Hunting vs. Endangered Hunting

Montana is a difficult place to practice non-violence toward animals. Because humans.

It's their fault for being so tasty.

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.

Actually, the "drought" is simply the land returning to its natural state, before the dams and reservoirs were built, creating all of that artificial farmland.

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.

Sorry, but your statement is pretty crazy, and has no support even from the link you posted. If anything, you could say human over population caused drought. If you read the opinion article you posted (not a study), it only says that because people are prevented from taking past a certain amount of water out of the human made water redirection system, that farms are dying in an area. Again this means PEOPLE over populated an area, where there is not enough water originally, and because there is now reduced water falling from the sky and a law preventing taking over a certain amount of the flowing water from that area, it is causing some farms to die. It does not say an endangered list caused the drought.

There is also no guarantee there is anywhere near enough water to stop the drought even if they took ALL the water. The reason? There are two huge obvious things you are forgetting: this valley, and many other now populated and farmed areas in CA were MAN MADE into a agricultural or liveable area by capturing and diverting water, so it is actually "normal" to be not enough water to farm, and the normal state is in "drought" ALL THE TIME, not just recently. But probably the most important issue here is that it is not just the people in that valley who want water and who would take it, were all the protections lifted. It is people ALL OVER the state, and even people in other states could take water from California's flowing water systems...who is to guarantee there would be ANY left for that "poor little town" were protections lifted, who is to say where this water would be diverted to? Probably not as much would go to the "poor little town" as you might think, but to population centers, where the money and power is.

So this is not cause and effect at all, you cannot blame over population of an area based on man made water re-direction on an endangered species list, and a piece of paper sure didn't affect rain falling out of the sky, and even completely taking all protections and limits on water away would probably not "solve" that town's problem the way you think it would, and...it certainly didn't cause the drought as you say, that's a forehead slapper.

Now whether the laws need to be looked at and water flow re-direction changed is another issue, but I just had to address the ridiculousness of that bogus statement.

I think this was the best answer to the thread topic though:

I don't really understand trophy hunting.

Good job - you murdered an animal to decorate your home. You're so cool.

Hunting for food, and population control, I have no issue with.

I found this on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test

theory of mind is an interesting one that I remember studying at university, i.e. understanding that other individuals don't know the same things you know - the evidence for this comes from animals exploiting this knowledge to deceive others. Baboons have a theory of mind, and are deceitful... e.g. hiding food from other baboons, mating in secret - this is done in ways that show that they understand that another animal doesn't see the same view of the world as they do, e.g. subordinate males hiding behind things to mate with females (the alpha doesn't let them do this, so they do it where the alpha can't see them)... stuff like that. There's less on that in non-humans on wikipedia, but there is a little: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind

Ok, so it looks like I wasn't too far off. I know I've seen the theory of mind type observations done in primates but I can't recall how much I've seen it used outside of primates. Of course the biggest problem, and they mentioned this in the wiki article, is the whole umwelt issue and our tendency to design anthropocentric testing apparatus. This is one that drives me nuts when discussing toothed whales. For goodness sake their primary sense is SONAR, how on earth are you going to accurately test their intelligence etc. when we can't even match their sensory capabilities? And then you have the octopuses which aren't even vertebrate.....

Anyways, most of these types of issues are still VERY hotly debated, but I generally tend to err on the side of us underestimating when it comes to most animals since there are likely scores of issues we're missing, such as with the elephant subsonic communication, or whales that use specific water density layers to communicate long distance.

Ooooh, just found this one. Hard to argue sentience when it looks like they respond to their names.
http://www.pnas.org/content/110/32/13216

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.

By this logic we should start hunting humans...aren't we the most destructive animals of all? We destroy much more of the enviroment than any other animal on the planet and push all the other species around as we please. Just playing devils advocate...

That actually might be a good sport. Have you ever read "The Most Dangerous Game"?

LOL, I have not yet read that book, I should, though!

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.

By this logic we should start hunting humans...aren't we the most destructive animals of all? We destroy much more of the enviroment than any other animal on the planet and push all the other species around as we please. Just playing devils advocate...

Ironically, it's the few remaining hunter-gatherer populations that do the least amount of environmental damage and who have the most sustainable lifestyles. Hunter-gathering has been proven to be the most long lasting ecological strategy, neanderthals and their ancestors lived for 600,000+ years as hunter-gatherers in Europe... Homo erectus lasted over a million years... Homo sapiens only evolved 160,000 years ago and lived exclusively as hunter-gatherers until 10,000 years ago..... and in less than 10,000 years, non-hunter-gatherer Homo sapiens have done a huge amount of damage to the environment and need to make some pretty drastic changes if they're to stand any chance of lasting as long as earlier human species.

so by that logic, maybe we should ban agriculture and industry and only allow hunting and gathering as a means to get food, and let natural selection take care of the overpopulation........

(not really suggesting this, just playing devil's advocate)

I totally agree with you. I'm not against hunting, but I thought it was a little ironic to suggest we should hunt endangered species because they are destroying things :flowerforyou:

^^^Correct (at least from what I have been reading as well.)

Stand your bacon ground now! We had a high five about this!

Yes, it appears I may have to resign myself to being more hypocritical than previously thought... BUT they only used the mirrors to investigate their environment, never mind that they probably just didn't give a crap about why that crazy person was drawing dots on them....

I am actually reading up on some more recent studies that I have had yet to see until now. Who knows what anyone actually knows...

I just believe animals feel things. And I believe hunting is good and right. And I believe farm practices should ignite a debate and discussion faster than any hunting controversy.

And I KNOW bacon is delicious and I will keep eating it even if a pig himself tells me verbally, in English, not to.

I'm also fairly certain said pig would be more than happy to dine on long pork if given the same opportunity so ethics be damned!

^^^Correct (at least from what I have been reading as well.)

Stand your bacon ground now! We had a high five about this!

Yes, it appears I may have to resign myself to being more hypocritical than previously thought... BUT they only used the mirrors to investigate their environment, never mind that they probably just didn't give a crap about why that crazy person was drawing dots on them....

I am actually reading up on some more recent studies that I have had yet to see until now. Who knows what anyone actually knows...

I just believe animals feel things. And I believe hunting is good and right. And I believe farm practices should ignite a debate and discussion faster than any hunting controversy.

And I KNOW bacon is delicious and I will keep eating it even if a pig himself tells me verbally, in English, not to.

I'm also fairly certain said pig would be more than happy to dine on long pork if given the same opportunity so ethics be damned!

Absolutely!

Also, the girl who said she would eat bacon even if the pig "asked" her not to... You are an absolutely vile human.