a couple of raccoons and a opossum with distemper that threatened my animals. The last opossun I shot was right on my front door step menacing my cats. I do not kill anything simply for the sport of it. If it isn't menacing people, my animals, causing damage, or I am not going to eat it...I don't kill it.

I may be unusual in the fact that I don't enjoy the killing. To me it is a means to an end, protection of life and property, and food. Nothing more. I enjoy the shooting sports, but to say you enjoy killing seems a little twisted to me.

[reloader28]

I dont care what some of you say, I love killing coyotes and foxes. We shoot as many as we can every year. They are not worth skinning, but there is a bounty on them. I love bird hunting and coyotes and foxes eat alot of them so why not shoot the coyotes?

If it was legal, I would shoot hawks ,owls ,and eagles too cause they also feed on pheasants and chuckars.

I dont just go around killing whatever I can, but its checks and balances. If a place is being overrun with something then it obviously needs hunted and put back in its place.

I hunt the fall and winter to fill the freezer. Then I hunt the rest of the year to protect the land (prairie dogs) and run varmint control with the "dogs" and jackrabbits.

I'm not so good at putting my feelings into words, but this is my feeling. I hope I dont come off as being a major azzhole, cause I'm also against animals suffering if you can believe that.

BTW...I cant help it. I love splattering prairie dogs all over the mound. Luckilly I'm protecting the land doing it.

[mnhntr]

If the yote poulation was naturally controlled they would not allow you to hunt them without season or bag limits. I hunt them and all predators for the selling of the hide and to increase the small game numbers. The more predators i kill the more ducks, turkeys, grouse, pheasant, and rabbits there are.

[FyredUp]

Again, I believe there is a HUGE difference between enjoying the shooting sports, pest control, and the necessary culling of the herd, and out right enjoying the killing.

I just see the enjoyment of the killing as somehow just so damn wrong. Especially, if that is your motivation for shooting an animal in the first place.

[KingEdward]

hunting is finding and killing an animal.

shooting a coyote is killing an animal.

stepping on a cock roach is killing an animal.

All of which I have done with no regrets.

I do know someone who chooses not to hunt, nor would they shoot
an animal, nor would they step on a bug.

to each his own.

[Patriot78]

I would say I am in agreement with 45gunner, geetarman and somewhat in Fyredup's position. I don't enjoy the killing/hurting of God's lil critters just for the heck of it. Those that do, well....... When it comes to the protection of my lil flock of chickens, peafowl or any of the other critters I enjoy raising, or the disposal of pests getting into the garden, well thats a different story, though I take no pleasure in the act itself. As an earlier poster mentioned, it wouldn't hurt US to be more sensitive toward the LIVES of these critters, given they are not being destructive.

[Brian Pfleuger]

I've hunted woodchucks for many years and I can safely say that I have no compassion for them whatsoever. I certainly do not revel in their pain and I make every effort to kill them as quickly as possible but I do thoroughly enjoy shooting them. In fact, I'll take every chance that I get to kill one. I'll swerve to hit them with my car. Their pests, nothing but, and I treat them as such.

It seems like there's two separate questions at play here.

One concerns "enjoying" killing, the other concerns "shooting for the sake of shooting". I don't "enjoy" killing woodchucks, but I most certainly do enjoy hunting them and I do it for no purpose OTHER than to kill them. There may be rationale for killing them, such as preventing damage to farmers livestock, crops and equipment, but MY rationale is hunting. Nothing more. Plus, it makes me laugh when they explode. <-CAUTION! GRAPHIC CONTENT!

[johnbt]

Would they let me hunt coyotes in Rock Creek Park in downtown D.C.?

From the Washington Post in 2004...

"Kathi Kolbe learned this the hard way. On Aug. 16, she and her son were walking in the northern end of Rock Creek Park, near Oregon Avenue. Their two King Charles spaniels roamed off leash nearby, something that is not allowed in the park but widely done. Suddenly, she heard barking, one dog ran back to her and then came the "brutal and gruesome" sounds of an attack.

She yelled out -- "Never, even in childbirth, have I screamed like that" -- and the second dog broke free. She looked back to the ridge where the sounds had come from and saw two forms that she now thinks were coyotes.

