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Sgable84
Dec 8th, 2010, 03:10 PM
My father is an avid hunter (we have bears, elk, deer, and ducks in our living room :mad:) and he continuously tells me "If we didn't hunt the wild animals, the population would get out of control and they would start starving"

How do I respond to this as a vegan?

Johnstuff
Dec 8th, 2010, 03:43 PM
Might not be the best answer but:
Life keeps a balance on its own, yes sometimes there is population expansion then collapse but over time things will even out IMO. Humans making so much extinct in such a small space of time is messing up the balance.

Thge global fish stocks (I hate to use that word to describe living beings 'stock') are mostly at the point of collapse due to hunting*. Most of the worlds sharks (dominant predator of the ocean, the life support system of our planet) have been wiped out.

Basically it is human kind that is f**king everything up and then to pull out a feeble justification like this "they'd overpopulate" is well, feeble IMO.

The rest of life on Earth doesn't want or need humans to manage them/it IMO.

*I'm aware that this is commercial hunting not 'sport' hunting, but two wrongs don't make a right.

harpy
Dec 8th, 2010, 03:57 PM
Are the populations of those things actually threatening to get out of control where you are, then, Sgable84? Deer, ducks and so forth have predators other than humans in some places.

There are some areas here where deer populations allegedly need "management" because there are no predators. I'm not sure about this one - I have read about self-limiting populations but if it involves animals starving that doesn't seem so good either.

Sgable84
Dec 8th, 2010, 04:59 PM
Might not be the best answer but:
Life keeps a balance on its own, yes sometimes there is population expansion then collapse but over time things will even out IMO. Humans making so much extinct in such a small space of time is messing up the balance.

This is a great true answer.

Harpy- My dad goes to Alaska, Colorado and Wisconsin to hunt. For sure Alaska doesn't have an issue with out of control populations. Colorado and Wisconsin (according to daddy-o) have issues with over population of deer.

Back-Space
Dec 8th, 2010, 05:07 PM
The animals are smart where I live. They come right into town. I've seen them walking down the sidewalks in the middle of town. I guess over-time they've learned that they're much safer in town than they are out in the woods with the wolves, bear, and hunters.

Back-Space
Dec 8th, 2010, 05:09 PM
http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/m628/Back-Space/PB200026.jpg

Sgable84
Dec 8th, 2010, 05:15 PM
We used to have deer just roam freely in town and in the neighborhoods, but the county shot most of them cause they were a hazard to traffic.

Back-Space
Dec 8th, 2010, 05:26 PM
We used to have deer just roam freely in town and in the neighborhoods, but the county shot most of them cause they were a hazard to traffic.

That's disgusting :( We have reduced speeds in town because of the deer. They really are all over the place, and they completely disregard traffic. They'll walk out in front of you and not give it a second thought. We actually had a bear make it's way down in Ontario and it managed to get to London. The police shot it claiming "it lunged at us".... So we weren't able to tranquillize it and put it back where it belongs? No. The best thing to do was just to kill the poor thing. Another London police screw up. Idiots. I hated that province...

sandra
Dec 8th, 2010, 11:13 PM
We used to have deer just roam freely in town and in the neighborhoods, but the county shot most of them cause they were a hazard to traffic.

More like the traffic is a hazard to the deer!
It's just aswell humans aren't shot because they are over populating an area, isn't it?

angie54321
Dec 9th, 2010, 07:32 AM
A quote I remember from many years ago, from the League Against Cruel Sports, was that foxhunting (in the UK) was stopped during the world wars and the fox population didn't increase - therefore hunting is not about control of animals, it's about selfish pleasure of mankind.

I can't find that information on the LACS website, but I found this in the FAQ's

Q: What do you suggest as an alternative means of fox control?

A: Let us be absolutely clear, traditional hunting is not about controlling foxes. It is about sport. When hunting was banned during the foot and mouth outbreak evidence showed that this had no significant effect on fox numbers. Foxes are territorial animals and in many cases where one fox is taken out another will move in to take its place. Research has shown that the fox population has remained stable over a long period with and without hunting.

http://www.league.org.uk/

angie54321
Dec 9th, 2010, 07:36 AM
That's disgusting :( We have reduced speeds in town because of the deer. They really are all over the place, and they completely disregard traffic. They'll walk out in front of you and not give it a second thought. We actually had a bear make it's way down in Ontario and it managed to get to London.

Wow - did the bear get on a plane or a ship?
:D

I apologise. It does sound awful what they did to it, without even trying to tranquilize it first. But it's the same old same old.....(non-human) animal life has little or no value.

Clueless Git
Dec 9th, 2010, 09:23 AM
My father is an avid hunter (we have bears, elk, deer, and ducks in our living room :mad:) and he continuously tells me "If we didn't hunt the wild animals, the population would get out of control and they would start starving"

How do I respond to this as a vegan?
Unfortunately, Sgable84, your dad is partly right.

