#I’m anti sport hunting or hunting endangered/threatened species

[froody]

I’m not a huge fan of venison nor am I a hunter myself but whenever someone is like “I think deer hunting is disgusting, it’s barbaric. Those precious and beautiful animals deserve to live in their habitats unharmed and undisturbed without human predators.” I’m like “Mmm. I think you gotta kill yourself.”

[orcinus-ocean]

This is my article, posted to hubpages.

For most people, the pictures in the left panel above, are completely different from those in the right panel. For some, they are equally horrible. And for some, they are equally okay.

I used to belong to the first category.

Even though I flirted a little with animal rights ideology - such as becoming vegetarian for a time, believing/saying some pretty outrageous things about the slaughter industry (most of which I would still stand by, but not all), wanting large parrots to be licensed for private owners, being anti-”extreme” exotics for private owners, being anti-cetacean captivity, I have never been against zoos, and I have never been against hunting, in itself.

Why would people be against the two pictures to the left, of a deer and a boar being hunted and killed?

Most likely they were killed to fill a freezer with meat, and no one can argue with the fact that it is far more humane to shoot an animal that has lived its life in the wild, than buy grocery store meat, which has most likely (especially chickens and pigs) only seen a life of deprivation and suffering.

Homesteading and raising meat yourself is not an option everyone can take, as it takes land to farm.

There is also the philosophical argument that if you can’t kill or at least gut and clean the animal yourself, you have no business eating meat, period (something I actually hold to, seriously). That animal gave you its life, at least show it the respect that you're not grossed out by its dead body.

Vegans exist of course, and many of them call people like those on the left pictures “murderers”, and “serial killers”. But I’m not insulting this conversation enough to take them seriously, screeching children that they are, so let’s ignore them for now and stick with the adults in the room. Another time, another discussion.

The majority of people would then agree that dispatching clearly non-threatened species quickly and humanely to fill the freezer with wild meat is acceptable, even if they would never do it themselves.

Where we differ (and this includes hunters) is on scenarios like on the pictures to the right. Exotic species, sometimes predators like this leopard, being hunted, gunned down and stuffed as a trophy or made into a rug, sends a foul taste in the mouth of many, perhaps most western people.

Like I said, even hunters of common game like deer, sometimes despise exotic trophy hunting.

Common eland hunted in Namibia 

Why, typically, do people despise “trophy” hunting or hunting of “exotic” animals?

The animal is endangered - killing it means hurting the species and its chance of survival, you selfish [bleep]!

Only kill what you eat. No one eats leopard, lion or elephant!

We should just leave animals ALONE in the wild!

White hunters came to Africa and Asia and decimated wild animal populations. Therefore hunting today must be just as bad!

All trophy hunting is an [insert insults regarding physical appearance and/or financial status] American who knows nothing about real hunting and tracking, has a ranger drive up to a perfectly tame animal and shoots it up close, like shooting a cow in a pasture!

These hunters must hate animals, as they show some terrible disrespect to nature, feeling the need to oppress and dominate it by taking something wild and beautiful, killing it, and showing it off to show what a “big guy” they are!

These people must have some serious mental problems and they display similar traits to serial killers, keeping body parts of their kills around the house as trophies!

^ These are the words I see repeated frequently by those who oppose trophy hunting, they are not my words.

[Read more]

[brotherhoodoftheslice]

“We should not encourage the hunting and slaughter of these magnificent creatures,” Buchanan said. “We don’t get a second chance once a species becomes extinct.”

EVEN DEMONS KNOW. But yes, big game trophies are part of a hugely destabilizing black market that fuels corruption and terrorism, and threatens not only endangered species, but everyone it touches except for white big game hunters. 

Sorry but I’ve been stewing about this and all the recent pro-billionaire anti-environment news bullshit for days, and I’m not going to be over it soon. (Okay, I’m ALWAYS stewing about it, but I guess my overflow barrier is more thin this week.) I’ve got nothing against hunting -- most of us are zero to two generations away from sustenance hunters -- but flying in to SPORT KILL big game and threatened species is trash, this policy is trash, this administration is trash, and they don’t have a goddamn qualified scientist in the room.