|
|
|
|
Youth crisis hot-line 866-488-7386, 24 hr (U.S.A.)
There are people who want to help you cope with being you.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
timmy
|
 |
Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
|
|
|
Apart from the glorious headline, how hard can it possibly be to point a gun at a docile creature?
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I have been hunting since I was old enough to carry a .22 rifle, and Jon and Daniel are the same. We have trained our dogs for hunting waterfowl and to retrieve, and Jonathan and I both live on farms with wildlife management programs.
The trouble with the white tail deer in the Eastern United States is that all their natural predators have been removed, and the deer populations are growing to the point where they really aren't considered wildlife any longer, but pests. It could be argued that man has also killed the preditors, but those preditors were also the preditors of humans and domesticaed cattle and animals. It's been estimated that deer cause over one BILLION Dollars in crop damage per year, and damage to automobiles in collisions. The deer populations have to be thinned, and hunting and culling is one way to manage this. All of the States realize the threat to agriculture that deer present, and deer seasons have been getting longer and longer.
Killing deer and allowing hunting across our farms and forested lands is neccessary to prevent severe crop damage. My family owns a Holstein dairy herd, and we also raise Angus beef cattle, and Berkshire hogs. Most of our feed grains are grown on our farms, and the amount of feed grains an average sized deer herd would consume in a season would represent a financial loss in the tens of thousands of Dollars.
When we guys hunt, we do so in the most humane way we can and Jon, Daniel and I make sure we have clear and clean shots before we pull the trigger. We don't leave wounded animals. We bring home and eat all the game we kill and freeze what can't be consumed immediately. All of us were enrolled in firearm safety courses before we were allowed out. We all hunt with high-powered rifles like my British .303, and 10 or 12 gauge shotguns, and .22 rifles, and Jon and I have .557 muzzle loading black powder rifle muskets which we use during black powder season. We all use bows during bow season.
In addition to deer, we hunt rabbit, pheasant, quail, ducks, geese and wild turkey. When we hunt, we actually hunt and don't just stand in a gun line and shoot the game as it's driven towards us, like on the big British estates. All of our tenents hunt as well and we retained hunting and fishing rights over the tenented farms my family owns. Jon's family did the same. These leases are written in language that's out of date now, and they all mention fox hunting and payments to the tenent for hunter's horses damaging crops. We haven't had a mounted fox hunt on our lands since the early 1920's but it was once a big sport here, with wealthy people coming on the train from the North. Waterfowl and land birds also need to be managed and hunted to prevent overpopulation.
I respect the people who are against hunting because they think it's cruel. I respect people who are vegans too. Some hunting is cruel and should be outlawed, like the clubbing of seals and things like that. But a true sportsman, and huntsman doesn't approve of killing just for pleasure. There is certainly a lot of pleasure in going out with your best buds, and the dogs, and working across fields and streams and woods, and there's sport in hunting I believe, and fishing too. Hunting has been a part of our local North Carolina culture since Colonial times, and I and my friends try to hunt in a way that hunting doesn't get a bad name.
[Updated on: Tue, 22 January 2008 18:01] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
People who dont hunt or farm would be amazed at the amount of damage a hurd of deer can do to a crop. My grandpa allows hunting on his land by friends and tenants. All the deer and fowl are eaten and nothing is just left to rot. What we dont eat and freeze the rest is given to people in need of food.
I hunt mostly with a bow. I go out with my uncle and some friends. Hunting with a bow takes real skill and a good aim. For deer I use a Wilson Compound with a 90 lb pull and 4 spar bull head arrows. In 5 years we have only hand one wonded animal and we tracked it all day and finished it. We dont leave wonded animals runing loose.
The only time I use a shotgun is for rabbit and squirl and pheasent. I dont do that much cause I dont like the noise. Because the major preditors are gone (we havent seen a bear around the farm in years), the rabbit and fowl populations are running rampant. Ever see what a bunch of rabbits can do to a vegitable garden? Ask my grandma. To allow the populations of deer and rabbit to just run unchecked would be desastrous for the animals and us. Guys like Eldon and Jon and me dont go hidding in a blind or up in a tree and set a trap and wait. We go out and hunt them. I hate to use the word fun, but in a way it is. Tracking a deer aint the easiest thing in the world. If they hear you coming they are gone in a flash.
Im like Eldon, I respect those who dont eat meat and dont like the killing of animals. If we didnt curtail the populations there wouldnt be any of the nice veggies and bread grains you like to eat. When I was real little I went out with my grandpa and saw the damage a hurd of deer did to a corn field.
People are saying leave them alone and they will take care of themselves. Thats just not true. With the major preditors gone the hurds just keep getting bigger. We used to see Bobcats around the farm but we dont anymore. Im sure they are there but they stay in the hills.
Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you......
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In regards to rabbits and the damage they can cause. The Australian members of the forum can tell you what a huge problem this species can be with no natural predators to keep the numbers in check. Domestic rabbits were imported to their country years ago and a few managed to get loose. They have bred to tremendous numbers and are to the point that they have caused ecological disasters. Whole species have become extinct by being unable to compete. Crop and erosion damages are unbelievably high. Check the Wikipedia to see the immensity of the problem.
We once had plenty of natural predators in the States to keep deer, elk and even rabbits in an ecological balance. The problem with the large predators though is that they couldn't recognize that domestic livestock and occasionally humans weren't an acceptable part of their food source. Ranchers and farmers, to protect their livelihoods, culled them way, way back. Today the hunter is the means of keeping the animals at an acceptable level. There are strictly enforced laws in effect to determine what can be hunted, when and how many animals can be taken. This is necessary to protect the animals themselves. When herds of animals get so large that the land can't sustain them then they starve. I've seen pictures of winter starved deer and it's obvious the suffering they underwent. 
I'm not a hunter, by choice. But I still respect those that do.
Youth crisis hot-line 866-488-7386, 24 hr (U.S.A.)
There are people who want to help you cope with being you.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I read in the hunting and game magazines that in Maryland the black bear population was protected for years and years from hunters because the State Game Management thought the species was in danger of extermination. Once they stopped hunting them, the bears bred to the point where now they're a menace and come into settled areas and eat garbage and make themselves sick. So this past season Maryland allowed bears to be hunted to start re-controlling the population again. We can hunt bears in North Carolina too. I ate bear meat one time but it's very fatty and nasty tasting. Curtis, we don't have bobcats on the coast anymore either, but I did hear and read that bobcats are coming back slowly all through the Alleghenies. So much of that is National Park, like out west of Asheville, and they can roam free out there.
|
|
|
|
|
Goto Forum:
|
] 
A Place of Safety
Search
Help
Register
Login
Home
Even preditory animals can bounce back. 
