It must be duck hunting season.

[elocs]

It's 6:30 a.m. and I am being awoken to the sounds of rifle shots on an otherwise quiet and peaceful Sunday morning. It must suck to be a duck and to be flying around and then Ker-Blam!, down you go. I wonder how it can be called sport when the loss for each side is so different. I mean, all the hunter has to lose is some by the water, if the duck loses it loses its life. Now if the duck could drop bombs or shoot missiles, then that would be sporting.
Of course, the euphemism now is not "hunting", but rather "harvesting". Actually, I have more respect for people who are honest and say that they just like to shoot things rather than that they love to commune with nature.

[Callalily]

1. Hunting is quite a

controversial topic in this area. I can't hear the guns during duck season, but deer season, yes, first crack of dawn, bam, bam, bam!

The thing that upsets me is that now eight year olds can be carrying weapons, albeit accompanied by an adult. But eight is far too young to be hunting, to be trained to kill.

Picturing your duck/gun/bomb scenario. Rather humorous.

[alphafemale]

2. ehem...It's RABBIT season

[trof]

3. I believe that's "Wabbit".

:-)

[Swede]

5. Well I'll be a dirty skunk.

[Dem2theMax]

20. Yep, it's 'wabbit.'

And here comes you-know-who.

[idgiehkt]

4. I worked for a guy who trained dogs to hunt.

He used painful techniques, but I didnt' know that til after I started there. I always had all these bodies of ducks lying around, and he would put them in this contraption like a catapult to fling them away so the dogs could chase them and learn to hunt. He was the nicest person you'd ever want to meet, to humans, and a total and complete bastard to his dogs.

I asked him where the dead ducks came from and he said alot of guys didn't want the ducks they shoot so he got them to use to train the dogs. To me that just flies in the face of reason. Kill something...for no damn good reason. It's like masturbation or something. If you aren't going to eat it, why would you kill it in the first place. It seems like killing the way a sociopath kills.

[elocs]

6. Let' be honest here...

there are very few people in this country who need to hunt in order to live. I have no problem with that. Man has wanted to be the #1 predator and doe not like competition and has severely reduced the numbers of any natural predators who might threaten that #1 position. Due to that, man now places itself in the benevolent position to "harvest" the prey in order to reduce their numbers. That applies here in Wisconsin in regards to whitetail deer, but it seems that at least you don't see much anymore the car that would parade around town with a dead deer tied to it. So hunting, which throughout the history of man has been used to feed people, has now become sport.

As a kid, I had never hunted, but my best friend did. One time he took me to his uncle's farm and was going to teach me how to shoot a rifle. Well, he needed something to shoot at, and there was this bird sitting on a fencepost. BLAM! No more bird. I swear that it struck me like a lightning bolt out of heaven. One moment there was this bird that could fly and sing and in the next moment it was totally destroyed and could never be put back together again. Life is easier to destroy than it is to save. From that moment on I knew that hunting was wrong for me. I remember an episode of the Waltons where John-boy had to hunt and his pa told him, "Life is sacred, son. We never take more than we need". I also think of the bushman in "The Gods Must Be Crazy" who apologizes to the deer after he has killed it, saying that his family needed to eat. There was no joy in the killing. There, even though there was hunting, there was a respect for life which those who kill now for sport, using their hundreds of dollars worth of equipment and weaponry, just don't seem to have. Certainly the hunters raise money for wildlife habitat, but it can hardly be call altruistic since the ultimate goal is to maintain the numbers of the prey in order to allow them to be hunted.

[XemaSab]

7. Ducks are typically taken with shotguns

:P

[Haole Girl]

8. "Harvesting"?

What a joke.

I secretly hope that all hunters who kill, simply for the thrill of killing, are cock roaches in their next lives. Did I say that out-loud?

[elocs]

10. Years ago I read a book by the late Cleveland Amory

called "Mankind". I think I remember something written in there about how when hunters die they should come back as the kind of animals they hunted and be hunted the same way. And, yes, "harvesting" is what they now call it.

[Fox Mulder]

9. There are guns blasting around here too.

That's been going on all day long. :grr:

I really hate hunting of any kind.

[elocs]

11. I live in the part of my city where the river and bluffs come together

and so I can also hear gunfire during deer hunting season. There was a case near here a year ago where a high school kid was scouting out places to hunt during deer season, using a video camera. Some guy who had been out hunting shot the kid and when the kid was laying there wounded the guy came up to him and said he would go for help. Instead, he went home and got ready to go to work. The kid died, but the incident was caught on tape. The guy who shot the kid was convicted and the tape was never seen. The old joke around here is that if you want to get rid of somebody, you take them out deer hunting. People who live in rural areas in Wisconsin live in fear during deer hunting season.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

12. I hope all the anti-hunting people on this thread are vegans.

I myself do not hunt. The only flesh I consume is fish, which half the time is fish I've caught and cleaned myself. I'm against canned hunting and any hunters who don't consume what they kill. However, for those hunters who do eat what they kill, I have far more respect for them than someone who sits at their computer, rails against hunting, and goes down to the Stop & Shop to buy a neatly presented hunk of dead cow.

