Is Bow Hunting Cruel?

[buck460XVR]

Is bow hunting cruel? It seems to me that bigger game animals do not expire quickly when shot with an arrow. Sure there may be exceptions, but guns generally kill quicker. The other thing that occurs to me is that with a bow there will be more of a chance of a bad hit, meaning a wounding hit. That is what bothers me. I would not want an animal to linger and suffer. I also realize this can happen with a gun too, but to a lesser extent.

This is the biggest misconception there is about Bow-hunting. With the exception of brain or CNS shots, game animals die from blood loss. Once they lost enough blood, they quit receiving blood to the brain and die. The amount of time it takes for this to occur depends on the size of the wound and the area hit. This is why we aim for areas that will contribute to massive blood loss......the heart, the lungs and other main arteries. From my experience, the amount of time that it takes for an animal to die from similar hits from gun and bow is very similar. It's just reaction to the shot and physical evidence is greater from gun shots than arrows. Bang-flops from front shoulder gun hits, as impressive as they are, do not mean the animal is dead immediately......they still need to bleed out and lose the blood supply to the brain. They just don't run off. Those few seconds before the bang-flop animal loses consciousness is no different than the bow hit deer than runs 40 yards before succumbing to blood loss. There is fear, pain and confusion. Over the 45 years of my deer hunting career, I have skinned and processed many deer that were at one time, wounded with arrows, that were healed and showed no signs of ever being injured. I have never processed an animal that showed signs of previously being wounded with a bullet. I have helped many a friend blood trail a deer early in bow season only to lose the trail after the friend was sure he had a killing shot. Many times the same friend will shoot the same buck a month later during gun season with the deer mostly healed or having only a superficial wound. This doesn't tell me bowhunters wound more deer, it tells me that deer have a better chance of surviving a not-vital hit from a bow than one that has been wounded with a bullet, that smashes bone and caused horrific wounds that tend not to heal. Death is cruel no matter how it occurs. Ethical hunters try to keep this to a minimum on the animals they pursue. I find the average Bowhunter tends to be a tad more ethical than the average gun hunter when it comes to taking a shot. The average bowhunter restricts their range and limits their shots to broadside shots with direct access to the vitals. You never hear a bowhunter brag about a "Texas heart shot". The average gun hunters on the other hand, will be more likely to take a questionable shot with the hope the bullet will still find a way to kill the animal.

 

[Mike1234567]

^^^ That seems to be a very honest post from an experienced hunter.

EDITED: Removed text I wrote due to misunderstanding some information above.

 

[scythefwd]

mike, he wasn't talking about just bow hunting. he was talking about all kills that aren't cns shots, regardless of weapon... gun. arrow, spear, broken bone puncturing the heart during a fall.

 

[Mike1234567]

scythefwd... Thank you. You're right. I misread that post. Edited mine.

 

[coloradokevin]

Man, it doesn't take 300 rounds a year to obtain or maintain 1 - 2 MOA proficiency, and I think we'll both agree that is more than enough for the average hunting ranges (round here I get 30y shots at the long side). Hell, I keep 1.5 moa and I only shoot 100 rounds a year or two. If it wasnt for load workup, i'd be well under 50 for the year...

Understood. A lot of this depends on your desired level of accuracy, and hunting distances.

Admittedly, I shoot recreationally far more than I hunt, and I practice with the goal of maintaining 1/2 MOA accuracy to long distances in challenging conditions. That's why I shoot like I do, and I didn't mean to imply that it was necessary to throw the same number of rounds down range to ethically kill an animal (in other words, I know 1/2 MOA isn't necessary in hunting conditions).

2 MOA will probably suffice in most hunting situations, and an experienced shooter can probably maintain their skills without a great deal of trigger time. But, in my experience, a new shooter who practices as infrequently as a box of ammo per year will often not be able to maintain 2 MOA under pressure.

Anyway, all of that aside, I was merely trying to highlight that there are some abysmal rifle shooters out there in the field, and some of these shooters probably stand a much better chance of leaving a game animal wounded to die than the experienced archer!

 

[scythefwd]

2 MOA will probably suffice in most hunting situations, and an experienced shooter can probably maintain their skills without a great deal of trigger time. But, in my experience, a new shooter who practices as infrequently as a box of ammo per year will often not be able to maintain 2 MOA under pressure.

Anyway, all of that aside, I was merely trying to highlight that there are some abysmal rifle shooters out there in the field, and some of these shooters probably stand a much better chance of leaving a game animal wounded to die than the experienced archer!

I can't argue with that. 1/2 moa... not sure I even own a gun capable of that. I'm not 100% sure my gun is any better than 1.5 moa or if it's me that's the limiting factor... I don't own any known shooters. I also havent tried any match bullets in my loads yet

 

[FLAvalanche]

When I was a kid I was often told old wives tales like: "animals don't feel pain like we do". Most of us realize today that such statements were purely fictional. Whether we want to admit it or not, the reality is that animals do feel pain,

The "old wives tale" isn't saying animals don't feel pain, it's saying that they simply don't feel pain the same way humans do.

