An argument against a hunter?

[alotofquestionsallthetime]

My BIL (SIL DH) is a hunter. He spends THOUSANDS going to Scottish Isles, Norway, etc. to hunt animals. He pays people to track the deer (literally no idea what this means) and then he shoots it. I find it really sadistic.

Now, we are all meat eaters (except PIL as of recent) and I understand there's a bit of hypocrisy here. So I just would like to debate the topic.

From my perspective, shooting an animal for fun when the meat is readily available in a butcher/supermarket is WEIRD. You get joy/achievement/accomplishment out of hurting an animal? I would entirely understand if you needed it to survive or if the meat wasn't as available (i.e. people living in the middle of nowhere) but he does it purely for fun. He has said this.

Thing is, if I had to kill my own meat I probably wouldn't eat it. I could still eat fish, I don't feel much emotion towards a salmon (is that bad?) but I would struggle killing any animal. I think people who do it for a livelihood have to condition themselves and it is a necessary job that someone has to do. That is entirely different.

So what is your opinion on someone who kills animals such as deer/goat/other wildlife depending on country purely for fun?
(FWIW, he does eat the meat)

Exactly what Twit said, OP.

Plus, I'm fairly sure there have been research reports showing that fish feel pain (when fished with hooks, as opposed to being suffocated to death when being pulled out of the water in huge nets) - but of course, as fishing is a sport for the "masses" no one ever discusses the cruelty involved in that.

But yes, you are a crashing hypocrite, and I wouldn't raise this with BIL unless you want him pointing that out to you. Fairly certain it's the chase and the skill required that he's savouring, not the actual moment of killing, unless there's a massive drip feed coming

Venison is lovely ...

Oh and foxes are a bloody menace. I think I could shoot a fox

Until animal farming gets its house in order I struggle to give a shit about fox hunting, tbh.

Don't get the issue. You don't like it don't go, don't talk about it.
He enjoys it, eats the kill, pays good money into a local community and performs a service they would be doing anyway.

Yes he's not asking you to go with him I presume

We spent thousands of years evolving. We personally hunted for 99.99% of that time. I'm pretty sure that getting a dopamine hit for a kill had a say in humanity's survival and success.

In evolutionary terms, we are primed to kill animals. It's only in very recent society terms that it's become distasteful. There's an awful lot of Jungian shadow talking on this thread; accusations that people who take pleasure or satisfaction in killing an animal to eat must be psychopaths, weird, or some such. You can find the behaviour weird or unpalatable, sure, (and I wouldn't choose to do it) but I think it's repressed shadow if you think an innate satisfaction in killing for food isn't likely to still be present in modern man's genes. Evolution didn't work that quick! Fair enough we all have a choice to act on it but give me somebody who acknowledges that the drive is there any day over somebody who won't.

It's not the hunting leading to food argument.(which generally I don't have a problem with, apart from driven grouse and pheasants, but that's a whole other argument) It's the fact that he enjoys killing another living thing for fun. It's deer and rabbits now, how long till it's something exotic and endangered? If it's the thrill of the chase get a pair of bins and a decent camera.

OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow it's a hell of a leap from quarry that are abundant to the point of excess to exotic and rare. I know a great many people who go on pheasant shoots. I know none who have gone on to shoot exotic and endangered animals.

From the news reports, the people who go to shoot a lion, giraffe or whatever tend to be highly paid male executives without a background in hunting or shooting. It's a dysfunctional response to a dysfunctional and highly unhealthy lifestyle IMO, and I think that's very different from somebody who enjoys stalking and hunting because they're in touch with that side of being a human, and who carry out their hobby in sustainable and responsible situations.

It's the fact that he enjoys killing another living thing for fun.

You never see posters saying "Love killing ? Become a slaughterman." do you ?

I think your position is even worse. At least your BIL is honest. It’s like saying ‘I’d never kill a person myself but I’m fine with someone else do it to benefit me’. Either you think it’s wrong to kill animals or you don’t. At least the animals your BIL kill love a better life and die a relatively better death than the animals that are butchered for the meat you eat from the supermarket. (Never hunted myself btw so no bias).

OP said he's happy to spend thousands travelling for a shoot, to me it's not such a leap. Shooting, and killing something for fun, not food, to me personally, whether it's a deer, rabbit or lion, is equally as distasteful.

Animals killed by hunters or on shoots have a far better quality of life up until that point than a hell of a lot of animals farmed for their meat. If he eats the meat, then I don't see any problem with it whatsoever. I also think anti-hunting meat eaters are hypocrites, for what it's worth.

I do however agree that hunting for sport if you have no intention of eating the meat is horrid.

No type of hunting appeals to me. I don't like guns. I don't object to all sport hunting, but I do object to:

getting the animal exhausted (chase with dogs):
long period of the animal being tortured effectively (baiting);
when species is in any way endangered;
hunting prey species (eg., big cats);
irresponsibly = wounding but without effort to finish the kill;

I don't mind one guy with a gun & a dog who makes sure to track an injured animal (eg. a stag) & dispatch it if the first shot didn't kill it. Or small hunter groups similar to that.

