Argument for gun sports?

[grahamhobbs]

"Hunting for food is perfectly aceptable. Its hunting for sport i strongly dissagree with. If you are going to kill an animal the least you can do it take it home and have it for dinner. Life should not be wasted."

I completely agree with the sentiments but in practice whether it's the rich killing hundreds of pheasants a day or some ordinary French guys shouting the odd deer, it will all get eaten but you can't say either are doing it for the food, it is essentially sport. If you really wanted food for your supper you wouldn't either go to the expense of raising thousands of pheasants as in Britain or, as the French do, spend your weekends standing around all day in the cold probably never seeing any wildlife to shoot. No if you were serious about getting something for the pot you would probably trap it.

Now given it is sport, is it fair game to shoot mushroom collectors or the odd cyclist for your right to 'hunt'.

[demi]

Rearing phesants to shoot is the same as rearing cattle to slaughter, ethically, if they are both for the purpose of a good roast dinner. The ways the animals are raised is a whole other eithical issue to concider with the effects on the animals themselfs and on the local enviroments.
People being acidently shot is a health and safty issue. Don't they have restricted zones designated for shooting which is well sign posted to passers by know to the risks on entering the area? If they don't then they should.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Well, there's no shortage of toff-related sport shooting up here... Can't say that I'm a fan, but it is an important part of the rural economy. They mostly seem to avoid shooting each other though.

I seem to recall the late Viscount Whitelaw having a reputation for accidentally injuring his companions

I suppose that being evolved as hunter / gatherers we shouldn't be entirely surprised at some people having a taste for tramping about the countryside with dog & gun or with a plastic pot for blackberries.

[oldjerry]

[quote="demi"]Rearing phesants to shoot is the same as rearing cattle to slaughter, ethically, if they are both for the purpose of a good roast dinner.



Not sure about that.Something to do with the 'sport' thing.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Rearing phesants to shoot is the same as rearing cattle to slaughter, ethically, if they are both for the purpose of a good roast dinner.



Not sure about that.Something to do with the 'sport' thing.

Too true! I can recall, in the heady days of City excess in the 1990s, a story about thousands of pheasants being buried following corporate shoots because there was no market for the birds, despite their being perfectly good food. We Britons sometimes deserved our reputation for food squeamishness: if it wasn't shrink wrapped, it wasn't safe.

I've never been on a driven shoot. For a start it's rather outside my price bracket and in any case I'm not sure it's exactly "real."

[demi]

Thats the kind of thing im saying. Life shouldn't be wasted. You shouldn't kill anything unless you're going to eat it. Animals being bread just to shoot and throw away the carcus is a waste of life. That animal was a meal for another and now some poor wee fox cubs wont be getting any dinner

[grahamhobbs]

The Riff Raff element wrote "I've never been on a driven shoot. For a start it's rather outside my price bracket and in any case I'm not sure it's exactly "real."

I have, a 'wild' boar hunt in France, I didn't carry a gun I was just observing. It was in an enclosed woodland, obviously the grounds of a former château, so the boar were essentially reared not wild. It started off a bit comically. I recall the 'hunters' standing in the alleyways cut through the woodland. As one turned his back a boar strolled past behind him, only metres away.

Later on when the dogs started to flush whole families of boars out, including piglets, the pigs would be screaming, fleeing for their lives but driven into the line of fire of the hunters. It made me feel sick. It was certainly 'real' for the boars, as for sport?

[oldfella]

Have you ever seen the damage done to crops by wild Boars, or Deer for that matter?.
I live in an area where Deer and Wild Boar are rampant, and believe me they can devastate a crop in short order.

What you describe, is not the way most hunters in this area hunt, yes they surround area, yes they send in the dogs to flush out Deer, Boars, but to hunt in other way would be rather futile given the vast amount of area to cover. It is not thought of as sport by most of the guys I know, but rather as preservation of their way of life.
I must however say that, I hate the killing of any animal for Sport, and in the past, been threatened with arrest when I asked a Gent in a red coat if had he nothing better to do.

[GeorgeSalt]

been threatened with arrest when I asked a Gent in a red coat if had he nothing better to do.

That's no way to talk to a Chelsea pensioner..

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I have, a 'wild' boar hunt in France, I didn't carry a gun I was just observing. It was in an enclosed woodland, obviously the grounds of a former château, so the boar were essentially reared not wild. It started off a bit comically. I recall the 'hunters' standing in the alleyways cut through the woodland. As one turned his back a boar strolled past behind him, only metres away.

Later on when the dogs started to flush whole families of boars out, including piglets, the pigs would be screaming, fleeing for their lives but driven into the line of fire of the hunters. It made me feel sick. It was certainly 'real' for the boars, as for sport?

There is nothing sporting about that, just a gratuitous slaughter, ditto (in my view) fox hunting and badger baiting. It's a bit like wandering up the garden to the chicken pen, shutting the gate and shooting them all for the hell of it. No skill, and frankly slightly disturbing.

[demi]

I always thought it's better to kill a wild animal for food because its lived its whole life being free, as opposed to being brought up in poor conditions on a comercial farm. But i never thought about the babies being killed or left to starve without a mother to care for them. Isn't there restrictions on times of the year when people are allowed to hunt, so not to kill babies and nursing mothers?

[The Riff-Raff Element]

But i never thought about the babies being killed or left to starve without a mother to care for them. Isn't there restrictions on times of the year when people are allowed to hunt, so not to kill babies and nursing mothers?

In most places there is a season. With boar I believe the situation is complicated because the sows can farrow pretty much any time provided the food supply is good, so the targets are supposed to be young males that would otherwise split off and form their own groups.

[oldfella]

Ask my neighbour, about that Jon, he looked at me in complete bafflement, and replied,
"So I should ask 150 kilos of wild pig as it comes crashing out of my maize field, whether its a Boy or Girl.
It cost me another round, after they all stopped laughing.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

And a lot of hunters prefer the sows because of the pronounced "boar taint" of meat from males over about a year old. But they are supposed to go for the young males. That'll be the ones in short trousers, then.