Animals DO feel pain. However their pain receptors are no where near as complex as ours, neither are their brains. They also dump far more chemicals into their systems than we do, especially adrenaline.

It's not an old wives tale. Animals don't feel pain the same way we do.

 

[Mike1234567]

^^^ Not to be rude but I call BS on that. One human being doesn't feel pain the same way another does either and this means nothing at all. I've seen too many animals in immense pain to give one spec of credence to that premise.

 

[Art Eatman]

I do not know how one studies such things as how animals perceive pain. But apparently studying the nervous system of an animal by biologists allows certain conclusions.

What I have read from wildlife biologists through the decades seems to indicate that while, yes, there is pain, there seems to be less--insofar as homo sap perceives pain. Further, there is less physical shock such as we are susceptible to.

One aspect supporting this is the seeing crippled animals with dangling legs or other injuries behave as though they are not in pain or some equivalent suffering. Note: I do not claim this as an "always" thing.

At any rate, I don't see "cruelty" in a shot from a bow or rifle which does not have an animal fall instantly dead in its tracks. After all, few do.

We as hunters can't guarantee as fast a death as occurs in a commercial slaughterhouse. I see it as a waste of mental energy to really worry about the issue beyond the usual fair chase and clean kill as we generally attempt to accomplish. We appear to work harder at it than the previous thousands of generations of meat eaters.

 

[4thPointOfContact]

Mr Blue, please accept my apologies if you thought my response was pretentious or juvenile.

I have found that when you distill something to it's most basic, absolute level, that is when you find out if the premise is true or not. And, as was pointed out, very few animals in nature are afforded the opportunity to die of old age. Predators, disease, and starvation are the lot in life for any animal not young and fit to provide for itself.

Cruelty can never be defined as an absolute, it's always a comparison of one thing against another.
Someone may feel that death by exsanguination is cruel, but does anyone believe that an animal would prefer to have wolves rip open it's belly and begin feeding while it was still alive instead?
In comparison, it's a mercy.

If you were a deer that had worn down it's teeth and could no longer feed itself, would you welcome the arrow, or prefer to suffer for days or weeks until you had starved to death?

 

[BADUNAME37]

No more "cruel" than someone taking a lousy gut shot using any rifle out there and losing the deer only for it to die a slow, agonizing death.

Shot placement rules.

 

[Mike1234567]

Let me first make this perfectly clear. Hunting, if done right, is FAR less cruel than slaughterhouse treatment of animals. I ONLY post this link to show that ANIMALS DO FEEL PAIN. And this is why I'm looking for an organic kosher source for meat.

Things Like This Make Me Sick

 

[Bernie Lomax]

Is Bow Hunting Cruel?

All hunting is cruel. But no method of hunting used legally by humans in the United States is as cruel as the methods of hunting used by carnivorous animals.

Nature's way is crueler than man's:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...elope-run-hungry-cheetah-cubs-learn-kill.html

 

[SSN Vet]

I bow hunted when I was a teenager...it ain't easy! All of my hunter safety instructors and fellow hunters really hammered home the point that you don't take marginal shots. All of the bow hunters that I have personally known were THEE most conscientious hunters. Much more so than your rank and file gun hunter imo. And that, not gear, is what makes the difference.

Do you know what you call a bow hunter who isn't a highly proficient archer? Hungry :^)

I agree, that even death by a bad shot, is a mercy compared to what nature has in store.

I also agree that death in the woods at the hands of a hunter, is much, MUCH more humane than industrial animal production. Yet somehow, that doesn't seem to shorten the line at the burger joint drive through.

 

[hardluk1]

SSN VET Well said.

Bow hunting well make a much better firearm hunter out of you. And its something you can practice in your yards year round.

 

[kyle1974]

no. It's not cruel.

nature is cruel.

a deer's natural death is usually never pretty. It's typical from starvation, or from predators. shooting with a bow may have a slightly longer time on average that it takes for the animal to die, but in the grand scheme of things, its nothing compared to their natural deaths.

 

[Bernie Lomax]

I also agree that death in the woods at the hands of a hunter, is much, MUCH more humane than industrial animal production.

Yes, just like death in a cockfight. But boobus Americanus will go to the polls and vote to ban cockfighting right after stuffing himself full of KFC.

Do people in this country ever use their brains anymore?

 

[Geno]

SSN Vet:

Well said.

