Hunting vs. Endangered Hunting

MizTerry

I've hunted...I only kill what I'm going to eat.

Except spiders. They die because I'm an evil entity.

_John_

I just fish and shoot vermin.

Most of the time I release the fish I catch. Occasionally I harvest within legal limits (on public waters) or harvest for the sake of management if it's my own pond.

xFamousLastWordsx

I think hunting any animal is disgusting...however I love animals and don't really like people so I probably have a different opinion than most.

QueenBishOTUniverse

I am not a hunter, but have no issue with it in general when it is done as part of a responsible population management system. I do, however, find it interesting that Ernest Hemingway was uncomfortable hunting Elephants specifically because of his perception of their intelligence, and I would trust him to be something of an expert on big game hunting. From the perspective of the sciences, he was ahead of his time on this.

Elephants are one of the few species most behaviorists acknowledge as having very advanced intelligence, likely signaling being self aware. In other words, there is evidence they mourn the loss of their family and are aware of what is happening to them at an individual level. There is advanced communication between individuals including subsonic signalling used to communicate through vibrations sent through the ground over vast distances that wasn't even discovered until very recently. To me, the killing of species at that level of intelligence creates an added level of ethical dilemma well beyond the general consideration of endangered species status.

Cows have been shown to morn. And pigs are known to be one of the smartest animals...

I guess they must be tastier to most people than general ethics.

Pigs are borderline on intelligence, they're definitely more intelligent than your dog, but don't come close on sentience scales. Cows, nope. And both of those species are in absolutely no danger of extinction due to the fact that they have been domesticated. Pigs probably could survive on their own without human intervention, cows would probably be in trouble. So no matter how you want to break it down, cows and pigs represent and entirely different set of circumstances than the hunting of wild elephants.

Mygsds

I too come from a family that hunts. Everything is used. The meat is used and the hides are sent in to be tanned for jackets. I have seen areas where hunting is not allowed and deer are standing on their hind legs to get anything to eat and will starve . Not a good thing. We have come across elk that have been shot and the only thing taken was the tenderloin and all the meat gone to waste. Pros and cons on this subject. Personally, I don't hunt because I can't kill. Just me. Where I live it's not for sport but for filling up freezers for the year and using everything. As far as endangered animals, no way.. Just my opinion..

bethlaf

hunt for food , BTDT would do it again in a heartbeat . trophy hunting is just wrong, period. there is no way around it , you hunt to eat and feed your family, if youre not gonna eat the dang elephant then why hunt it . and if its not close to hoome, then no matter what, in my opinion its "sport hunting"
if it takes more than a tank of gas to get to my special hunting spot, the i am saving NO money at all by hunting...
But then I am a bow hunter and have in the past particiaped in in city limits special hunts to control deer overpopulation. all animals taken were donated to the food pantry.

Cryptonomnomicon

there are no cons to hunting. im not a hunter, but i say hunt away and the whole endangered list is such a stupid thing anyway. Endangered lists is causing the entire drought in california.

You are not a hunter but you state "there are no cons to hunting" and don't get me started on the "endangered list" comment.

Dragonwolf

Even some animals such as the elephant need to be hunted in some areas. Take for example, Botswana. Elephants in that country are overpopulated, and not only destroy crops, but are deforesting the country. The elephants will come in huge herds, pushing over trees to eat the tender leaves near the top....then move on to push over more. They trample and destroy farmers' fields and villagers gardens. In these poverty stricken areas, a hunter comes in from the United States, or wherever, bringing a huge amount of money into the economy. They pay a license fee, they pay the outfitter, and the trackers, who are local. When they kill an elephant, that is usually selected specifically because of its destructive nature......they immediately pay another huge fee that goes into the local economy. (often in excess of $50,000) Then, the local people typically are allowed to skin the elephant and they use all of its flesh for food....food that they would not otherwise have. The hunter gets the trophy, the excitement of the chase, and the memories of the hunt, and the environment and the local economy is boosted because of it.

While I think it would be better to at least try to relocate some of the really threatened species (ie - White Rhino), I agree with the above overall, and don't have enough information to know whether they tried such measures before calling in hunters in her cases to judge.

