Hunting also needs to be looked at objectively. Many people hunt, and for many different reasons.
Poor people will hunt because it’s is free food. Some risk they’re lives to do it. Some places like Tanzania will kill poachers. We need to look into removing that incentive, as in, we need to reduce global poverty.
I hunt because one deer will be most of my meat for a year. The price to have someone else cut it up makes it cost the same as cheap grocery store ground beef, but it tastes better and is much more eco friendly than that cute would have been.
Rich people BS hunting like I imagine you’re referring to is BS, but they pay big money to do it. The money they spend on that one animal funds the preservation of many times more animals, and by having a legal process to do it, there is less incentive to do it illegally, where accurate counts of animals taken can’t be done.
The first example I can think of showing the success of this is the American Alligator. They were almost wiped out, but now they flourish because people want to hunt and/or eat them. I think it’s something like 10 are raised fire every one that is allowed to be hunted. I’ll admit, it’s a bit like strange logic at first, but there are success stories to show it works.
I love animals. I even take care of the spiders at my house the best I can. But I hunt ethically as possible, just one legal deer a year. That deer lived a better life than a feed lot cow, didn’t need to clear cut or pollute land to live, and it was appreciated for it’s sacrifice every day by me, and I do my best to not waste a scrap of that meat, because I had to do the hard part myself.
I’ve met unethical hunters, and I won’t associate with them. They’re trash like any other cruel person. But most are regular people.
Unrelated: How do you conserve a whole deer for an entire year? You freeze the crap out of it? lol
We drop them off at a beef farm for processing. They pack it up all nice like you’d get it from a butcher shop, mainly in pound size packaging. We get from 60 to 80 pounds typically. Then it goes in the freezer.
You can also donate them to the poor through the Game Commission I think. It’s our family’s primary source of meat though. I just empty my freezer by Thanksgiving and it have room for it all. I occasionally find some that’s from the last season and it’s still always been fine.
Here’s one pack of ground meat from last year I still have. We also got jerky sticks, sausage, and stew cubes and loins. They’re just wrapped in butchers paper.
Found a tenderloin piece hidden away too.
How can it be ethical to take a sentient being’s life against its will? If it lived a good life it is even worse to end it.
I don’t totally disagree with you. Many animals from bugs to mice and birds are killed in the process of farming and the delivery of those goods to market.
If I hunt a deer, I can tell you exactly what my environmental cost was, exactly one deer. It’s not something I’m proud of, it’s just getting food for my home. I’m very grateful to it, and appropriate the sacrifice I asked of it.
You don’t have to agree with me on that. If you don’t use any animal products, I appreciate your decision. But no supply chain is free of environmental cost, and I think it’s fair to ask you to keep that in mind too.
It is true that all food production causes harm, death, and suffering.
The way I see it suffering and death of sentient beings should be minimised as much as practicable and possible.
More plants are needed to produce meat (as feed) than to produce plant based food directly. So even if crop production kills mice etc it is more ethical to eat plants than to eat produced meat.
Hunting is definitely better than factory farming in that regard. However, it is still taking a sentient life against its will. And it is not necessary.
Moreover, the purpose of producing plant based food is not to willfully breed animals into a life of suffering and death. Deaths as a result of crop production is not the goal of crop production. It is a side effect that we can minimise.
Because humans are powerful enough that we are a bit like gods, and we have to make these choices between which lives we keep and which lives we kill.
Is it ethical to allow the hunting of African game if that money funds the conservation of many more animals? We have to make that trade off. Ethics are subjective, and I’m firmly on the side of allowing hunting as are many other people.
In New Zealand, as with other isolated islands, there’s a unique population of indigenous birds that are now being massacred by introduced mammals. Is it ethical to hunt and trap and poison the introduced pests to save the indigenous birds. We have to make that choice.
A runaway trolley is going to kill 5 humans unless you switch it to another track where it will only kill 1 human. Is that ethical?
A politician could choose to lower the speed limit of a road to 10 km/h, saving lives but costing the economy, quality of life, and future election wins. Is that ethical?
Ethics are subjective, but we have to choose.
I see only humans as sentient so no question of ethics there. Though sentience by itself isn’t sufficient unless you have a very shallow sense of ethics. For example self-defense can involve taking a being’s life against it’s will. But that in no way suggests the action was unethical.
Hunting has no place in a modern society. When you can choose and choose to hunt and eat meat, you’re the problem.
I don’t totally disagree with you, if that means anything. I don’t get any personal satisfaction from it, but I don’t feel bad about it either. Animals eat animals.
People can choose to not eat animal products, and I can admire that. I try to progressively reduce my use of them too. But we’re both doing things to actively try to do something better for the world and ourselves, which is more than many will bother to do. Even if we don’t agree on some things, we’re both doing what we feel is making a better and informed choice. You don’t have to agree with me, but I don’t feel there’s either side that can claim a moral superiority based solely on what’s on our plates. I’m sure you could find someone who’d claim they’re “more vegan” then you or some other gatekeeping nonsense like that.
I disagree. There is a morally correct choice here. Animals feel pain, experience grief, play and form bonds. They don’t exist as some sort of resource, but people think of them as such. To willingly inflict suffering and pain on these creatures is wrong. Full stop.
That’s only true if there are enough carnivores like wolves and bears around. If not: goodbye forests. Hunting is pest control.
No it isn’t. This is the noble excuse hunters came up with to justify murder.
Nature has this funny way of balancing itself out. Humans are unique in that we somehow view ourselves as above that rule. But as you’ll see in the coming years we’re at the mercy of that equilibrium.
I mean, if there has been a forest somewhere for the last 100 years, chances are there are enough carnivores anyways. Nature finds its balance, hunting only adds chaos to the equation.
You really need to go outside more. Modern society isnt some state of transcendance beyond nature.
I don’t think we’re beyond nature, but as it stands we certainly aren’t acting within it. We aren’t cavemen. We don’t have to hunt our food. We know the impact we have on nature, and more importantly how to lessen that impact.
