Interesting facts on African hunting, just what PETA doesn't want you to hear!

[Art Eatman]

Among the antis are some severely strong emotions. There was a National Geographic special on elephants. Overall, quite good, except at the finale, a beauteous blonde elephant worshiper gal allowed as how that even though the license fees were very beneficial to herd viability, she'd prefer that the elephant go extinct rather than be hunted.

 

[H&Hhunter]

Moose,

No I wasn't referring to you.

 

[andreea360]

This is very interesting. Hunting animals should be against the law for ever. Not only some animals, all the animals should be protected by the law. One day we will end up with no animals, no pets, no little souls by our side to pet or take care of.
______________
drug rehab facility

 

[Art Eatman]

Sorry, andreea, but that's 180 degrees off from reality. Those species for which there is a monetary value have some amount of surplus in their populations. Those without, don't.

To repeat what you obviously haven't read: Hunters are the ones who have instituted the game laws which protect game animals from extinction. Hunters cannot hunt unless there is some amount of surplus, over and above the carrying capacity of the habitat.

And the over-population of domestic animals such as pets puts a rather large tax burden on the budgets of many cities. Why else "animal shelters", if not over-populations?

Art

 

[MinnMooney]

When game laws are enacted and inforced, people - & especially hunters - have a newly found respect for the game that they are hunting. The animals flourish, the locals make money and the hunters are happy that they have game again.
Why that doesn't sink in to animal rights groups, I'll never know.

 

[PlayMaker]

Lions will eat your baby if given the chance

 

[Drgong]

"Botswana, in contrast, permitted big game hunting, and in the same period of time, their elephant herd has quadrupled. The key here is that hunters pump considerable money into the local economy, which increases the value of the animals to local natives, provides jobs and fresh meat for many, and supports wildlife research and law enforcement. It is estimated that hunters spend $35 million to $65 million dollars a year on African elephant hunting safaris. The white rhino in South Africa has similarly increased in numbers, thanks to hunters' dollars."

Botswana is one of the most well managed countries in africa...

 

[esq_stu]

I just feel like PETA activists put animals above people.

This is contrary to the way we were created. Not to abuse nature, but not to be subservient to it either - to master it.

"And your fear and your dread shall be upon all the beasts of the earth and upon all the fowl of the heaven; upon everything that creeps upon the ground and upon all the fish of the sea, [for] they have been given into your hand." Gen. 9:3

I am an environmental consultant and my job is to prevent or fix harm to the land, water, air, and wildlife. I am not a whining environmentalist whining about how bad man is and giving animals and plants the rights of mankind. What we have in PETA is a twisted view of the world born of some kind of sick guilt trip over their affluence.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

This is contrary to the way we were created. Not to abuse nature, but not to be subservient to it either - to master it.

Ah, the default view to a disembodied higher authority. The problem here is that not everyone recognizes the same disembodied higher authority.

"And your fear and your dread shall be upon all the beasts of the earth and upon all the fowl of the heaven; upon everything that creeps upon the ground and upon all the fish of the sea, [for] they have been given into your hand." Gen. 9:3

Note quite. The passage you cited is Gen. 9:2, not 9:3.

Gen 9:3 reads...Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

Funny how we have been told in the Bible that we can eat everything that lives and moves. I guess the disembodied higher authority has a sense of humor given the numbers of living and moving things that are lethal if consumed along with many green plants.

 

[esq_stu]

The passage you cited is Gen. 9:2, not 9:3.

You are correct, my mistake.

No question, it's a religious viewpoint that not all share. And I don't expect everyone to. Until recent years, it influenced the way America wrote its laws. The veer to the left and abandonment of these values have gone hand in hand IMO.

 

[Kentucky-roughrider]

PETA think animals should not be eaten. It doesn't matter if it dies in a slaughterhouse, shot by a hunter, or is used in medical research. And, are not above using terrorism. I don't know if they are doing the terrorism, or just people with similar believes.

 

[bragood]

I believe tube ee said it better than I would ever be able to.