Her 30-pound dog, Tucker, had puncture wounds around his head and rump. He needed sutures for his wounds and would not leave the house for two weeks. Now, if Kolbe sees people taking dogs into the park, she warns them to keep their dogs leashed and close by. Park officials have posted warning signs. "

This is all old news, the east coast is overrun with the buggers, some of them topping 50 pounds.

____________

Overrun meaning a population of about 100,000 just in Virginia and a reported harvest of 20,000+ a year now.

http://www.predatorxtreme.com/Articl...nt.aspx?id=461

"Mike Fies, wildlife research biologist for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, told the AP that coyotes first became established in southwest Virginia in the early 1970s and have become increasingly common since. They have also moved into virtually every other part of the state. Hunting dogs all the way in eastern Virginia’s Southampton County routinely catch and kill coyotes.

While negative impacts have yet to be seen on game populations, the biggest problem is for livestock farmers. Foxes, both red and gray, tend to diminish when coyotes move in simply because they compete for the same resources and coyotes are larger, more efficient hunters.

For a reflection of how coyote populations are exploding in the state one needs to only look at harvest records. Hunters in 1994 killed 1,200 coyotes in Virginia; in 2006 they killed more than 20,000. The state’s current population is estimated at over 100,000."

[johnbt]

"it wouldn't hurt US to be more sensitive toward the LIVES of these critters, given they are not being destructive."

Not being destructive? That's funny. I suggest you get out more and talk to people about the problem.

John

[MosinM38]

*yawn* already posted once...but here goes for the second come around...

#1. Coyotes. Coyotes do NOT...have natural predators where I'm at. Human trapping, shooting, and calling is all they've got.

People look at calling and "Ooh it's a poor defensless animal"....I call the big word that would get me banned. You've obviously not seen all the coyotes called in. They border on deer-level intellegance when it comes. You don't see them if they don't want it, and it takes skill to call one in. They don't just wander in when a cassette tape is insert




#2. Praire dogs and gophers. Okay, I'll admit. We do that for enjoyment. But it's not the "ooh awesome. we KILLED something", reason.

We spend huge amounts of time and money on the poisening of them. We also spend large hours fixing their damage. Harm to grazing, destruction of crops (Ever seen a 120 acre Barley field MOWED by gophers? It's sickening), and the money we spend repairing machinary. I figure a roughly (Minimum) $5,000 yearly damage JUST to equipment from increased wear and tear, not to mention direct causes like broken guards and cutting teeth from hitting a gopher hole.

So, the shooting is a recreation. It hones skill by hitting a small target. And I think a large percentage of shooters get a kick out of seeing a target go flying a dozen feet in the air. But it's not the killing itself that's fun. Think multiplying reactive targets. I have no compunctuations because of all the extra trouble, hardship and expense they cause us.


What does disguist me on any, every and total level.

People who go out and pretend they're like all the other varmint shooters and predator callers, who do it FOR...the killing. Who do it just to enjoy killing something. Those are the same people who shoot a dozen deer in a year, cut off the horns and leave the bodies lay.

[Dragon55]

Nothing has been posted about what bugs me a little.

I totally understand most of the animals we hunt in the U. S. ......... we eat it or it is eating our livestock/poultry.

What I don't understand is when we travel to another country to do a 'big game hunt'.

I guess I don't understand trophy hunting of walrus, elephant, kangaroo etc.

[jhenry]

An African hunt? Now that would be a dream hunt for me. A nice plains game hunt can be had for less than the cost of a guided elk hunt in the states. The big stuff? Well that entails big bucks.

Not that I am complaining. I do after all, live in America, and hunt what we have locally. Quite enjoyable, and something I share with my friends and 2 sons.

My freezer just isn't big enough for an elephant anyway.

[reloader28]

I wouldnt mind going to another country to hunt if I could afford it.

As far as I know tho, you cant bring back any meat, just horns. All the meat goes to the local village for food, clothes, tools, etc..... Nothing is wasted, so I dont have anything against that at all.

