vodkayou
130857
1804
169
Apr 8, 2018 5:20 AM
vodkayou
130857
1804
169
geiokami
Used to hunt groundhogs at a very small airport here in Texas, the place was so overrun with them they would pay you for every one you kill.
SadieMuffins
Except hunting of Apex predators. That has cascading negative consequences.
drowningfishy
IF hunting is cruel but how about those special hunting periods designed to take out sick populations of animals example wasting disease.
therobisaur
Yes but it doesn't mean that it isn't abused and if it weren't for us, the populations would be fine. We inhabit their land, mind you.
IamJustinSane
Tl;dr. So hunters messed up the wildlife so bad that we had to create parks and conservation efforts to undo the damage we caused? Congrats?
PirateFroglet
Yeah, my issue is the phrase 'for centuries'. Then says it started around 1870s and 1901. If it had been centuries, we'd have more species.
UnsecuredWifi
You have to kill them or else they’ll die.
whoopsywoo
hunting is evil, I get all the nutrition I need from my freezer full of dead hookers and runaways.
Seggs
which, some might argue, is also a conservation effort
atlossforwords
but you do hunt them? or are they road kills?
whoopsywoo
grass feed and free range.
SgtThunderfistMD
Tunaccat
Like God intended.
Munchman347
I'm a hunter, but the notion that all our game will 'die off' without hunters is ridiculous. Game animals existed for millennia without us.
SomethingSomethingTraLaLa
An interesting side effect of conservation for game meat is certain species have been preserved that might not have survived otherwise.
gmoney88
I heard a comedian say that. “If we want to save polar bears, we should start eating them” It’s true
00110001001001111010000110110110011
We need to eat more wild meat.
LlamaLingo
Conservation without hunting is possible though.
coloradostoneman
tricky. either you have more predators than you really want or you are overwhelmed with deer. I know this from my back yard
CyborgScribe
I don't get hunting. This frames it as a service but most people I have met who hunt treat it as a hobby. Which is what I don't get.
Treblaine
Those aren't mutually exclusive concepts. You don't have to do find a beneficial practice to be an unpleasant chore you wouldn't do if not.
Treblaine
*have to find a beneficial practice
AlrightKeepYourSecrets
There are strict rules they follow and it helps the environment in a way, plus they enjoy it. Whats not to get?
CyborgScribe
Why killing living being is fun. That's what I'm not seeing.
CyborgScribe
I think I can relate to the challenge aspect but having to harm creatures is a real turn off for me.
AlrightKeepYourSecrets
Oh ya me too. On the one hand i think i’d enjoy hunting but the killing itself im not sure i cpuld even do. But i GET it.
Atomsk
Misleading: just hunting doesn't lead to preservation, it leads to extinction. Only preservation preserves nature and sure, you can do 1/2
Atomsk
some hunting alongside as well. However it's definitely not the "great glorious hunting" that does the work. 2/2
McFluffySundae
Yeah maybe in this country but not in other countries where none of the money goes to the animals due to corrupt governments and assholes
Wetspaghetti
In large parts of Europe hunting is actually necessary. Lack of large predators makes hunting needed as a form of population control.
leroy666
Where did the large predators go? We already know the answer to that, don't we.
dakotan25
Been hunting my entire life. Hunters are NOT the biggest conservationists. Some care, but nowhere near everyone. Not even close.
Namotatop
tl;dr: Hunting itself doesn't preserve wildlife for shit, but most hunters also care deeply for natural habitat and fight for it's survival.
CardboardStomach
In the case of many overpopulated invasive species, it does indeed preserve the indigenous wilderness.
Rampaigekidd
We conserved the shit out of white rhinos
davingzhxjfjfoco
"hunters are the biggest advocates of conservation"..."paedophiles are the biggest advocates of youth clubs"logic yay!
whatswithallthesheeple
False moral equivalency, yay!
CyborgScribe
He says it was an example of that sort of logic. You were the only one being misleading by falsely claiming he was making it equivalent.
failedtodelete
1 Biggest? No. But I think you'd be wrong to believe that responsible hunters don't care for the idea of conservation
failedtodelete
2 I understand that it looks and sounds very disingenuous, but responsibly managed hunting can ensure that environments are funded
failedtodelete
3 and therefore protected and managed, and that animal populations are therefore protected.
failedtodelete
4 Responsible hunters would recognise the fact that regulations and rules allow them to keep doing their hunting despite restricting it some
Filoni
"Romanizing nature throughout America"?
LittlemissEm
" Disputed those to the states" as apposed to distributed. Let us not use words we don't know.