Geno

 

[PolymathPioneer]

Measuring relative stress in deceased game animals is possible

I am a medicinal chemist (also big/dangerous game hunter using 375H&H and/or 458 win mag). I design and develop therapeutic compounds for different medical indications in humans such as for cancer and other diseases. I don't know the answer to the question posed by the OP, but I do know it is technically feasible to understand the relative stress by measuring the levels of Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and cortisol in the deceased animal. The adrenal glands produce two primary hormones, DHEA and cortisol. Both are considered the major shock absorber hormones in the human body. They buffer humans to stress and the negative impact it can have on both mental and physical function. These two compounds are regularly used experimentally as a metric for the level of short and long term stress in humans and laboratory animals, and might also be used as a stress biomarker in harvested game animals.

Mileage may vary (postscript): Note that any biomarker stress test like this needs to use good experimental method because many variables induce stress, i.e. if an elk, is already stressed by something else, (such as its rut time), the measurements would vary. Since bow hunters generally harvest elk during the rut, the stress biomarkers would be higher in a given bull elk for example than taking the same animal during the rifle season when the rut is concluded.

 

[WTBguns10kOK]

People have only been bowhunting for thousands of years, especially to feed themselves back then. Wouldn't it have been cruel not to bowhunt and let your family starve? Aren't humans more important than animals? The reason you ask this question is because of how removed from the outdoors most people are, and how far technology has brought us.

 

[bowman1962]

Deleted post!

 

[Mike1234567]

People have only been bowhunting for thousands of years, especially to feed themselves back then. Wouldn't it have been cruel not to bowhunt and let your family starve? Aren't humans more important than animals? The reason you ask this question is because of how removed from the outdoors most people are, and how far technology has brought us.

Humans used sticks and rocks before bows and arrows. You surely admit that bow hunting is better than rocks and sticks, right? Technology changes. I'm not saying a firearm is necessarily better or quicker but it makes sense to me. I don't mean to be exigent but by this logic bow hunters should probably revert to crudely hand-made apparatus with flint tips.

ETA: This post probably seems more argumentative than I intend but I'm too tried to rewrite it... would probably just mess it up worse.

 

[sixgunner455]

Mike, technology does change. Compound bows with 4 razor blade broadheads mounted on carbon fiber arrows, peep sights, and a laser range finder are a whole lot different than a recurve or longbow with a 2 blade broadhead and goose feathers mounted on a cedar shaft. Neither is really better than the other, but one is certainly easier to be accurate with.

 

[jbkebert]

Humans used sticks and rocks before bows and arrows. You surely admit that bow hunting is better than rocks and sticks, right? Technology changes. I'm not saying a firearm is necessarily better or quicker but it makes sense to me. I don't mean to be exigent but by this logic bow hunters should probably revert to crudely hand-made apparatus with flint tips.

ETA: This post probably seems more argumentative than I intend but I'm too tried to rewrite it... would probably just mess it up worse.

It would surprise you greatly how much technology goes into todays archery gear.

even lower end bows can be shot from a mechanical device similar to rifle test. Without human interferance almost all of todays compound bows are capable of 1 MOA 3 shot groups at 100 yards. Some of your nicer bows can produce 1/2 MOA groups at the same distance.

Broadheads that are laser sharpened, arrows with straightness tolerance of .003 inches. Weight tolerances of +- 1/2 grain. Mechanical release aids with triggers that would make Timiney blush. The never ending quest to make huge broadheads with massive wound capabilites. That slice through wind and cleanly as they do flesh. All helping to take the human error out of archery.

I know two guys who shoot alot and I mean alot who can put 5 arrows into a golf ball at 70 yards all day long. I can do it at 50 yards but not 70.

Go to 3-D shoots and there are guys who can pull off 420-430's points out of a possible 480. 40 targets and the 12 point ring is slightly smaller than a silver dollar. Distances will be from 20 yards all the way out to 60-65 yards sometimes longer. Walking up to a stake in the woods. Estimating yardage without the use of mechanical range finders. Drawing a shooting that arrow uphill, downhill, between trees, through a hole in a bush and pulling off these kind of scores. Says alot about the archer and the equipment. Indoor archers shooting at 20 yards trying to hit the center of a X that is the size of a dime. The winner often determined by a set of calipers to see who is the closest to the center of that X.

The thought that archers are slinging the same old sharp stick as they have the last thousand years. Is completly absurd. I am getting way off subject here but my goodness have a informed opinion about things.

 

[wankerjake]

You never hear a bowhunter brag about a "Texas heart shot". The average gun hunters on the other hand, will be more likely to take a questionable shot with the hope the bullet will still find a way to kill the animal.

I've found the ratio to be roughly the same between rifle and archery hunters. I've heard numerous stories of "texas heart shots" during archery hunts, and I don't know that I've talked to a single archery elk hunter who hasn't stuck and lost more bulls than he's recovered. Even the ones I consider good hunters. I completely disagree that archery hunters are inherently more conscientious about proficiency and shot assessment etc. At least in my neck of the woods it's about the same. And it would stand to reason that it would be the same everywhere. The same hunter is going to make the same decisions (good or bad) whether he's holding a bow or a rifle. The point is that it's up to the hunter do his best.