[L_Killkenny]

As stated earlier, Coyotes = rats. Also, I could make a horrid shot on a coyote leaving it to die a slow and painful death and in the grand sceme of things actually reduce the amount of suffering in nature. Coyotes aren't very nice to critters it kills and they kill a lot more than I do.

LK

[HiBC]

Some folks,and I can think of a hog hunter who posts here who qualifies,include hunting,like a garden,as an excersize in home economics.It is cost effective.

Most of us who hunt cannot economically justify the meat/food factor.Few duckhunters bring home enough meat to pay for the cost of gasoline,non-toxic shells,and permits.But,bein there,calling them in,making the shot,and killing the bird is the point It is fun.It is less fun to miss the bird every time.Hitting and killing the bird is part of the fun.Or,are we honest?.Eating the duck,that is an extra bonus.

Calling in a coyote and killingg it is is the same.I just don't eat dog.
I also like coyotes.I love to listen to them,and I lke to see them.Someday,I hope they sing over me as they gnaw the scraps off my bones.

I recall going to a DOW conference on Colorado deer populations.Coyote predation was an issue.They said a mature doe was durable,but fawn predation was a real problem.Political correctness caused them to discuss coyote contraception,etc.But over break,unofficially,a warden told me he would prefer we killed all the coyotes we could.

They are smart and adaptable.I have witnessed them biting on a calf that was only partially born.the cow was helpless.I built my 7mm rem mag Laredo Coyote rifle
The city I live in started transplanting prairie dogs to a neighboring property.They infested the ranch I hunt on.This is dryland,arid.PD's shave the ground bare,carry plague,make a haven for rattlers,and put holes and mounds all over.They turn rangeland useless.You still pay taxes on it.

How does a fellow with hunting priviledges help out the landowner?If the land owner says "Shoot some coyotes and PDs,",I do.I'm not ashamed to say I have fun doing it.

If I have a mouse in the house,and set a trap,I fell good and smile,and say "Gotcha!
when I hear the trap whack.I like it when I slap a fly and get him.

But,I usually leave a rattler alone,and I release most fish.I'm real careful about not shooting the burrowing owls among the PDS,so I don't whack everything

[pier-rat]

Sadly, a lot of firearm enthusiasts are just rednecks. Read this site, you'll see, and they just promote the bad view of us, and promote liberals to make more gun laws.

When was the last time you heard about a coyote killing(or even attacking) a human, even a wolf? They don't they are to shy. Come on, in Tuscon, people see them downtown.

If it was a grizzly bear charging you then, that is that, but it is not. "Oh, no, look at that wild black lab, he's going to kill me, I have to shoot it!"

It is the same story with snakes(listen to this guys), I am a amateur herpetologist(one who studies reptiles and amphibians), and I'll tell you, snakes don't chase you or anything. Most people who are bitten are trying to kill the snake. Snakes only defend themselves, and at that, they don't chase you, if you are bitten thats, it, you have no reason to kill the snake, you just need to go to a hospital.

[N.H. Yankee]

i have so many coyotes around here there is literally nothing left as far as small game and the deer herd has taken a massive beating. I have found deer yards full of the remains of deer and have seen the attack sites by the coyote. Small pets are often the victim of coyotes around here and the turkey population has been decimated as well.

Behind my house there are nothing but massive coyote trails, the coyote around here has no natural enemy to control numbers. Man is the only form of population control in my area, I have 3 large packs all within 1 mile of my house and nothing else, they even killed a moose 2 years ago after a 3 day attack which I followed while snowshoeing.

[MosinM38]

Oh no N.H. Yankeee....that couldn't happen...don't you know that coyotes and wolves only attack WEAK...and SICK animals???????

Lol, just kidding. But you'll probably hear that here in a few posts.

No offence, but a few of you are speaking from knowladge gained from Enviromental ed programs, wildlife information shows, and the like.


The "Coyotes and wolves only kill the weak and injured", is one of the biggest myths out there. When the snow gets deep, they'll kill even full grown deer. A pack of a dozen coyotes will take turns tiring a deer in the deep snow...It happens. We've seen it.



As for the snakes...I know the MAJORITY of snakes won't attack...But from what I've seen, there's always that percentage that do. Just like humans who become criminals, there's peeved snakes.

