are there any people out there that are animal lovers AND gun lovers?

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Coyotes, Wolves, Mountain Lions

I might be classified as a Predator Hunter. Feral Hogs are also predators; don't let them fool anyone. They make a delicious addition to my list of otherwise inedible critters that kill nice animals. I love nice animals, but dislike predators. After a wolf kills one's favorite pet dog, perhaps one might agree. cliffy
 
I love animals and would never shoot one that i wouldn't use for food. This doesn't apply to vermin though.

I eat the chickens and cattle I raise, pet my three dogs, and love to watch birds....

But find varmints unappetizing.
 
I hunt.

My Brittany and I love it. Doves last Saturday. Quail soon. And I may get an archery deer tag this fall. Probably go with some friends to call coyotes, too.
 
I have a fondness for animals. Strange, though, there is a complete disconnect when it comes to strays, especially battle-scarred ones. I have 2 cats and it really pisses me off when stray cats come up on my deck to torment them. It has caused me to shoot several. I love my own animals but have little tolerance for others that venture onto my property and cause disturbances of any kind. Dogs are another thing altogether. I like dogs around here, usually far more than their irresponsible owners. Right now we have a family of rabbits under the deck. They're OK though, since I don't have a garden.:D
 
I got ridiculed in my hunter's safety course last year for basically asking how people have the fortitude to field clean a deer after shooting it.

Honestly, I don't know if I could shoot an animal. But tell you what with all the deer running in front of cars and motorcycles, I might be more inclined to cull a few.:scrutiny:
 
HECK YEAH!
I am crazy about Bunny Rabbits, Chipmunks, Skunks and Mice. I am actually crazy about anything cute.

I don't hunt, but my reason has to do with eating habits. IMO, there is less room for guilt killing an animal in the wild and eating it then eating a cheese burger at MacDonald's.
 
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haha, that's what i'm saying.

to justin, if you're going to ban me for cracking a joke then you should seriously re-evaluate what is important. ridiculous.---AgainstThaGrane

Point the First:

The moderator is never at issue in a forum. Whereas a poster is.

If you are going to critique the moderator regarding "what is important" you could at least rationally indicate what is or is not important. Neither of which you have done with any sensibility.

Jokes are usually welcome. However, when you initiate the specific topic, and then reduce it to entirely unrelated topics, which have no identifiable purpose but to be blathering about girlfriends and so forth, it makes no sense.

Your topic started with suggestive questions regarding killing game that is not for eating. Now, your ethical propositions have switched to identifying the moderator as "ridiculous".

The only sensible proposition you have so far, is:


Your initial issue, regarding shooting animals not for consumption, is most pointedly a legal right. Nobody is challenging you personally as to whether or not you have a legal right to love or not to love what you eat or shoot; so why should you challenge the legality whereby somebody else shoots an animal that he is not going to eat or love?

That is, de facto, an Animal Rights Activism proposition.

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:what::scrutiny:
 
Chris in va: I teach hunter ed. Have for years. Your question WAS NOT out of line. I hope the instructor didn't participate in criticizing you. If you can't clean it, don't kill it.

And yes, rabbits do indeed taste like chicken.

Did you know that nationwide, 80% of the money used for wildlife management comes from hunters and shooters? It's true. Most of it through an excise tax on hunting/shooting supplies via the Pitman-Robertson Act.

I think you left out an important angle- Most hunters have far more RESPECT for animal life than most other folks.
 
"does anyone on this board share my point of view or am i in the minority?"

Personally, I would much rather take a picture of a bear or other animal then shoot it full of holes. My guns are for defensive uses only as a rule, and if the animal, two legs or four, is not bothering me, I am not inclined to bother it. Most of my friends who hunt only hunt what they can eat.
 
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Ask anyone in Texas what they think of wild hogs...... they are over run with them.

That's what I'm learning too. I was told that in a single night, a herd (however large?) can root up an acre and a half of crops easily in a single night. That's 45 acres a month in lost crops, plus other damage. :what::what::what:

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I trap and hunt animals like coyotes, bobcats, beavers, foxes, etc. I have absolutely no problem with using fur from these animals, and taking them for fur. It's a natural, renewable resource, unlike the synthetics from oil and impacts the environment far less than growing cotton or such. And yes I love nature including the animals I target. I'd never want them over-hunted or over-trapped but taking them at sustainable levels is perfectly fine and helps the environment by preventing overpopulation and the diseases it brings.
 
Not only do I love animals, I'm a tree-hugger. Wilderness is sacred to me, and I believe we need to hang on to every scrap of it we have because when/if it's all gone, we're going to suffer as a species in ways we can't even begin to imagine. I also believe that there's nothing wrong with sustainable hunting: We're predators. It's our nature. We have a developed brain that has given us the technology to be almost too successful, but as long as we use that same brain to moderate (that is, to avoid hunting any species to extinction), then the cycle continues.