My stepdad actually does this with beaver in the area he lives in (the game commission and local residents contact him about trapping beavers that are being too destructive, and he goes and traps them and sells the fur), and Pennsylvania recently (as in, about a decade ago) opened licensing for bobcat hunting. It's actually quite regulated and restricted.

If you look through the responses in her Facebook page, there's actually several mentions of her and other hunters basically being wildlife control to keep the animals from destroying the local ecosystem. As a side effect, the local communities get the animals the hunters kill, which gives them much-needed foot and supplies that they my not have otherwise had.

I think that if Kendall really cares about the service she's providing (and not just the hunt for the sake of it), I think she should help educate people on these types of measures. Put more explanations about why she was licensed to kill the given animal and how it actually helps the local populations of both the animal's species and humans.

LoneWolf_70

there are no cons to hunting. im not a hunter, but i say hunt away and the whole endangered list is such a stupid thing anyway. Endangered lists is causing the entire drought in california.

wut?

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204619004574318621482123090

Your basis that the Endangered Species Act is causing the California Drought is from an opinion piece from 2009? No peer reviewed scientific studies or anything? I bet I could find some that say there are cons to hunting if it's not done properly, or that we have too many people living in areas of the US where water is not plentiful enough to sustain the population.

that was one quick example. Im not your google machine lol. The drought IS man made based on environmental wacko decisions.

links_slayer

there are no cons to hunting. im not a hunter, but i say hunt away and the whole endangered list is such a stupid thing anyway. Endangered lists is causing the entire drought in california.

dafuq?

LoneWolf_70

there are no cons to hunting. im not a hunter, but i say hunt away and the whole endangered list is such a stupid thing anyway. Endangered lists is causing the entire drought in california.

You are not a hunter but you state "there are no cons to hunting" and don't get me started on the "endangered list" comment.

ohhhh i wont get your started.

Dragonwolf

I am not a hunter, but have no issue with it in general when it is done as part of a responsible population management system. I do, however, find it interesting that Ernest Hemingway was uncomfortable hunting Elephants specifically because of his perception of their intelligence, and I would trust him to be something of an expert on big game hunting. From the perspective of the sciences, he was ahead of his time on this.

Elephants are one of the few species most behaviorists acknowledge as having very advanced intelligence, likely signaling being self aware. In other words, there is evidence they mourn the loss of their family and are aware of what is happening to them at an individual level. There is advanced communication between individuals including subsonic signalling used to communicate through vibrations sent through the ground over vast distances that wasn't even discovered until very recently. To me, the killing of species at that level of intelligence creates an added level of ethical dilemma well beyond the general consideration of endangered species status.

Cows have been shown to morn. And pigs are known to be one of the smartest animals...

I guess they must be tastier to most people than general ethics.

Pigs are borderline on intelligence, they're definitely more intelligent than your dog, but don't come close on sentience scales. Cows, nope. And both of those species are in absolutely no danger of extinction due to the fact that they have been domesticated. Pigs probably could survive on their own without human intervention, cows would probably be in trouble. So no matter how you want to break it down, cows and pigs represent and entirely different set of circumstances than the hunting of wild elephants.

There is no "probably" to it, pigs do survive on their own. In fact, they're the fastest species to become adapted to life in the wild after being captive. And once they're wild, they're mean f-ers. It's why the southern US has so many issues with feral boars, and the issue spreads farther north every year.

Flippolo

Even some animals such as the elephant need to be hunted in some areas. Take for example, Botswana. Elephants in that country are overpopulated, and not only destroy crops, but are deforesting the country. The elephants will come in huge herds, pushing over trees to eat the tender leaves near the top....then move on to push over more. They trample and destroy farmers' fields and villagers gardens. In these poverty stricken areas, a hunter comes in from the United States, or wherever, bringing a huge amount of money into the economy. They pay a license fee, they pay the outfitter, and the trackers, who are local. When they kill an elephant, that is usually selected specifically because of its destructive nature......they immediately pay another huge fee that goes into the local economy. (often in excess of $50,000) Then, the local people typically are allowed to skin the elephant and they use all of its flesh for food....food that they would not otherwise have. The hunter gets the trophy, the excitement of the chase, and the memories of the hunt, and the environment and the local economy is boosted because of it.

