Just why do I hunt?
This is a follow on from my vegetarian dilemma. I enjoy hunting, I enjoy stalking the animal, I enjoy watching and learning about its’ behaviour and habits. I also seem to enjoy the outdoors more when I’m concentrating on staying down wind and searching for signs of my beasties.
Almost all of the most effective conservationists that the world has seen have been hunters. They were people who respected and valued their animals and birds, along with their habitats. They were people who possessed the interest and motivation to do something positive (having the time, the funds, the contacts and the persuasive powers were probably equally important, but it was the interest that set the process in train).
But why do I want to kill the beastie? I know from all of the animals that I’ve kept, that each has its’ own personality and ways of interacting with humans and with its’ own kind. Trying to tell myself that this does not apply to all of the birds and mammals is self deception.
I don’t actually need the meat, the skin or the fur, although I have to say that I enjoy game meat (exceptions are hare and grouse, which I find a bit too strong). But does my enjoyment outway a little life? I don’t know.
Hunting does mobilize a great deal of funding that benefits more general habitat maintainance and restoration. It only takes relatively few predators to clean out a population of ground nesting birds, but the keepering also has its’ undesirable side effects. Control of stoats and weasels allows rabbits to breed to plague proportions, there is also constant inward pressure of predators seeking rich pickings in the vacuum of the keepered area.
Emotionally, I was probably more attached to a stoat, than I think any other animal I’ve known. She used to eat half her own weight in rabbit meat each day, so keeping a stoat now would be a moral crisis.
Never the less, hunting provides more effective funding than other voluntary contributions, and the people providing the funding are astute business people who are very effective at ensuring value for their money, unlike the state or the voluntary groups.
Is it a real problem that it favours species over individual, and that it favours some species over others?
I’ve heard many soundbite type arguments on both the pro and anti side, most of which I can criticize quite effectively, however, this is my personal search for reasons, and I really don’t know.
Almost all of the most effective conservationists that the world has seen have been hunters. They were people who respected and valued their animals and birds, along with their habitats. They were people who possessed the interest and motivation to do something positive (having the time, the funds, the contacts and the persuasive powers were probably equally important, but it was the interest that set the process in train).
But why do I want to kill the beastie? I know from all of the animals that I’ve kept, that each has its’ own personality and ways of interacting with humans and with its’ own kind. Trying to tell myself that this does not apply to all of the birds and mammals is self deception.
I don’t actually need the meat, the skin or the fur, although I have to say that I enjoy game meat (exceptions are hare and grouse, which I find a bit too strong). But does my enjoyment outway a little life? I don’t know.
Hunting does mobilize a great deal of funding that benefits more general habitat maintainance and restoration. It only takes relatively few predators to clean out a population of ground nesting birds, but the keepering also has its’ undesirable side effects. Control of stoats and weasels allows rabbits to breed to plague proportions, there is also constant inward pressure of predators seeking rich pickings in the vacuum of the keepered area.
Emotionally, I was probably more attached to a stoat, than I think any other animal I’ve known. She used to eat half her own weight in rabbit meat each day, so keeping a stoat now would be a moral crisis.
Never the less, hunting provides more effective funding than other voluntary contributions, and the people providing the funding are astute business people who are very effective at ensuring value for their money, unlike the state or the voluntary groups.
Is it a real problem that it favours species over individual, and that it favours some species over others?
I’ve heard many soundbite type arguments on both the pro and anti side, most of which I can criticize quite effectively, however, this is my personal search for reasons, and I really don’t know.
posted by Keith at 8:32 p.m.
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