While I am not now a hunter, I was for many years in my youth. As long as hunting is well managed with programs which insure gun safety and hunting sanity, I agree with the legion of wild life managers that note its important function in managing populations and preventing the cruelty of animal deaths through starvation or greater numbers of vehicular encounters. The reduced area for wild populations is a fact of our development and the need to manage wild populations on the reduced wild foot print is anything but bogus.
While I appreciate your comments, here's a few of my reasons I'm against many forms of hunting (as currently practiced):
1) The impact of hunting on the natural environment - the problem here arises because humans really don't have a clue what the heck they're doing when they try to manage wildlife populations, and historically they have failed almost every time they try. The profit motive (related to the big $$ from the hunting industry) often leads to higher quotas than are sustainable. As mentioned above, the main reason we have a lot of deer wandering around (at least in America - not a big problem in Canada) is because hunters killed all their natural predators (especially wolves). So let's see: hunters, who caused the problem in the first place, offer themselves up as the solution? I don't think so. With all the toxic lead shot they leave littered across the landscape one cannot argue they are the most efficient means to an end. Certainly human encroachment of habitat affects the balance of wildlife populations - but this problem needs to be solved at its root by rethinking our development patterns, not used as justification for humans further messing up the environment. I will say if you must hunt mammals, deer hunters are less problematic than those who shoot endangered wolves, bears and other big carnivores out of helicopters. Those hunters do not even have the wildlife overpopulation argument on their side.
2) Hunting is a sport, which means nowdays it is done for fun, unlike historically, when it was done for necessity. If I thought every hunter truly respected the animal he was killing (and the sacrifice it was making), I might have a different opinion but most hunting videos show a couple of drunk yahoos laughing their head off over the carcass of some magnificent buck that is ten times more impressive as a specimen of nature than they are. For humans to take pleasure in the death and suffering of another creature is not healthy or moral. Killing of any living creature should never be done for fun, because it's the first step towards psychopathy. The Romans used to think the Coliseum was grand fun, but now we view it as barbaric. The public opinion of hunting is shifting in that direction as well, especially concerning so-called canned-hunts (which occur in fenced areas) where the animals have no chance to escape.
3) Related to #2, hunting is not a controlled environment - while on one hand I respect archers for at least giving their quarry a better chance, I've read too many reports of half-wounded animals dragging themselves for miles with four arrows sticking out of them. Again, if all hunters were expert marksmen and could guarantee a super-quick kill I might have a different opinion (but my reservations about #2 would still apply). Slaughterhouses are far from perfect but at least they are a controlled environment where most animals are put down quickly using scientifically refined methods. And again, there is a difference between eating meat as a biological necessity and killing animals for fun. Related to this problem of no controlled environment, are human safety issues (ask Dick Cheney), property damage issues etc.
As to hunting humans for sport, well that is what wars are for historically.
Well I guess that's one way of looking at a beneficial aspect of war.
American Hunter Mike (I eat Fish after I kill them, also
)
Sport fishing I don't have a big problem with (as long as the quotas are sustainable, which they often are not) primarily because fish are much lower on the developmental totem pole than mammals. Mammals are almost as intelligent as us and can feel pain and fear exactly like us. Therefore I think we should do everything possible to spare them unnecessary cruelty. And there's no bullets flying around with fishing.
And before someone tries to link the hunting issue with the gun ownership issue, I have much less of a problem with people owning firearms, I just wish they'd practice their aim on paper targets or beer cans.
