Any animal killers here?

[Happy SLF]

I

SLF, practicing on a target range is probably the worst training that you can undertake for hunting after you understand the basic use of a rifle. On a target range the target is positioned clear of obstructions, the light is good, it is clearly defined, it does not really matter where you hit it and, best of all it is standing absolutely still.

Well you learn something new every day, it also shows that you never shot on a certain range that I did

None of this applies to hunting, in fact absolutely the reverse. The target will be in some sort of cover, probably around dawn or dusk when animals feed, you had better hit exactly the right spot or the animal will be injured but escape and, most fun of all, the animal probably will never stay still long enough for you to choose the perfect shot.

This is a major reason why I never went hunting

You must be one of those people that think hunting is like the Far Side cartoons where the animal stands with a big target drawn on its back!

That last paragraph does not really deserve a reply but I will reply and say that is in my case absolute pathetic rubbish.

[500N]

The problem with this whole debate is that people have forgotten what animals are...

I know that on survival exercises I did there were people, friends, that were unable to associate the chicken breast they purchased wrapped in polystyrene and cling film with the chuks they were given to kill, butcher and eat.

Same on my selection course.

They dropped a box of live chickens (3 of them) and a bag of veggies and said we had 25 minutes to cook a meal.
90% of them stood around wondering what to do with the chickens and then were horrified when I grabbed a chook
and ripped the heads off with my bare hands (only one other person was game enough).

I suppose that is where the name "Chicken Killers" came from

[boing]

Perhaps we have blundered on a cause of so much casual violence in the present culture.
With few people hunting and most people eating only pre-prepared meat products nobody sees real blood any more, nobody gets to see the insides of a real animal, nobody gets to experience the real finality of death.
All our children experience is sanitised death on video games. They have been totally removed from the reality of death which allows violence to take place with no inhibitions.

.

[Bull at a Gate]

Still haven't had an answer! So what if shooting an elephant dead is hard. Lots of things are hard in life but we don't do them unless there is some other motivation. Going to the moon was hard, but that wasn't the reason it was done.

I am not anti gun - I have a firearms licence and have done some target rifle shooting in the past.
I am not a vegetarian - I love a nice rare steak.
I am not averse to killing an animal for a desired outcome - I shoot my roosters when they are no longer fertile for example.
I am not a city boy - I spend many of my formative years in New Zealand which was, when I was there, one big country town.
I am not someone who has never hunted - as a teenager I went kangaroo shooting. Indeed it is that experience (great fun up until the moment I killed the kangaroo) which makes me puzzled about why people do such things.

Despite all I have read here I am still none the wiser as to why people enjoy killing animals simply for the sake of killing animals.

Let's see if a few specific questions help. 500N, you say that you would mount an elephant head on your wall after shooting it. Why would you shoot it in the first place? What pleasures would the act of killing it bring you? And if someone visited your home and asked "why did you decide to mount that elephant head on the wall", what would you say?

Others should feel free to tell me how they would answer those questions too please.

[500N]

If I shot an elephant, I don't need or have to answer or justify why to you or anyone else
and as I said in post #2, I won't.

The same reason I don't judge Pilots of pleasure aircraft for polluting the atmosphere of everyone else
or drive V8's when a 4 Cylinder would do or ask them why they do it.

[6050]

espite all I have read here I am still none the wiser as to why people enjoy killing animals simply for the sake of killing animals.

Not sure what your after, maybe comprehension is a problem, its been stated various ways. Try this, Its nature, some people get a boner over different things, whats hard to understand about that?

[boing]

Bull,
The problem is that you are asking for answers to two totally different questions at the same time.

Still haven't had an answer! So what if shooting an elephant dead is hard.

OK, you want an answer to why people hunt trophy animals, eg elephants?

Despite all I have read here I am still none the wiser as to why people enjoy killing animals simply for the sake of killing animals.

