Ask Lemmy

I live in an area with an out of control whitetail deer population. I don't have it in me to hunt, but I'm all for people deer hunting to curb the population. Most folks I know who hunt also eat their kills or give away/sell the meat, so it isn't wasted. A lot of local craftspeople use deer hide and antlers for knife making and stuff and there's soooo many taxidermists. Almost every butcher shop around offers deer processing, too.

When I was a kid way out in the boonies, the wild coyote population boomed and the pack actively started hunting me and other small kids and killing livestock like crazy. The folks in the surrounding areas thinned the pack when the game commission wouldn't do something about the problem. I was totally fine with that hunting too because I didn't like coyotes stalking me and preventing me from playing outside.

I know some people who pheasant hunt and it's never bothered me because, again, the corpses aren't wasted.

My grandpa crow hunted and he took me with him once and II had researched crows beforehand because I was excited. I learned how smart they are and refused to let my grandpa shoot them. We just sat there and watched them hang out and figure out the decoys we had set up.

Harming or taking any sentient beings life is a wrong action, an evil action. It causes immense loss of wisdom, perspective, empathy and friendliness of your own mind; and it causes severe suffering to the beings that are subjected to your violent acts.

You are accumulating demerit by continuing these actions, there is truly no action worse than murder. The right time to stop is right now. I hope you stop ignoring the (now) diminished sense of wrongdoing, that made you okay with doing this.

It's really cold it's really early and I don't want to go

I never was really interested, though plenty of people in my family hunt. In Arkansas while I was in secondary school, we did all have to take a mandatory Hunter's Safety course. And, in the area were I live right now, I'm sure there are families that benefit from the additional caloric supply, maxing out their tags during rifle season.

I have mixed feelings around the other points you raise, that I find it hard to articulate. But, I don't have any better solution to overpopulation.

I've been present at killing, cleaning, and (later) butchering of rabbit, deer and cow. But, I do try to get as few calories from animal products as I can. I was vegan at home for many months, tho not currently.

I've never wanted to do it myself, but am very appreciative when hunter buddies share the carcasses of their victims. :)

We fucked up the wolf populations so its our moral imperative to control deer populations.

Hunting for food is OK, as long as proper technique is observed (safe, humane, environmentally responsible).

Hunting for fun is a sociopath's pastime.

I won't cry if anyone dies while hunting, but i do love venison

I won't shame somebody who would otherwise literally die of starvation if they hunt, buther, cook, and eat non-endangered animals for food.

That's about as understanding as I'm gonna get. I suppose I may disrespect slightly less someone's regular meat consumption if they went through all the time and effort themselves.

Population control is a copout. We should reintroduce the predators that were preventing overpopulation in the first place.

Except as I'm typing this out, I remember the dog who lives with us and how we feed him meat based dog food since that's what his biology requires. So I'm rather selective and inconsistent about meat sourcing here, so I don't quite know how to conclude this comment at this point so I'm gonna just send it

Hunting for sport and trophies is bad, but hunting for meat is a hell of a lot more ethical than industrial meat production. Interestingly I’ve known people that were Vegan due to the ethics of commercial animal handling, but were also hunting and would eat meat from animals killed in the hunting team.

I live in Sweden and hunting is pretty common here, even though I’m not personally involved. There are limits on when and how many animals you may shoot and when to make sure the population is healthy.

I don't think the solution to the predators being gone is for humans to fill the gap, rather to let the predators make a return.

Here in Sweden we're looking to shoot most of our wolves for no good reason. That is after a considerable effort to stabilise the population and bring genetic diversity back to it.

Instead of killing, try a trip just to photograph the animals. Then compare your experiences. The killing may not be what you enjoy about your hunting trips.

It is a perfectly fine thing. Humans are part of the ecosystem. We are predators and fill that niche. So long as we do so with attention paid to ensure it is done sustainably then there is nothing wrong.

It's awful.

The equation is simple

Not eating meat >>> Killing for meat >>> Funding meat factories who make animals suffer.

hunting for food is ethical, over killing, killing for profit, killing for sport are not.

I've worked in wildlife conservation, and I'm all for it. With a few caveats.

• Be a fucking good shot. Practice. Don't slop and wound. Humane kills to the greatest extent possible. Know what the fuck you're doing.
• Eat the meat. Venison is delicious. Harvest, don't just take a trophy.
• No spears. Holy shit, please. See point 1. Why is this still a thing? Even a niche thing, but still.
• Don't scoff at tag prices. Be proud of your contribution. Donate to the crunchy granola hippies that ensure you have game to hunt.

the impact of hunting for food is so far below the impact of industrial agriculture and other things, it's fine

I'm pretty simple.

Hunting to eat it? Great. I love me some deer sausage.

Hunting to chopoff its head and mount it on your wall like some ghoulish asshole? Go fuck yourself.

I feel like trophy hunters don't show any respect to the animal, while hunters for eating do.

Shooting a deer that’s lived wild and free, making every effort to make the kill as quick and painless as possible seems like just about the most ethical way to get meat that I can think of. And especially in areas where the deer population is too high, it’s really important for managing the ecosystem. Plus, ammo and equipment sales get taxed specifically to fund conservation, which is important.

