To ask what you think about people hunting/shooting

[lorettalemon]

I was with quite a big group of people last night and some of them said that they enjoyed shooting (pheasants). Some of the rest of the group remained quiet and didn't say anything and I think they didn't want to argue. I quickly tried to change the subject because I had nothing polite to say.

I personally think that to blow creatures to bits, not with any intention of eating them (they said they had no idea what happened to them) for fun makes you a certain level of messed up in the head. It's lost on me how it's a sport. If you're intending to eat them, that's one thing, although hunting your own food isn't usually necessary in this day and age. Killing things because you enjoy doing it is absolutely lost on me.

I wanted to ask whether people generally think it's ok or not, because I can't believe that the majority of people can think it's ok!

Any driven shoot I've been on the carcasses were sold into the food chain and i understood that to be the norm

Which ones don't?

I don't have a problem with hunting to eat.

Hunting for fun is unacceptable though.

How does someone that’s only been a gamekeeper for decades find a job of comparable income? Their house usually comes with the job. Then all the other staff etc.

The same way that anyone does when an industry changes. I'm not saying it's easy but I don't think gamekeepers get special rules.

I've actually seen a game farm. The pheasants there are reared in outside runs with shelter. Once they go to the shoot, they are kept in pens for a while before being released.

I agree that all game shot should be eaten. A lot of the meat we eat is game, as DH shoots. He enjoys the process of finding the game (so not driven shooting obviously), and aims for a quick kill: he absolutely does not want the animal to suffer. Personally I'd much rather eat a stew made from something DH has shot and butchered than a factory farmed chicken or pig.

There is woodland that only survives because it is used for shooting, and the same goes for some hedgerows and shelter belts. These provide habitat for all sorts of wild birds and insects that keepers are happy to see. Cover crops for driven shoots provide food for songbirds during the winter. Predator control helps ground-nesting birds, which are struggling due to shifts in agricultural practices.

For food I'm good with
For fun? Nope

Utterly disgusting, and I have gone no contact with relatives who participate.

Can't see the problem. Far better than boxing, gang stabbings and dog baiting and cage fighting.

Too often people's issue is because "posh" people do it. Politics of envy.

We shoot - but we eat the pheasants after. I’m due course - the kids will be introduced to us too. Shooting for sport and not eating after I don’t agree with.

If someone hunts an animal to eat it then its not an issue at all.

I used to fish with my dad for extra food for my family and pets when I was little. (there was a lot of us and money was tight!) Everything we caught either we ate or was fed to our pet cats. (mums fish pie.... yummy) I sometimes think the best bits went to the cats sometimes, spoilt furry buggers. :)

However if someone hunts and they don't eat the animal or hunt animals for the "Love of the chase" then as far as I'm concerned they need a spiky red hot poker shoved up their chocolate starfish.

Completely misunderstood the title and wondered who on Earth was hunting people 🙈 (I clearly watch too much Criminal Minds and/or need more sleep)

I fine with it If it is for food, not sport.

On pheasant and grouse shoots the birds are specifically bred and released in order for the "hunters" to shoot them.

The landowner then charges for parties to shoot usually 100/200 birds per day depending on the size of the party. There is no way on earth these birds are shot for food by the "hunters" although they do get get sold on to restaurants etc.

Basically it's done so some rich assholes can get their fun by killing birds it's barbaric and makes a shitload of money for the organisers.

Pheasants are bread to be shot for food (that’s the way it works), they are released then hunters/shooters and their dogs go and find and shoot them, so there is a element of fun but they are always eaten. They are not blown to pieces 😐.

Fox hunting is a totally different debate, a fox is chased for miles and torn apart by dogs, totally barbaric and pointless.

Bred, not bread 🤣

If they kill them and then eat them I don't have a problem with it.

I used to naively think the pheasants at a shoot were all wild because there are wild pheasants about. I now know they are the lucky ones that got away.

Grouse are not bred and released, they are wild birds. As a result, if it's been a bad year for grouse chick survival, estates don't shoot them.

Again, I'm following what people are saying in terms of why hunting, with the birds/animals going on to be used as meat, is a justifiable thing in itself, but what I'm not understanding is why people want to hunt as a recreational activity.

I've come across people who go out in the countryside to shoot as a sport or group activity and say that they enjoy it.

The reasons why they enjoy doing it is what no one has ever given me a straight answer on.

Whilst on the one hand people may say they think it's ok as the outcome is that meat is provided, no one I've ever spoken to can tell me what it is they specifically enjoy or what is fun about the actual act of hunting/shooting creatures in preference to clays etc

My BIL shoots. He will occasionally shoot a pheasant to eat rather than a big organised shoot. He does shoot rabbits for farmers as pest control as they can decimate crops. The meat is sold to restaurants.

It’s a rural business. Shooting is quite big money and employment for local beaters.
It’s a bit hypocritical to say shooting is barbaric whilst scoffing cheap burgers or commercial veal.
If people enjoy it, the meat is eaten then I think it’s better than an abattoir. The birds don’t suffer more because shooting gives someone a day’s sport.

@GetawayfromthatWelshtart well I've never before heard the phrase chocolate starfish, but i like it.

One of the many reasons I am vegetarian

Live in Canada and sometimes see a massive moose head in the back of a pick up truck. A full moose can easily feed a family for a year. This I have no problem with. Shooting for fun, not so much.

I agree OP, killing something for enjoyment is fucked up. I feel the same about fishing.

DH and I used to go ferreting for rabbits.

All the rabbits were eaten, either by us, our dogs, or a local animal rescue charity.

As farmers have a responsibility to keep the rabbits on their land under control, the alternative would have been to gas them in their burrows, which is a miserable way for any animal to die. As it was they were chased briefly by a predator they understood and the end was quick and efficient.

And yes, we did enjoy doing it. After all the hard work in the freezing pre-dawn setting the nets and letting things settle, waiting for the first rabbit to burst out, closely followed by a ferret, was quite exciting.