We have close family members who hunt. Ducks, deer, whatever is in season for hunting. They also eat everything they hunt.
prepares and packages for the freezer.
I'm not a hunter, not interested at all. I don't find it cruel, they make clean shots and the animals have a good life until death, better than farm animals do.
As kids our neighbor hunted rabbits, he used to sell them to us, he'd skin and clean them and we ate them.
I have found from chatting to people who don't agree with hunting that they are either vegitarian/Vegan which is fair enough or they have grown up disconnected to where food comes from. They only saw it clean and packaged ready to cook. I grew up living next to an abbatoire and it was all part of everyday life.

Sorry the butcher prepares and packages the deers for the freezer.

I'm a drama queen why? For telling people where their cheap chicken comes from?!

I'm also vegetarian and agree with LilaJude.

I draw no distinction between killing for sport, and killing for gluttony. Or, for that matter, killing for fur.

as long as the animals he shoots are not endangered and he eats what he kills its all good, the money the estates/parks etc raise by allowing hunters to cull select animals, which are raised for this purpose, help run and maintain the area, so its not just him who benefits from the "thrill" but the entire estate, workers and animals alike...

@OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow

OP said he's happy to spend thousands travelling for a shoot, to me it's not such a leap. Shooting, and killing something for fun, not food, to me personally, whether it's a deer, rabbit or lion, is equally as distasteful.

Fair enough on travelling and spending that much money. I wonder if OP is still around and can tell us what he goes to shoot when he's spent so much and traveled so far?

I respect your right to find it distasteful. I do too if I'm honest. But I don't really feel i'm being logical or fair feeling like that if the dead animal is then used for food (which I think his are..?) even when he's doing it not for food but because he enjoys the killing aspect. If the net result is 5 rabbits in the pot, well, ethically I'd rather that than one £2.50 intensively farmed chicken.

Yes, if he's killing just for pleasure and the animal is being wasted then yes, I would find it distasteful.

On the wider note of killing big game like lions and giraffes, I have heard several documentaries that talk about the benefits to the area from big game hunting. Sick sounding Tourists pay a lot of money to be taken to shoot a lion. Some of these reserves are very well run, and part of that is to keep all the different animal populations in balance through culling. The (not inconsiderable) funds from allowing a tourist to shoot an animal who needed culling anyway go back into conservation work, and an expert is with them to make sure an animal isn't left injured and suffering. Whilst I find a tourist shooting big game really fkn distasteful (anybody who thinks they're the BIG I AM after using a bullet in an unfair fight...) I was at least pleasantly surprised to hear that at least in some areas this weird obsession is being used to bring money into conservation work, and is being carefully managed. I still can't bring myself to condone the people who want to travel and spend £££ to do that sort of thing though.

Op - why on earth would you describe yourself as a pescataian when you're not?

Fucknuggets - organic dairy has nothing to do with animal welfare. The cows still get antibiotics when they have mastitis, for example but the milk is flushed down the drain for longer than in non-organic farming. I'm not discrediting organic btw - I'm just saying it doesn't improve the life of the cow.

I eat meat but not very often. When I do it's high welfare and locally bred if possible.
However hunting when not for survival (food/local environment) is disgusting.

• Fox hunting is my special hatred. Not only is it the destruction of beautiful native wildlife, it's the hunters and their mockery of the law and the fact they get away with it every time. They always give a pathetic excuse like it was an accident or they need to protect chickens etc. How about you protect your chickens better!
• Pheasants are a non-native bird that people blast regularly out of the sky. Native birds of prey are poisoned to protect these pheasants just so some idiot can waft a gun about.
• people who pay for someone else to do all the skilled work of hunting just so they can pull the trigger are especially weak and must love the fact they've murdered something.

Basically they don't understand where people who hate it are coming from and while I would suggest getting the crayons out to explain it to them, they probably still wouldn't get why it's wrong.

I’ve recently become vegan because of the enviromental damage farming does, including fish farming.
I’m not sure that hunting is that hard to understand. It’s not for me, but I can see how provides a fun day out, tapping into some baser instinct. Same as boxing or gambling or anythif else competitive.
I definitely think everyone should have an idea of how the easy clean meat and dairy got to the plastic packaging in the supermarket though. If the idea of hunting is abhorrent I can’t underatand how you continue to eat meat.

I’ve recently become vegan because of the enviromental damage farming does, including fish farming

I have been talking to a long term vegan friend who has ruefully decided that she may as well be a Breatharian (yes, she was joking). She has done a lot of research into the origins of her vegan foods and is dismayed! Between the laboratory origins of some of the staple vegan foods and the animal based controls used on crops (fertilisers etc) she is no longer convinced that veganism is the answer.

She has come to the decision that vegetarianism may be less demanding of the planet and that low meat eating may be the way forward - to get the best global outcome.

As she is a PhD in plant biology specialising in low impact crops I have surprised myself by wholly agreeing with her.

But that won't stop DH shooting rabbits for local farmers, pigeons too. - that is arable farmers. We usually eat what he kills, even sell on to friends. That way DH gets his expenses covered and the farmer gets his crops protected!