Natures methods of population control are starvation and predation. Nature is NOT pretty and personaly I would accept that death by a high powered rifle is probably a lot 'kinder' than starvation or being pulled to bits by packs of wolves.

There are a couple of good (don't even think about it, LV ..) arguments to use against hunters though:

1. Statisticaly it takes around ten times the land to support a non-veg*an population that it would take to support a veg*an population. (This being due to the amount of land/space required to house/slaughter/store and grow feed/pasture for livestock.)

Land 'ring fenced' for livestock use is, ultimately, all habitat that has been taken away from wildlife.

From that it can reasonably be argued that wild animals would have ten times as much space in which to look after themselves if we culled the numb-nuts meat eaters instead of culling the deer/<insert whatever gives you a stiffie to have lined up in your sights here>.

Easy with that one though; Meat eaters, in general, tend to get a bit tetchy when you start making arguments that vegans should be issued permits to randomly shoot some of them.

2. Ask for reasons why it is acceptable to refuse permits to shoot humans who have overpopulated (one child dies of starvation every six seconds because a cow ate his food) and let them starve to death.

That one is along the lines of: "If hunting is a 'kindness' to stop things dying a horrible death of starvation then shouldn't you guys stop being kind to hungry animals and be kind to all the hungry human beings who need your 'loving help' instead?"

Clueless Git
Dec 9th, 2010, 09:33 AM
http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/m628/Back-Space/PB200026.jpg
That is soooooo cool!

Why people want to live where stuff like that lives if they don't want to live with stuff like that simply amazes me ..

Sgable84
Dec 9th, 2010, 02:36 PM
Thanks everyone for your advice!

Back-Space
Dec 9th, 2010, 04:33 PM
Wow - did the bear get on a plane or a ship?
:D

I apologise. It does sound awful what they did to it, without even trying to tranquilize it first. But it's the same old same old.....(non-human) animal life has little or no value.

We already have deer around London(not to be confused with the one in the UK :p) And you can drive to the Algonquin area in about 4 or 5 hours. The bear could have been moving slowly through the woods. You can go almost anywhere in Ontario while staying under the cover of trees. He could have made it down to the border if he knew where to go :p Maybe a town further south would have handled the situation better.

Back-Space
Dec 9th, 2010, 04:37 PM
That is soooooo cool!

Why people want to live where stuff like that lives if they don't want to live with stuff like that simply amazes me ..

Yeah. I love it over here :) The deer aren't tame or anything. They were giving me weird looks when I was taking pictures of them, which I think is for the best.... The last thing you want is for deer to start trusting humans and then go back into the woods during hunting season :(

Clueless Git
Dec 9th, 2010, 04:40 PM
Yeah. I love it over here :) The deer aren't tame or anything. They were giving me weird looks when I was taking pictures of them, which I think is for the best.... The last thing you want is for deer to start trusting humans and then go back into the woods during hunting season :(
Very wise, I think, back space :)

DiaShel
Dec 10th, 2010, 12:25 AM
Something I've been wondering about lately. In New Zealand there are no native mammals but some were introduced when the Europeans came over. What we do have is lush greenery and birds. Lots of birds. Anyway, opposum fur was a big thing for a while and they were brought over to farm. Well those businesses failed and the farmer's just let them loose in the wild. Bad idea. There is no prey for them. There is so much vegetation that they thrive and are distroying the enviroment. Trees are dying so the birds are dying. Everytime I'm on a tramp I see tramps for the opposums. As a vegan, I can't see agreeing with killing animals, but if it prevents wiping out native species, what else could be done?

Back-Space
Dec 10th, 2010, 01:39 AM
Capture and move to a new home? Either that or the birds may end up finding a new home.

Korn
Dec 10th, 2010, 08:28 AM
Hi all!

Because the thread titles had ended up wrong in many of the posts, I un-approved some posts and than approved them again than - since that's the fastest way to edit thread titles inside posts.

So don't worry if you got a message about having your post un-approved: I did a mistake when editing the original thread title, you did nothing wrong.

:-)

K

sandra
Dec 10th, 2010, 09:16 AM
:thumbsup: :)

Back-Space
Dec 10th, 2010, 04:40 PM
Lol, "You've got 5 new messages" Oh goody :) Post un-approved, post un-approved :p

angie54321
Dec 10th, 2010, 05:18 PM
Lol, "You've got 5 new messages" Oh goody :) Post un-approved, post un-approved :p

imagine my horror - I'm new, I had only posted 7 times, and I thought I'd had 2 of those un-approved :(

Back-Space
Dec 10th, 2010, 05:22 PM
Lol :p

DiaShel
Dec 12th, 2010, 11:42 PM
Hi all!

Because the thread titles had ended up wrong in many of the posts, I un-approved some posts and than approved them again than - since that's the fastest way to edit thread titles inside posts.

So don't worry if you got a message about having your post un-approved: I did a mistake when editing the original thread title, you did nothing wrong.

:-)

K

Phew.. I thought I was in trouble...