 

[KeithCarter]

It's not elephant overpopulation, it's HUMAN overpopulation. Primitive agrarian peoples need land to survive. We humans are expanding into traditional animal lands, and there are more of us each year.

The Chinese have a population control program for humans. But the Africans are too primitive for that. Their population control program is the elephant.

 

[leadcounsel]

I"m as pro-gun as it gets, but human folley, technology, selfishness and greed will lead to the extinction of important species on this plant including Great Apes, Elephants, Wolves, Sharks, Bears, and Big Cats.

Spend 10 mintues reading news articles and it's abundantly clear that these species are very important to the ecosystem yet hunters and poachers recklessly kill them for tiny profits and poor excuses. For instance, elephant population is less than 1/2 what it was 30 years ago! Imagine if human population were cut in half.

The key to their survival is probably to make them MORE profitable to exist than to be killed into extinction: and there are few ways to do that. I think that hunting licenses and kill limits are probably one way to the key to the survival of elephants, for instance.

The *problem* with prosperity is growth and consumption of resources and land. Extinction of animals should be a global concern, and the mere suggestion of lifting the ban on ivory, for instance, is unbelievably irresponsible because the effect would likely be the immediate slaughter of the remaining elephants by poachers.

I have nothing against hunting for necessity, but hunting for sport or profit is something I am ethically quite strongly against.

If you think that hunting for sport or profit is the ethical highground, then in my opinion you are living in the un-enlightened distant past where people didn't know or care about ecologies, delicate balances of ecosystems, or have the benefit of hindsight when destroying and eliminating species.

 

[ds92]

For any G&A readers out there there was an interesting question in the shooters SAT of the september issue
"Wildlife conservationists generally agree that the most damaging thing to happen to effective game management in the 20th century was : A. Bambi B.Peta C. Condor Release Programs D. Ducks unlimited"

answer: A. Bambi

 

[Guns and more]

Being money poor isn't a big deal in societies where people are self sufficient and don't require money. Before invasion by Europeans and later arrivals, most of North America was occupied by "poor" peoples. Given that the didn't exist based on money, the comparison is not valid. More over, so people make less than $1 per day. What are their living expenses? How much of their survival is based on having cash? Without knowing these things, whether $1 a day means horrific poverty or is actually icing on the cake can't be ascertained.

I'm glad to hear that we can stop sending our aid to Africa now that we know they really aren't poor after all. Thanks.

 

[Art Eatman]

Most of the money--as cash or credits--either winds up in a Swiss/Cayman bank account, or in the hands of arms manufacturers. There's a real-world reason that African countries are called thugocracies. About the only outside help for poor villagers is actual medical help--or the money from hunters and eco-tourists. Probably more from us than the photobugs. Eco-tourism companies are mostly foreign-owned and operated, employing locals mostly in menial jobs. (But tourism anywhere pays little to the staff.)

 

[telomere]

"This is contrary to the way we were created. Not to abuse nature, but not to be subservient to it either - to master it."

Haha good one. We evolved along with the other inhabitants of the planet. Besides that, lets put you in a cage with a pissed off lion and no gun (just like you were "created) and see who "masters" who!

I am not a whining environmentalist whining about how bad man is and giving animals and plants the rights of mankind.

No you are an environmental consultant whos job it probably is to make sure whoever hires you gets around laws and regs, and hopefully doesn't destroy the environmetn while walkign off with cart loads of cash.
It is very easy to make the ohter side of your argument look bad when you throw out untrue/strawman arguments. Very few people actually want to give full human rights to animals, really the only right they would need is right to not be exposed to unnecessary suffering. I would also like to meet these "plants rights" advocates you seem to know.

PETA is the big name animal rights organization, so they are easy to pick on. They are also highly hypocritical, which makes them easier to pick on. That does not make the basic premise of their work, that animals deserve to not be used for our gain, incorrect.
Hunting was a necessity hundreds of years ago, and still is in many parts of the world. In the US there is no need, except that you're not manly unless you kill stuff, and you get in a lot less trouble then if you beat your wife.
Most of the hunters on this board have dogs, why? What is the real difference between a dog and some animal you hunt except the arbitrary distinction between pet and not.
And no animal advocate is going to argue that slaughterhouse meat is more humane than hunted meat. Slaughterhouses are f'ing disgusting places, and animals are tortured to provide you food. If the hunted animal has any luck the hunter is a good shot and they die fast. Unfortunately all to many animals are shot and accidentally or very often purposely left to die.
But It is not a matter of more or less humane, the question should be, "is it humane at all"? The answer in both cases is obviously, NO!

