Hooray for Ontario Liberals!

[DICK]

Craig and Gina, like BommerD stated earlier, we are buddies again. No hard feelings.
Happy Holidays!!!

[mwrager]

Thanks Cougra for the info, everyone I know uses 100% of every animal that we harvest. Even the feet. We give the to a Native American Tribe. They use them. I guess the only thing we don’t use is the guts. Yes the people that only hunt for the trophies does make me upset. But they still do a service for nature.

[ScottT1980]

I have steered clear of this thread by my controversial comments in another thread...

I think the Native Americans had it right in regards to their treatment of a "kill." THey showed respect and gave thanks to the animal that has provided them a couple more weeks without starvation. Of course, times are quite different now but you get the idea...

I come from a very "machisimo" family of BIG hunters and in my childhood, I hunted quite a bit. These days, I go very rarely and to be honest, I do not really enjoy it. However, with me, there is some sort of monetary importance to hunting. I make VERY little money and so I venison or turkey or dove/quail meat is always in my freezer. With the price of beef these days and my very minimal graduate school income, this is a good way to save money (plus, I like the way it tastes).

I think hunting can be done in as ethical a fashion as killing a cow in the slaughterhouse (which I have unfortunatly had to go to almost once a month for the past year and a half). I do know hunters that hunt only for that trophey but almost all I know are really upset if the kill is not "clean."

As far as it being more humane than what goes on in nature, well, I guess that involves a bit of anthropomorphication. In fact, I have heard different points of view from different biologists (and some philosphers) on the matter and the argument pretty much falls in line with this discussion here on RS.

A interesting philosophical argument that is always made (and a valid one) is to hypothetically assume that a higher lifeform from a different planet landed on earth and began to "harvest" the inferior humans as food. While the gaps in this argument are fairly obvious, it does make a pretty good point.

Interesting that this topic also appeared in my Vet school application a couple of years ago. To preface, it essentially asked how I (or any vet) can justify helping to preserve the life of client A's poodle while also helping out the beef, pork, and poultry industries. Again, you can see the obvious "loopholes" in the question but the underlying philosophy behind the question really is tough...

Just some thoughts...

Take er easy
Scott T.

[Craig Manoukian]

There is nothing humane about death in nature. Just look at the way a dominate fish will pick to death another fish. Shredding it's fins and slowly bludgeoning it to death.

I won't go into any other details but the animal kingdom is a very violent place. Where we get confused is when we try to humanize the animals around us, just can't be done. Why do fish flee with such vigor when they are diseased or injured and we are just trying to catch them for their own good?

Originally posted by Craig Manoukian
There is nothing humane about death in nature. Just look at the way a dominate fish will pick to death another fish. Shredding it's fins and slowly bludgeoning it to death.

Absolutely. Nature is not humane. That is because only man has the capacity to be humane.

I won't go into any other details but the animal kingdom is a very violent place. Where we get confused is when we try to humanize the animals around us, just can't be done.

Absolutely. Being humans gives us the ability to understand that cruelty is wrong. We are "the moral animal".

Why do fish flee with such vigor when they are diseased or injured and we are just trying to catch them for their own good?

The answer is very simple:

Where we get confused is when we try to humanize the animals around us, just can't be done.

We can't humanize fishes. Fishes don't have the civil human understanding of medicine or health care. Man would flee as well if he didn't understand your hand was meant to help rather than harm.