There's been a number of times I come on a snake, and try to avoid them, but they get ticked and DO try attacking you. It's nothing to joke about, and I seriously wish people would stop saying they don't.

[ClayInTx]

Also, I believe SteelJM1 has been flamed enough, He apologized, and why I don’t know, but he did and it should end with that. He might have phrased his OP comments differently but I saw nothing to indicate he is a north-east, big city, do gooder liberal.

I go along with killing any animal which has become a pest, a danger, or an economic liability.

I have no use for anyone who kills for the fun of killing. If they are adults they are sick. If they are children they need straightening out and if they cannot be straightened out then something is very wrong with them or their environment.

[Uncle Buck]

Coyotes/fox/raccoons/skunks/possums - All get into my chickens, turkeys, geese and ducks. At what point do I say OK? How many do I lose before I can not make money on them?

Coyotes will attack young cattle (weak and helpless) that are either on the ground or being born.

Squirrels and mice get into my feed. I can only do so much to protect the animal feed I have. It is not economically feasible for me to put 2,000 pounds of corn in barrels or buy a silo to hold it. How much feed am I supposed to let get ruined? (They do not just eat it, the urinate and defecate in it.)

Ground Hogs, whistle pigs or what ever you want to call them, will put holes in my banks and fields. The cattle step in them and break legs, the wagons roll over the mounds and break axles.

Mink and weasel dig holes in the lagoon bank, weakening it. If the lagoon leaks into the nearby stream, the DNR fines me more than my property is worth.

Bobcats are beautiful, but when they walk off with my geese, what am I supposed to do?

Snakes make great pig food. I get pretty large snakes in my barns. They eat baby chicks and ducks as well as eggs.

Cats. I just lost four very expensive birds to the neighbors cat. I had talked to him in the past and he just giggled and said cats would be cats. I hated to do it, but that cat will not get another one of my birds. (That being said, I do have a cat that sits in my barn and just watches everything going on. Last night he (?) was curled up asleep with the baby goats.)

The only two things I hunt any more for food is squirrel and an occasional deer.

I take some pretty good measures to protect my other farm critters, but I am not going to fence in everything I own, with covers over every pen and electric wire on every fence post.

I am against putting poison out for these critters (It may be illegal, but I do not know) because I do not want them to suffer. But I will shoot anyone of them I see on my property. You can call me a redneck, but until you are ready to put up the money to make my animals safe, please do not judge me or any other farmer.

[Drachenstein]

Living in the country has its good points and bad points. The double edged sword is the great outdoors is one step outside your door. All the tree hugging, tofu eating, enviromentalism, isn't going to help the feelings you have when you find your pet of many years torn up in your yard. You also won't forget the look in your kid's eyes. If you think fences and such will keep them out you're a fool doomed to learn a hard lesson. An 8 foot cyclone fence is nothing to a coyote.

Yep, I got a .308 for coyotes, foxes, feral dogs, and possums. I use a broom on the racoons but will shoot them if they don't run off. Do I enjoy killing? No. But I enjoy burying my pets even less.

[Patriot78]

Thats it. I'm reporting y'all to PETA! Not. In my earlier post, I did not intend to insinuate that coyotes are not at all bad, rather, what I meant was that as long as they are not CAUSING DAMAGE I don't see any reason to kill them or any other critters for that matter. Call me Marty Stoeffer if you will, I just enjoy Our Wild America. "Til next time, enjoy our wild America". I loved that show.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Originally Posted by Patriot78

what I meant was that as long as they are not CAUSING DAMAGE I don't see any reason to kill them or any other critters for that matter.

Define "causing damage".

Coyotes can DECIMATE whitetail deer populations when the coyote population is out of control. How exactly do I tell which coyotes are "causing damage" and which ones aren't?

Do you know how you keep coyotes from "causing damage"? You kill them. They have no natural predators in most places. That means that they will multiply uncontrollably and only stop multiplying when they exhaust the food sources. In other words, when they decimate the populations of anything deer sized and smaller.

I'm not going to wait for that to happen. Actually, it's already happening. I WILL kill every coyote that I can get in my crosshairs, and it will lay there on the ground and rot.