And of course hunters have a big part/say in conservation, no one would argue that. The problem is that their interest is not in the animals, it is purely selfish. It comes down to, if they don't save/manage these animals, then how are they supposed to be able to kill them for fun?

 

[Art Eatman]

telomere, I'll give you credit for a nice, disjointed and mostly meaningless, opinionated rant, but it's rather Shakespearean: "...full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Once you start interfering with any sort of system, odds are that you can't quit without making things worse. So, as we increased in populations, and used technology to encroach on previously "wild" lands, we begn interfering with the original order of things.

If we don't do legal hunting of deer and other game animals here in the U.S., we'll see more property damage to cars. To crops. And we'll see die-offs from disease and/or starvation from time to time. There will be a dry-up of money for habitat protection: Why join such as Ducks Unlimited if you can't hunt ducks?

As far as hunters' motivations, we know that they vary. However, a commonality among the majority is to maintain some spiritual contact with previous generations. Another part is to get away from the artificialities of city life, to renew a sense of oneness with nature.

Homo Sapiens is a predator. Biology herownself has set us up to eat both meat and veggies. So, we do. Hunters are do-it-yourselfers. Others merely hire somebody else to do the scut work for them.

Another generalization about all the interrelationships between humans and animals is that hunters as a group don't approve of maltreatment of any animals, whether wild or domestic.

I've been reading posts about ethics and morals at The Firing Line and The High Road for some ten years, now. that's a fair number of hundreds of opinions, views and attitudes. The summary of all I have read is that you, telomere, are dead wrong.

 

[cooch]

leadcounsel.

You have been lied to, and are attacking your fellow gun-owners without accepting the responsibility of informing yourself appropriately.

If you had bothered to read as little as the information posted on this thread, you would know that the elephant is in no danger whatsoever of becoming extinct, in those areas in which sport hunting has given them a very large economic value.

In the vernacular, someone has been having a lend of you.
Now please consider before posting again.

Peter

 

[Art Eatman]

leadcounsel, I strongly suggest you go back and read ALL the posts.

Consider one thing: If there were no surplus of game animals, hunters could not hunt. Period. End of story.

Think of it this way: Hunters spend the interest on the principal, and strive to increase the amount of the principal. The most public example in the U.S. is Ducks Unlimited, although they are but one of many.

 

[H&Hhunter]

Spend 10 mintues reading news articles and it's abundantly clear that these species are very important to the ecosystem yet hunters and poachers recklessly kill them for tiny profits and poor excuses. For instance, elephant population is less than 1/2 what it was 30 years ago! Imagine if human population were cut in half.

Lead,

And it is twice what it was 15 years ago due to aggressive conservation programs which are almost exclusively funded by hunters.

If you'd spend more than 10 minutes reading the "pop culture news" and actually spend some time studying the conservation and recovery efforts of the African Elephant you'd be aware of the vast and incredible recovery of elephants in each and every country that allow sport hunting of the elephant.

I'd explain it again but it's already been explained in this and other posts if you'd take the time to read them you'd be a much better informed individual.

Your post above reads like a bumper sticker for PETA.

 

[deaconkharma]

This might get me flamed but how about Christian children's fund teaming up with hunters to solve food scarcity. I personally think that if elephant is edible... well anyway there are too many starving people to have an animal overpopulation issue. If we do then it's time to eat.

 

[H&Hhunter]

Google

CAMPFIRE..

 

[hotlead]

Ahhh, hell. Shoot it, catch it or buy it.....you should eat it, or raelease it. I dont have enough energy to go on about impoverished countries, and thier hypocrisy and what not. Lets focus on who will be the 'big' president soon.