I also feel like if you can’t stomach the process of killing and cleaning an animal, maybe you shouldn’t eat meat at all?

By and large, I think hunting for food is a great way to get more in touch with where your food comes from, one of the most ethical ways to acquire meat, and a nice excuse to sit quietly in the woods without interruption. Trophy hunters can fuck off tho.

Hunting with a valid reason (for food, population control, etc.) is acceptable and/or a necessity.

Hunting for funsies only - including all the BS safari hunting that are essentially glorified high tech fishing trips - is disgusting

A lot of people bring up the moral problems with eating meat, but I have barely any such issue in regard to wild animals, especially those overpopulating areas.

Of course, if a company ever made a big product out of reselling venison, we’d probably get perverse incentives where someone would start trapping and farming them. So, it ends up just being a homey domain of hobbyist hunters and all their family friends - but one I respect a lot.

Hunting for food is fine.

Hunting for trophies is not.

not the answer you're looking for, but: i haven't eaten meat in five years, am the healthiest I've ever been, and no longer feel guilty about eating

I get a lot of down votes for this but it's important since we wiped out natural predators. One of my favorite days was cooking up some venison my students; we had a field day or whatever and no the meat came from another hunter.

I almost died when a a bunch crossed over the highway in the middle of the night. Tokyo drift instincts kicked in lol. Thankfully a buddy bought a Jeep XJ and it saved his ass.

Then there's this ongoing argument against firearms; do you shoot the deer that ran into your car or beat it to it's death with a blunt object? And I mean this in a humane question, otherwise you leave it die suffering in pain.

I only go for kill shots. None of this trophy bullshit. I'm not going to make a game of chasing around a wounded animal.

if I couldn't handle killing and gutting an animal I shouldn't be eating meat

I had this exact line of thinking. But for me that means I don't eat meat anymore. Killing really turns my stomach, and I don't actually need meat to be healthy.

But I love hiking and camping, I just bring my own food instead of a gun or fishing pole.

As a hunter myself, here are a few thoughts that come to mind on the subject:

1. As is almost always the case, “hunters” are not a homogeneous group. There are many reasonable hunters who hunt, among other reasons, because it’s an honest, nature-oriented, and animal-welfare-conscious way to obtain meat for their own consumption. But there are also idiots who are just eager to kill and/or want to bag big trophies (perhaps because they need to compensate for personal shortcomings). In my experience, however, that's only a tiny minority of the hunters I've met so far. Especially because of the pandemic, many people have been thinking about this topic, and I hope that young people will bring a breath of fresh air and sensible ideas to the community in this area as well. In my experience, the stereotype of the psychopathic gun nut is simply not true in the vast majority of cases.

2. We live in a cultural landscape. We must live in a cultural landscape because our survival (yes, even ~~after we’re gone~~ if we're vegan) depends on our ability to grow enough crops to feed ourselves. In a cultural landscape heavily shaped by human activity, natural regulatory mechanisms (more on this below) do not function, or function only to a very limited extent, because, for example, wild boars find much more food than they would in a natural (forest) ecosystem, which results in correspondingly high reproduction rates (up to 200% for wild boars). So I don’t think we can manage in the long term without some form of regulation. (It should be noted here that I am a big fan of predators like wolves and bears, and that we should reintroduce them wherever possible if we can manage to coexist with them.... Wolves and lynx, for example, are much better at regulating roe deer populations (or preventing overgrazing of young trees) than human hunters.) Furthermore, wildlife populations are only partially regulated by predators. For many species, disease and weather conditions play a more decisive role. These are, in and of themselves, natural processes that ensure populations do not get out of control and/or cannot permanently overuse local resources. In both cases, however, “natural regulation” is accompanied by an agonizing death for the individual, and it is this death itself that seems to be the main point of contention for some opponents of hunting, more on this below.

3. Ethical Considerations. Assuming I do my job as a hunter correctly, the animal (let’s say a deer) dies on the spot within seconds without suffering for long. If I don’t shoot the animal (and, as is currently the case in many countries, there are no large predators because they have been exterminated), it dies after about 15 years “of old age,” as the saying goes. What does that mean for the individual in practice? Eventually, its teeth become so worn down that it can no longer feed itself properly; it grows weaker, will likely fall ill at some point because its immune system weakens, and will either be strangled by a red fox, starve to death, freeze to death, or succumb to disease. In any case, the agony is significantly longer than if it were killed by a clean shot. So no matter how you look at it: There is no chance that the roe deer will not die, and (at least from my perspective) death by a well-placed bullet is the quickest, least stressful, and most painless death a roe deer can expect in the wild.

/edit: removed some dashed because I'm not a native english speaker and use an AI translator for more elaborate answers.

Depends on the type. Hunting pests like rabbits possums pigs, inseason game like ducks, pheasant and deer is all great. I dont like hunting rare endangered animals or helicopter hunting with a machine gun except if its a pest culling like feral pigs.

For the activity I really enjoy it. Its a great outdoor activity to do with friends and family. I like getting up early and heading out across the paddocks in the crisp morning and seeing the sun come out. I dont like butchering because im pretty odd about textures and smells but i'll do it when i have to. I dont find it to be inhumane at all.