GriffCannon90
I always read this in the voice of a sassy young John Cleese
TheVRay
Ave, true to Caesar.
MrDudeBroGuy
I should have you lashed to the cross, Profligate.
GadenKerensky
"Toss my salad, Caesar." And yes, I do know what that means. It's still an insult.
HarryTG
“The Department of Interior then disputed those funds to the states…”
fastfire57
That now goes into the GENERAL fund.
CaptainBlacklung
Hey Fuckers, just want to let you know that Coyotes kill children where I live. So if you don't think hunting is okay, I'm fine with 1/2
CaptainBlacklung
Letting the little fuckers go.
CaptainBlacklung
Or, I can keep hunting Coyote and getting paid to do it.
CaptainBlacklung
They have an insane over-pop issue where I am. We get paid $20 a head for Coyote.
UglyHorribleGrouchyOldMan
Must be nice, I take around 15+ a year, just trying to keep them out of the local farms. There plenty more, I just don't have the time.
CaptainBlacklung
Come on over to the BlueRidge Mountians. Plenty of Coyote to go around. And bears.
StinkFox
Hunting is not conservation without Roosevelt in the mix. Untaxed hunters would push species towards extinction like the American bison
failedtodelete
This. Hunting is OK when it is managed. It can even be beneficial to some species and habitats. But if we didn't set out to protect animals
failedtodelete
4) ... is sure to cause trouble in the long run
MarkRavingMad
Well regulated hunting: good. Unregulated hunting (historically speaking): not good. Makes sense.
failedtodelete
3) I think we have to look seriously at the way the ecosystem functions, too. Producing lots of grouse or whatever only to wipe them out
failedtodelete
2) From the likes of the hunters, we have previously and would again just wipe things out wholesale.
MissAizea
The number of deer we have now is about the same as the 1400s, their numbers got low when European settlers came and decided to kill 1/2
MissAizea
Everything. We don't really need hunters to control populations, predator populations have increased, but the money does help fund 1.5/2
MissAizea
Wildlife management, most hunters are responsible, but there are people who poach Willy Billy and even abandon the carcass 2/2
PirateFroglet
Except one of the things settlers almost killed off were the wolves, only to make a comeback due to conservation?
LordCarna
FYI, unsurprisingly the source for this is the NRA blog.
TeraDactyl
Fuck the NRA. Fuck them right in the dickhole.
octabeck
ah, maybe that explains why the entire first paragraph is a lie. i'm a lib in a big city and i've never heard anyone call for a hunting ban
leroy666
Hunters conserve, but its self serving. Conserve to conserve, not to provide targets.
althefonzo
CyborgScribe
Always consider the source. What is the agenda? What does the source want? To fail to do so is to make oneself easy to manipulate.
TheCarolingian
They were worried about overgrazing, bought in controls, now there are millions more animals grazing?
MissAizea
In the 1400s there was a similar estimated population, they aren't going to overgraze
PirateFroglet
Except 'in the 1400s' there are way more grazing land.
AlrightKeepYourSecrets
I guess its thinning out local populations the overall population grows...? Maybe its just that they were growing too big too quci.
Kaesh
Because most of the native deer species aren't pure grazers.
LordDebuchan
Yea I don't get it.
Hiynastrike
VENISON FOR DINNER
UglyHorribleGrouchyOldMan
2/ correction ***2-3 week mark***
UglyHorribleGrouchyOldMan
I have 4 deer hanging in my walk in right now. I break them down at the 2-3 mark and freeze. Best meat available.
ragekritz
Hunting isn't a problem poaching is
DudePlayinADudeDisguisedAsAnotherDude
Killing for sport definitely has ethical and moral implications that can be problematic.
ragekritz
*if the thing being hunted is endangered or threatened as a population then yes*
DudePlayinADudeDisguisedAsAnotherDude
Even if it isn’t. Ethicists wouldn’t stop at the endangered species, only.
ragekritz
why?
DudePlayinADudeDisguisedAsAnotherDude
Because killing, murder, death in general, life in general, etc, are all concerns with which ethicists engage.
boevis
Hunting isn't bad, per se, it's the big game hunting, and the ignorant "this thing is an animal, so I can kill it" hunting, basically
PirateFroglet
I think a better term is poaching, as opposed to simple big game. Like the other comments say, there are legitimate ways to hunt big game.
whoopsywoo
I may disagree with it ethically, but those hunters who pay for the permit to hunt those animals(past the age of fertility) put money into..
whoopsywoo
...conservation which benifits the population as a whole.