This 100 %.

I had a friend of my family's, growing up, that was very wealthy and hunted large game in Africa every year. Whenever he went, they would direct him to destructive animals that were needed to be stopped. In his living room, he had a lion head from a rogue lion that had attacked 4 villagers. He hunted two elephants that were terrorizing villages. That was the only kind of large game that he hunted. He paid A LOT of money in order to hunt them, the locals got any resources from the animal, and he was either given the hide or the head or something else of that nature to bring home. No, not every large game hunter is like this, but I'm willing to bet that, if she's posting this stuff on Facebook and hasn't been arrested, yet, that is most certainly her case, as well.

QueenBishOTUniverse

I am not a hunter, but have no issue with it in general when it is done as part of a responsible population management system. I do, however, find it interesting that Ernest Hemingway was uncomfortable hunting Elephants specifically because of his perception of their intelligence, and I would trust him to be something of an expert on big game hunting. From the perspective of the sciences, he was ahead of his time on this.

Elephants are one of the few species most behaviorists acknowledge as having very advanced intelligence, likely signaling being self aware. In other words, there is evidence they mourn the loss of their family and are aware of what is happening to them at an individual level. There is advanced communication between individuals including subsonic signalling used to communicate through vibrations sent through the ground over vast distances that wasn't even discovered until very recently. To me, the killing of species at that level of intelligence creates an added level of ethical dilemma well beyond the general consideration of endangered species status.

Cows have been shown to morn. And pigs are known to be one of the smartest animals...

I guess they must be tastier to most people than general ethics.

Pigs are borderline on intelligence, they're definitely more intelligent than your dog, but don't come close on sentience scales. Cows, nope. And both of those species are in absolutely no danger of extinction due to the fact that they have been domesticated. Pigs probably could survive on their own without human intervention, cows would probably be in trouble. So no matter how you want to break it down, cows and pigs represent and entirely different set of circumstances than the hunting of wild elephants.

There is no "probably" to it, pigs do survive on their own. In fact, they're the fastest species to become adapted to life in the wild after being captive. And once they're wild, they're mean f-ers. It's why the southern US has so many issues with feral boars, and the issue spreads farther north every year.

I'm aware, but not *all* of them would survive and likely not all breeds would do equally well, and they definitely would pose a major ecological threat as an invasive species menace.

Dragonwolf

I think hunting any animal is disgusting...however I love animals and don't really like people so I probably have a different opinion than most.

Would you rather people hunt the animals, killing them fairly cleanly and quickly, or would you rather those animals overpopulate an area and die slow, painful deaths from starvation and disease?

Hunting is better for the sake of the species when regulated properly (poaching is a completely different matter).

live2dream

Who defines 'exotic'? All animals feel the same pain.

QueenBishOTUniverse

Who defines 'exotic'? All animals feel the same pain.

Nope, many animals don't even have the equipment necessary to experience what you or I interpret as pain, sponges for example.

patrickblo13

Who defines 'exotic'? All animals feel the same pain.

With my shot they feel no pain

Dragonwolf

Cows have been shown to morn. And pigs are known to be one of the smartest animals...

I guess they must be tastier to most people than general ethics.

Pigs are borderline on intelligence, they're definitely more intelligent than your dog, but don't come close on sentience scales. Cows, nope. And both of those species are in absolutely no danger of extinction due to the fact that they have been domesticated. Pigs probably could survive on their own without human intervention, cows would probably be in trouble. So no matter how you want to break it down, cows and pigs represent and entirely different set of circumstances than the hunting of wild elephants.

There is no "probably" to it, pigs do survive on their own. In fact, they're the fastest species to become adapted to life in the wild after being captive. And once they're wild, they're mean f-ers. It's why the southern US has so many issues with feral boars, and the issue spreads farther north every year.

I'm aware, but not *all* of them would survive and likely not all breeds would do equally well, and they definitely would pose a major ecological threat as an invasive species menace.

The context was the breeds used for livestock, which are the ones that are feral in the United States. And not even all wild animals, born and bred in the wild survive, so I'm not really sure what your point was on that...

LoneWolf_70

Who defines 'exotic'? All animals feel the same pain.

but theyre sooooo tasty.