doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com A Very Close Call

I am afraid we are in a situation here where if you have to explain it. They will not understand anyway.

Hunting is hunting, a lion, wood duck, pheasant, coyote or crows are all beautiful in someones eyes though not all are eaten.

I will never hunt big game or fly to some exotic place to fly fish but I do not begrudge those who do.

As a retired wildlife biologist, I'm with RPr in this sentiment. Our collective capitulation as sportsmen and even game managers, of just 'going along to get along' has gotten us virtually nowhere with today's 'modern man'.

Out here in Montana, for the first time, we have an international wildlife organization called Big Animal, Inc. I believe, petitioning our Fish & Game folks to abandon all lion hunting in our state. They claim that pursuing them as sport actually makes them "fiercer" and "a greater liability to the general public", according to the NPR news blurb I heard a few weeks ago. Hopefully our MDFWP will be wise enough to resist this challenge.

Never mind that we have one of the healthier, hunted mountain lion populations in the Intermountain west without the levels of human conflict being experienced in those states that do ban the hunting of them, e. g. Kalifornia. Never mind that a regional wolf biologist, tells some folks, off-the-record of course, that they should shoot in the direction of a threatening gray wolf (while taking care to not hit it) as it will actually begin to put some fear in them of we humans.

Such nonsense boggles my mind to where these cats are almost welcome to a few human meals snatched from say, a PETA rally, if we as a race continue to 'dumb-down'as we are doing. Hell, I'll even help em'! Remember that just as long as people are being fed this crap by today's media, we really can't hold out for much hope in the way of sound wildlife management.

Sorry for the rant,

Rob

Thanks Robert, very interesting and useful information and your background gives it weight.

By the way, I saw a lion on my birdlease this year - in the Texas Panhandle between the towns of Quail and Hedley on the Salt Fork of the Red River.

Best,

Mike

Rob:
I agree with your sentiments and understand the need to keep the Mountain Lion population under control. However; I ran a video production company* for many years and did a lot of video editing and duplication for fellow hunters since,as a hunter myself I understood what they wanted done. Lots of footage from Africa and some really great Elk,sheep and deer footage from my own State of Arizona.
Mountain Lion hunting in Arizona typically requires locating spoor and then releasing a pack of dogs to trail the lion. The end result is usually a treed Mountain Lion which the hunter dispaches at close range often with a pistol. The dogs of course are all over the cat as soon as it hits the ground. The first time I handed this type of footage to one of our female editors resulted in her bursting into tears and refusing to finish the project. Subsequently I had to edit such footage myself as no one else would do it.
I think you can imagine the impact of someone shooting an apparentely defenseless animal that been treed by dogs has on the general public. The environmental activitists and organizations like PETA would have a field day using this footage for propaganda purposes. I wouldn't be surprised if PETA has someone reading this thread as I type it trying to figure out how to put this material to their own use.
*I was also aware according to some of the hunter clients that my competition wouldn't even touch their material placing it in the same category as pornography.
Jim

I don't worry or care much about the PETA types. The vast majority are a bunch of pious hippocrites who wear leather shoes and belts and would think nothing of killing (or paying an exterminator to kill) rats, flies, or cockroaches in their apartments. Their idea of sentient life extends mostly to that which is warm and fuzzy with big brown eyes. Interestingly, most of them are very pro-abortion... even the partial birth-suck the kids brain out while he's trying to come out type. Like I said, petty hippocrites. I no longer argue with them even though they are so easy to expose. I simply tell them that for every animal they don't eat... I will eat three.

My work takes me from rural kitchens to the homes of political leaders in Ottawa, often in social settings, and my approach to friends and acquaintances who despise hunting is to own-up as a killer. Words have meaning. I use that word. But how can you? Well, hunting is a part of my life as inseparable as shoes. I trap wild animals, too. Audiences and interlocutors are forced to come to grips with it. You shoot deer, with those big eyes? I've shot deer but most of my hunting now is birds. I enjoy it more; it takes more skill. My integrity doesn't permit the meat-for-food and leather-for-shoes apologia or silly euphemisms like "harvesting" for killing, doing good by killing them. Honesty is respected. The results are satisfactory.

The PETA types are never the ones you have to worry about. They're on the fringes of society anyway. The ones you have to worry about are the soccer moms and school teachers and all those millions of people living like rats in condos and apartments in big cities. They're the ones who fail to see the need for hunting of guns and they get all of their thinking done for them by Oprah.

You can’t appease Peta or non hunters by throwing hunters who use dogs or hunt predators under the bus. Would your employees be any less appalled at watching someone wring the neck of a crippled bird or the coup de gras of a wounded but still aware game animal? Hunting is hard wired in our DNA. Non hunters haven’t risen above the need to hunt, they have completely lost touch with it. You will never convince them of all the good hunters and hunting monies do for game animals and the environment in general. We were originally hunters and gatherers, they must have gotten all the gatherer genes.

King,
I couldn't agree more. My wife and I attended a wild game dinner recently, a fund raiser for our local MPP, who also happens to be my good friend. Someone at our fairly large table used the term "harvest". I politely rejected that term and said that hunting is an ancient and honourable sport, of which we should be proud. I went on to say that no hunter should be ashamed to say that he "killed" an animal or fish, for that is what he does. I was roundly applauded by those at our table and several others within hearing. I know for a certainty that more than a few of those applauding are non hunters.

I think some of you are missing my point here. I don't personally have any interest in hunting the big cats but that's a personal preference. I am NOT in anyway stating anyone on this forum shouldn't do so. My point is don't graphically document it as was done in the post that started this thread, make it publicly available and give ammunition to the antis. NO one,least of all me, is trying to throw hunters to the dogs*
* Curious choice of words BTW since we were using Lion hunting with dogs as an example.

GregSY:
Your comments below are spot on and this state of ignorance is IMO very prevelant for urban residents. I think they actually believe we have chicken breast farms underground where the meat is grown in much the same way as mushrooms.

"The PETA types are never the ones you have to worry about. They're on the fringes of society anyway. The ones you have to worry about are the soccer moms and school teachers and all those millions of people living like rats in condos and apartments in big cities. They're the ones who fail to see the need for hunting of guns and they get all of their thinking done for them by Oprah"

Jim