The animals raised on the farms do not even have the chance that the hunted animal does. Those that eat them are just as responsible for their deaths, even if they believe they're not or that they could never kill an animal. Actually, those that consume animals, but could never physically connect themselves with the act that goes into it, the killing, the bleeding, the evisceration are far more dispicable than the hunter that feeds his family & friends with game.

[VeggieTart]

13. *raises hand*

Anti-hunting vegan here.

And bitch that I can sometimes be, I kinda like hunting accidents. I hope Harry Whittington thinks long and hard before going hunting again, much less with Tricky Dick Cheney.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

14. Okay, you're excused then.

Harry Whittington and Cheney weren't hunting. Releasing tame birds in front of somebody with a gun isn't real hunting. And how the hell Cheney managed to shoot him like that is beyond me.

I wouldn't wish a hunting accident on a real hunter though.

[VeggieTart]

16. Fine, they were target shooting

[SoyCat]

15. I agree. Totally. (BTW, same w/ me about eating fish and no other meat)

[XemaSab]

17. word

:thumbsup:

Oh, and I'm a vegetarian who is somewhat pro-hunting. Go figure. :shrug:

[elocs]

18. Sorry, that is a worn out argument that I have heard for decades,

and I don't buy it. If you read my posts they will clearly indicate that I have a problem with those who hunt for the joy and delight of killing an animal and for the sport, and that eating the animal is mostly secondary or not needed. If there are people who work in slaughterhouses who take joy in killing animals, then that is sick also. I am sure that there are many meat eating non hunters who would be upset if the meat they consume is not from animals which have been humanely slaughtered. Animals which are raised to be consumed would not even be alive at all if not for that fact.

Those who oppose hunting for whatever reason had better be living perfect lives in regard to their belief because it will be required of them and god forbid if they even have a watchband which has leather because they will have their entire belief system called into question and be accused of being hypocrites. I happen to NOT be against all hunting or the need for it, but I soundly reject the notion that those who oppose hunting must be perfect vegetarians or they are hypocrites. Those opposed to hunting appear to be held to a standard of moral perfection that is not required of others. As Democrats I am thankful that our beliefs are not held up to somebody else's notion and standard of moral perfection or else we can be accused that our beliefs are worthless and that we are hypocrites. (For instance: how many here rail against Walmart, yet somehow still manage to shop there, or to justify shopping there? Should they not be held to the same standard of moral perfection that is required of those opposed to hunting? It does not take too much imagination to come up with other valid comparative examples.)

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

19. Sorry, but your argument is very worn-out.

If you read my posts they will clearly indicate that I have a problem with those who hunt for the joy and delight of killing an animal and for the sport, and that eating the animal is mostly secondary or not needed.

If you read my post, you would realize I agree with you there.

I am sure that there are many meat eating non hunters who would be upset if the meat they consume is not from animals which have been humanely slaughtered.

Well, then I hope all of those people (including you) exclusively give their buisiness to free-range farmers. I'm sure someone with your high ethical standards would not purchase any products which have come from factory farms.

Animals which are raised to be consumed would not even be alive at all if not for that fact.

You call that a good argument? That's the equivilant of saying we need to have more babies, because if we don't those babies will never be born. Yes, animals which are raised to be consumed would not be alive, if not for the purpose of slaughtering, but what is better? To never be born or to live out a life for the sole purpose of being killed?

Also, you still haven't addressed my point that I believe people should not consume animals, unless they can HONESTLY say that they could take that animal's life and clean it themselves, regardless of whether or not they actually do. If you feel that you could slaughter and clean that cow, then I have no problem with you eating that cow. If you couldn't emotionally handle that, but can handle having someone else do the dirty work for yourself, then no, you really don't have an ethical reason for consuming that cow.

[Redneck Socialist]

21. So it's ok to kill animals if you *don't* get any pleasure out of it...

i.e. strictly for food, presumably by a butcher, but someone who shoots a handful of ducks a year is bad?

If that's your argument, I gotta say I don't buy it.

[VeggieTart]

23. Slaughterhouses are the worst

I don't know if it's out of joy or out of frustration, but the worst treatment of the animals--even free-range animals, takes place when it's time to kill them. I suggest you read Gail Eisnitz's Slaughterhouse for a chilling view of what really goes on.

P.S. My watch is all metal. I don't wear silk, wool, leather, or fur.

[benny05]

22. Does that mean Cheney will be in your neighborhood soon?

Since he and W are ducks?