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!

Shooting can be sport and to provide food. How do you think they get pheasants and partridge in Waitrose at Christmas?

The birds are taken home (I have a beautiful brace of hen pheasants in my shed hanging atm) or they’re sold onto local game merchants/butchers.

The act of shooting is much kinder than the horrific death mass produced meat goes through.

Agree OP. I don’t have a problem with eating meat or killing animals to eat them but the idea that someone would regard killing animals as a fun day out is pretty abhorrent and would make me think less of that person.

Having said that, game birds have a much nicer life and arguably a nicer death than most poultry, which is a good thing. And it may well be that money from shoots is the only way to make it economic to keep game free range/semi wild. If so, I think better to keep the shoots and keep the free range life for the game, rather than them ending up mass farmed like chicken.

@BovaryX exactly.
My DSIS wanted to set me up with someone years ago, then told me he worked in an abbatoir. I passed.

The act of shooting is much kinder than the horrific death mass produced meat goes through

This is a good point. There are myriad videos of appalling cruelty in abattoirs. The antiseptic supermarket product belies the reality of industrial slaughter. It’s quite shameful

Shooting one animal (inc birds), that you intend to eat, not my thing but I don’t disagree with it.

Shooting many animals for “fun”? Fuck you and the fucking horse you rode in on, you fucking disgusting waste of skin. ESPECIALLY the “trophy hunters” who want to shoot lions and giraffes and pose with the corpses. They make me sick to my stomach.

I'm positive to it if it's done to eat the meat. Hunting is necessary in some places to control the population - think boar in germany (it's a real problem) and deer/reindeer up here in scandiland. I'm less okay with it when it's done for nothing but fun and the animal/bird won't be eaten and the population is in place just for that purpose.

I'm absolutely against the current method of fox hunting - it should be quick and humane, no ripping the animal apart with dogs after a prolonged chase.

I'm also against big game hunting for trophies, that's grotesque - although I do understand that these parties do fund conservation. There needs to be better regulation.

How I feel about hunting depends on the what, where and why of it.

I don't really know enough about pheasant shooting to comment but deer hunting I do approve of. Deer are hugely destructive to the environment if their numbers aren't kept in check, eating all the saplings are damaging the eco-system for other species. We've long since hunted their other natural predators to extinction here so it is on us to cull them.

Grouse hunting by contrast causes environmental damage. We are keeping vast areas of land artificially moorland when it would be better planted with trees for flood prevention and soaking up C)2 just to artificially rear grouse for hunting. I don't approve of this, though I have no problem with eating grouse, or any other meat, it is the land management that is the issue.

You then have hunts carried out for reasons of tradition like the guga hunt on Sula Sgeir. I don't personally have a problem with this. It is very strictly regulated both in terms of who is allowed to hunt (only the men of Ness) and the number of birds they can take (2500 I think, monitored by the RSPB and gannet numbers are increasing so not damaging to the population). I can understand if others do have a problem with such traditions but I'm not bothered myself.

I also think there are some class issues around hunting in the UK which are deeply ingrained and can be reflected in out attitudes and which are in sharp contrast to the USA where hunting is much less divided by class.

The pheasants shot in their thousands aren’t getting eaten, they mostly get dumped because the amount killed out ways the demand massively. People want to pay (upwards of £200 ) for a mornings shoot and that’s the joy. It’s not done to ‘provide food’ Round here the pheasants and grouse are all carolled into one small area to give the participants a better chance to shoot them (as quite often they are all blind drunk after huge boozy shoot lunch).

So long as they're eating it and it's a quick kill as in not chased for miles on end I have no problem at all.

@Spinderellacutituponetime that’s not how shoots work. They’re split into different stages and sections, you can’t just squeeze all the birds into one area, it would take thousands of beaters and hours.

The birds are driven towards the guns, but they fly overhead to get a good shot.

@FoamingAtTheUterus no the birds aren’t chased at all. The ‘guns’ stand on their peg and the birds are driven towards them by beaters (sounds horrid, but they just make noise and beat the undergrowth, not the birds!) and their dogs. No chasing involved.

They are not being eaten @foaming www.thetimes.co.uk/article/abomination-of-pheasants-dumped-into-pit-by-digger-whrw935fb

@MustardScreams I’m sorry. It’s how it works round here. I live in a very rural area and the birds are kept loosely contained in one wooded area until the shoot is ready for them.