JoblessOcelot
What big game? Even exotic animal hunts like giraffes are part of this system. People pay out the ass to hunt old animals that can't breed.
JoblessOcelot
Did you mean poaching?
whoopsywoo
No, countries often sell permits to hunt older animals like lions who are past the age of breeding and compete with the young generation
breothskin
Have you been to Africa? I can assure you that you can get anything you want if you have money. The idea of control is pure smoke screen.
K8lyn8654
No its pretty much on the up and up, theres culls of nearly every kind of animal you could wish to hunt.
TanstaaflTovarisch
I don't think they did. They just don't understand that controlled culling actually helps those animal populations. (key word controlled)
boevis
If it was actually controlled properly and limited to only the weak/old. It's not.
TanstaaflTovarisch
Most countries (even in Africa) attempt to control it. But since most people don't know how important it is to control this they don't 1/2
TheRunawayFound
His argument appears to rest on the idea that we can’t protect nature unless it’s for hunters. Can’t we protect it for itself?
AlrightKeepYourSecrets
I mean getting the funding would be a lot more difficult, and it does little to no harm, so why not?
khazaria
Actually it's very easy. Most conservation funding is not for hunting purposes.
pleaseconsiderthatImightbejoking
We can, but we won't. People who protect nature for social reasons don't really care if it's protected, only that it appears to be.
Dopplerfart
That's totally true. The argument is: go out, kill an animal, then eureka, "see" it needs conservation. Lol...that is "curious"
Alahrek
What is supply and demand for $800!
minkeymagik
We have an obligation, as we have culled most alpha predators, to help keep the balance. One way to do it is hunting
Metronomicon
"For itself" typically means "for eco-posturing with no self-awareness", which is worse than hunting.
TheRunawayFound
No, it means ‘to retain clean, breathable air and balanced ecosystems for ourselves’. It’s self-interest for our species.
Metronomicon
Thank you for illustrating my point.
Carefuler
Ok, how are you going to manage population size?
mulanisnotaprincess
*purge siren wails*
Dopplerfart
Who said hunters should interfere in that matter? Do they calculate exactly how many they have to kill to balance it out?
Carefuler
Yeah, pretty much, and come up with the number hunters are allowed to take.
Dopplerfart
Yep. Exactly. They are ecologists now. Lmfao
Carefuler
Not the hunters nitwit. The Fish and Game Department.
Warpfactor999
Minnesota stopped hunting for 3 years. Deer population exploded on its own. Had to restart hunting to control population and save the herd.
Warpfactor999
This was in response to "do gooders" that did not understand actual animal conservation due to elimination of wild wolves as predators.
TheRunawayFound
That’s a complex, global issue. Caring for local nature isn’t.
Carefuler
Ok, how are you going to manage the local deer heard population?
TheRunawayFound
With hunting. But that’s managing nature WITH hunting FOR nature, not managing it FOR hunting. So it supports my point.
doctorbocker
You would still need to cull populations to keep them healthy.
Warpfactor999
Yes! Without natural predictors such as wolves, deer will quickly over populate a large area. Wolves are not welcome due to livestock issues
khazaria
This is true, but that doesn't mean hunting is done for conservation. I've never known a hunter who felt this obligation. It was for fun.
Dopplerfart
Exactly the point. Hunters kill for the thrill, most at least. I hardly think they are conserving nature-mind driven. That's bs
Enigmastick
As long as they are doing it legally, they are still conserving the nature because of limitations and other rules. Regardless of intention.
khazaria
Typically I find paths created by chopping down trees and brush, shells and bottles littering the area. Yes, the intent definitely matters.
Enigmastick
Littering is illegal though, so I guess my point still stands.
MerToo
I am willing to bet most hunters wouldn't give a fuck about any species they didn't personally like to hunt or not be killed by.
Dopplerfart
Yeah. Good point too.
pleaseconsiderthatImightbejoking
Nope. A healthy game population is dependent on a healthy ecosystem. You don't get to choose.
doctorbocker
That has not been my experience. Most hunters I know are genuine outdoors people, with an interest in all sorts of animals.
308Ryan
With respect, this is an uninformed thought, the department of fish and wildlife life monitors populations, and determined where the need...
308Ryan
... for population control exists. This determines what is hunted, and in what quantity.
TheVakarian
Some do, some don't. Fortunately, they don't get to decide where they fees for thier licenses end up.
Dopplerfart
Say the fees are the same for all animals, do you really think they'll ? Lol..
TheVakarian
They aren’t though.
Dopplerfart
Of course they aren't. What I am saying is that you remove that factor of that equation, what's your outcome ?