Or do you want to know why people "enjoy killing animals simply for the sake of killing animals" which, of course, has got nothing to do with hunting animals at all ?

If you really want information that will answer questions about true ethical hunting read "Meditations on Hunting" by Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset. This is a somewhat complex book but with a very logical presentation leading to some conclusions that will, of course, be rejected by any anti-hunter as a matter of dogma. Interestingly, he proves that there is no necessity for a hunt to be successful for it to be successful.

I suggest that, if you really want an answer to your questions, as you say "after all you have read here", you may have more success looking outside of this forum and make the effort to read somewhere else.

[Bull at a Gate]

500N, nobody said you need to justify anything. I am simply trying to understand something I don't understand. Why you take this as a suggestion that you must justify your attitude is beyond me. But I do wonder what the secret is. Maybe introspection is not for you? Fine by me.

And Boing, I guess I have conflated two questions, although in my defence I had assumed that trophy hunters kept their trophies to remind them of the pleasure they got from killing the animal. Thanks for the tip on further reading - that's where I shall head next.

[500N]

"pleasure they got from the hunt is probably more like it."

Killing the animal is a minor part of the whole thing.

[om15]

Based on some of the views on here it appears that the guy that shot the elephant should be made to eat it.
It was a pointless killing.

[Bull at a Gate]

I thought I was finished with this but then I read that killing the animal "is a minor part of the whole thing"! Not for the animal!

If it is "a minor part" then why do it?

[Miss 007]

I'll join the " I don't understand it either group", unfortunately the title of the thread is very provocative and will quickly end up in point scoring instead of a level headed discussion. 500N I don't think Ex Ascot was particularly aiming his remark at your appendage yet you decided to make your reply personal and insulting as to his and Mrs Ex Ascot's lifestyle, re being lazy etc..... doubt many folk here born in colder climates could do heavy manual work in the African heat. I have a cleaner not because I'm lazy, far from it nor am I rich , I broke my back and had surgery that was a major fail however I still work in a demanding physical job which doesn't allow me to do much else but try to recover on my day's off, so lazy and well off, naw!

As for it being a relic from bygone days, so was incest, slavery and torturing the mentally ill. I don't have the intellectual capacity for sparring on thread's so I'll sit back and watch the thread with interest. There is an interesting mixture of people here from all walks of life all with valid opinion's and point's of view. It will be a shame if it ends up in schoolyard name calling.

[Ex-Ascot]

Ex Ascot

How much do you pay your gardeners and cleaners ?
I bet it is peanuts. Oh, you'll come back and say you pay more than the normal wage.

Are you and Mrs Ex Ascot just lazy, elitist WASPS ?
Why can't you clean your own house and do the garden yourself
or is that something only lower socio economic classes do ?

500N. This is thread drift but I will rise to the bait. 1 Euro an hour and yes you are correct we pay them double the going rate. They commute on foot one hour to work. We give them a lift back. This is certainly not the norm.

Mrs Ex-Ascot washes everything (clothes, bed linen, towels etc) by hand. I maintain the pool and mow all the lawns. I work with the gardeners on my hands and knees sometimes if we have a insect problem or are planting. I sow all the seeds and water them every day. Mrs Ex-Ascot cleans the windows. We each spend at least 2 hours a day on estate management. I am not spending 50 hrs a week gardening which is what the estate requires. Do you?

We treat our staff incredibly well. Mrs Ex-Ascot makes them tea and gives them biscuits every morning. They have a flagon of mineral water on the table instead of the river water they normally drink. If we are in town they get a flask of tea. They get given all sorts of goods which they can use, wear or sell.

When you apply for residency here, which is very difficult to get, they ask you how many staff you will be employing. We are certainly not lazy, elitist of course (no idea what a WASP is) but they need the money. We have work for them and we have the money so it is a social service. Also half of our estate is dedicated to fruit and veg. We pay them to maintain this. They get 95% of the produce to consume or sell. Fertilizer compost etc all paid for by us. We are paying them to grow produce for themselves.