Animals in the wild don't die in bed surrounded by their loved ones. A clean kill from a bullet is often quicker and less painful than the death that animal would have suffered "naturally."
 
I am not against ethical hunting, but it's not something I personally have any desire to do.

However I do have a problem with trophy hunting, I think it is disrespectful of nature. By this I don't mean someone who takes the antlers of an animal they killed for meat, but the "great white hunter" who kills exotic animals just for the "sport" of it, to put an exotic head on the parlor wall.
 
Trophy hunting is not ethical????

Halo--with all respect, not sure how you've come to your decision that trophy hunting is not part of ethical hunting. I think you may find that yours is a minority opinion.

As I said previously (post #36 in this thread), in some areas trophy hunting provides employment, food, and the monetary wherewithal to preserve the habitat and discourage poaching. It is often used as a profitable way to keep game herds from over-populating their territory. Not sure how that's unethical.

I think we can agree that there's illegal hunting (poaching, hunting over the limit, etc.) that no ethical hunter can approve. Most hunting laws cover situations--hunting does when they're likely to be pregnant or nursing their young--that would also make the ethical hunter queasy.

Violating safety rules (ridge-line shots) or trespassing also sits poorly with ethical hunters--though I'm not sure these are truly ethical considerations as much as legal, politeness and safety ones.

I would consider UNethical hunting things like taking a shot when the risk of wounding and losing the animal (or another animal in the herd, if applicable) is substantial. That risk is always there, to some extent, but minimizing it (get closer, wait for a clear opening or don't take the shot) is always a high hunting consideration. And shooting a chained bear (as Teddy Roosevelt so famously refused to do) is the epitome of unethcal hunting--not even worthy of the word hunting, actually.

Everyone may, within the law, choose what they would and would not feel comfortable hunting, and by what manner they'd like to hunt. But personal preference does not define ethical and unethical. (I choose not to bow-hunt, mostly because of lack of skill with the bow, but partly because the slowly-bleed-to-death result of a good shot makes me personally uncomfortable. But I recognize the long tradition of bowhunting, and any bowhunter who is within the law and only takes the shots he feels WILL collect the animal IS an ethical hunter in my book).
 
To respond to the OP's question, I am DEFINITELY a lover of both! I love firearms, cartridges, and so on, but I also love animals, helping them, and preventing unnecessary cruelty to them. One example is this little freak here in town who would get cats, and throw them under passing cars to run them over.
 
brucerdeucer, for someone who is always begging for specifics you sure do you like to infer a lot of points from my posts effectively putting words in my mouth. get a life, dude. either contribute to the post or don't. nobody wants to read your overly loquacious posts. put the thesaurus down and learn some social skills.
 
I love animals-I've had cats all my life. While I've never been hunting personally (but I would like to), I have no objection to hunting for food or even for sport. I draw the line when the kills become excessive, i.e. when an individual goes out and shoots 3-4 deer 'just because he can.' I'm sure that such individuals are a very small minority among hunters.

My .02


P.S. I love my guns too!
 
were the stray cats causing your cats physical harm? i think it's kind of cold to shoot a stray that was just looking for some company or food.
 
Halo--with all respect, not sure how you've come to your decision that trophy hunting is not part of ethical hunting. I think you may find that yours is a minority opinion.

I don't think it's ethical to kill something solely for home decor. I don't care if my opinion is in the minority or not.

edited to add: I want to be clear about what I mean by "trophy hunting", I mean the purposeful killing of an animal just so that part or all of its body can be made into some kind of adornment. I don't consider having a deer head on the wall to be trophy hunting unless that was the only reason the animal was killed. When I was a kid I went walking through the woods with my dad once and we discovered a complete deer carcass with the head removed. That struck me as an almost perverse disregard for life. I hold that practice in the same regard as shark finning.
 
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God in his wisdom has given us dominion over the beasts of the field. This dominion places a heavy responsibility on us. When coyotes become too numerous the smaller species become overhunted. When those species' numbers dwindle the coyotes are doomed to stravation. By the same token remove too many coyotes and the population of the smaller species increase more than the food supply and they are doomed to starvation. As caretakers of the land and beasts we are charged with controlling the population of both.

Likewise with deer, in small numbers deer fill a niche in God's plan. In large numbers they are incredibly destructive both to crops and our fellow humans via traffic accidents. We are charged with controlling those populations.

Man is a predator, this is simple fact of biology. We were also blessed with reason and intelligence. We can use that reason to protect other creatures or we can use our fear of death to cause undue suffering. The earth is a good place and I am part of it.

Selena
 
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