I watched Countryfile last night and there was a sickening segment about snares by the shooting industry to capture "predators". There are two things that I took away from that horrible watch. First, that the snares are utterly barbaric and cause horrific injury and pain to animals like foxes, badgers and even pets, in some cases slowly slicing them in two.

Secondly, animals like foxes and badgers are only designated "predators" that need to be eradicated because of the interventions which the shooting industry has made in the countryside, intensively rearing non-native species or adapting the habitat so that species like grouse are present in much larger numbers than they would be if nature was left to its own devices. So, in addition to pheasants being shot and dumped in pits, this industry relies on the torture of other animals to ensure that some hooray Henrys from the City can get their jollies.

snares used^ by the shooting industry

So, in addition to pheasants being shot and dumped in pits, this industry relies on the torture of other animals to ensure that some hooray Henrys from the City can get their jollies

That’s despicable. The mentality of the people who do this is quite difficult to fathom. The snares you describe sound awful. The treatment of animals is in some kind of regression with industrial factory farming and this kind of thing. Quite sickening

However, it should be a job, not a pleasurable pastime. People who enjoy killing animals for fun are rather strange, in my view.

I'm not a hunter, and am vehemently anti-hunting non-prey animals.

However, I find this attitude a bit of a contortion. We are animals you know! Hunter-gatherers in fact. It strikes me of a bit of a modernist fantasy to thing we've got rid of our DNA impulses.

Just cause my cat gets fed three times a day, doesn't mean it has no hunting impulse. You may find it distasteful, but it is not in the least bit strange that an apex predator species retains its hunting instinct.

You may find it distasteful, but it is not in the least bit strange that an apex predator species retains its hunting instinct

I think there’s quite a significant difference between a cat’s innate desire to chase and catch prey and those who fly thousands of miles to kill a captive lion and pose with its dead body. Humans are capable of considering the moral implications of their behavior? Cats? Not so much. I have zero respect for the people who do this. We are on the planet for so little time and to spend it killing creatures who are unarmed and have no chance? It’s quite despicable

I think the moment it becomes less about the inate compulsion to hunt is the moment it becomes a hobby. Killing for food is one thing, but killing for fun is weird at best to most people.

I'm not actually in disagreement with you on that front. I just can't agree that it's strange impulse for a human to have, that is made more ridiculous by the unnatural ways in which we live.

I think humans are actually painfully divorced in many ways from the natural world, and it shows up in all sorts of ways. From lack of regard for the environment, to obsessive cleaning, to contriving very convoluted ways in which to exercise our natural hunting instincts...

For a slightly different perspective, this is an excerpt from a 1877 letter to an Australian newspaper. It recounts an earlier time in the fledgling New South Wales colony, in the area where I live now, when the letter-writer enjoyed shooting the local fauna. It is horrifying to think that a good deal of that fauna does not exist any more - whole species were wiped out by jolly shooters like this.

“We passed many joyous hours with merry
oompanions in hunting the wallaby, bandicoot,
kangaroo rat, native cat, &c., which abounded
within and about them ; and enjoyed the sport
which shooting wonga wonga and othor pigeons,
doves, and many other beautiful birds afforded.
What would the boys of the present time think
of the privilege of hunting and shooting in
such brushes as these were then, where all was
novel, interesting, and exciting.”

^We passed many joyous hours with merry
oompanions in hunting the wallaby, bandicoot,kangaroo rat, native cat, &c., which aboundedwithin and about them ; and enjoyed the sportwhich shooting wonga wonga and othor pigeons,doves, and many other beautiful birds afforded^

That’s an interesting insight into the colonial period. Have the native cats survived? It’s reminiscent of Clive of India...

I’m not really sure about the “native cats” BovaryX. We certainly don’t have any native cats, but it may have been a been a misnamed marsupial or the like. Or - the native cat doesn’t exist any more.

Or - the native cat doesn’t exist any more

There must be a way to find out if there was an alternative indigenous cat which is now extinct. Interesting post Claws. Cheers

I suppose the point I wanted to make here was that when the English colonised Australia, they brought the practice of hunting and shooting. This led to the demise of many Australia’s native endemic species. What they found fun was an environmental disaster.

Don’t know how ‘alternative ‘ was randomly inserted there...