Next door 200m up river they have live in staff. They do everything including cooking and serving tea in bed. Down river 200m at the farm the staff also do everything. The staff have to kneel when serving dinner so that their heads are lower than that of their masters.

So, 500N, get back in your box. You have absolutely no idea what it is like to live here and you probably wouldn't last 2 mins despite being able to rip the head of a chicken. And, yes indeed, this was my job on survival exercises.

Back on thread, I shot a squirrel yesterday but it was in the library and it didn't need much tracking.

[Joy ride]

Killing for fun/glory/sadistic pleasure is totally repugnant, a crime against nature.

You never owned a cat then? Mine has a ton of fun with the juvenile mice that enter my house in fall... She'll bat it around for a few hours before dispatching it... Then she leaves it for us to clean up...

You seem to think you're so superior to "animals"... You're wrong! You are one... With clothes....

Er, this is my whole paragraph: "Killing for fun/glory/sadistic pleasure is totally repugnant, a crime against nature. Regrettably some animals do it, but humans should know better by now."

I think you will find that "cats" are widely accepted as being part of the category I described : "some animals". I would also include myself and the whole of humanity in that category. Do I have to provide a full list of every animal (including humans) that does kill unnecessarily, or can you now please accept "some animals" as sufficient?!

As for 500N: "In that case I think Joy Ride would want all fishing banned because some do it for fun." most anglers I know do not deliberately KILL for FUN, they either eat what they catch, or put it back in the water alive. I consider that hunting or fishing "for the pot" is far more ethical and natural than letting someone else do your dirty work for you, particularly when it involves factory or battery farming.

[500N]

Ex

No, I won't get back in my box. You want to comment / insult my past time, expect return fire.
And that includes how you live because hunting is how I live.

"My man" or "our man" as you call him, very elitist.


Joy
Heaps of people catch fish and don't eat it and don't return it. They just enjoy fishing.

[SOPS]

I still don't get it.

[500N]

I still don't get it.

You never will and neither will anyone else who doesn't like it.
I gave up explaining to people why I hunt, shoot, kill.

[Pinky the pilot]

Heaps of people catch fish and don't eat it and don't return it. They just enjoy fishing.

Well thankfully I don't know anyone who would be in that category, as I would probably have a verbal go at them. That is just being wasteful.

Unless of course the return of the fish to the water is banned, as it is with the European Carp in the Murray/Darling River system in Australia.

"enjoy killing animals simply for the sake of killing animals" which, of course, has got nothing to do with hunting animals at all ?

And indeed that is correct. Killing animals just for the sake of killing has absobloodylutely nothing to do with hunting! It is just that some people are incapable of understanding that and it hasd been my experience that such people are generally City born and raised.

I will never ever forget reading a letter to a magazine written by an anti gun/hunting radical vegan which read in part with words to the effect that those who hunt animals for food should be ashamed of themselves and that they should "go and buy their meat from the Supermarket where it is made and no animals are harmed......"

And no, I am not joking! Such a letter was actually written! I'll see if I can source the actual letter.

[Capetonian]

Fish are not sentient beings in the way that other animals are.
I understand a need for culling and controlling certain animals at times, albeit that this has come about because man has interfered with their habitat.
I understand that we need to kill animals for food.
I cannot and never will understand or condone wanton destruction of wildlife, under any circumstances.
By the way I don't fish either. I'd rather sit by the water and enjoy the tranquillity.

[Joy ride]

I have hunted and fished, mostly for food, but a couple of notable times for the sheer hell of it, i.e. needlessly and for some kind of pleasure. Later, much later, I examined my conscience I decided that what I had done was unjustified, had no "sporting" qualities at all (the animals did not stand a chance), no nutritional value for me, and that I could get thrills in far better ways without having to kill anything deliberately and needlessly. I was young and foolish when I killed without reason, perhaps partly due to peer pressure.