The importance of Hunting

Discuss how to take action in helping wildlife and the environment.

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HunterStrait
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The importance of Hunting

Post by HunterStrait » Mon Apr 14, 2014 8:37 am

Hunting ain't animal abuse. To tell you right now, its better than what happens at farms.
Deer,Small game(squirrels,mourning doves, rabbits),upland game(Pheasants, chucker), cougars, mountain goats, wolves, coyotes and many more animals are legally hunted during a time in the year where the animal is not raising young or birthing young.
The deer season as example is set on the mating season, or the rut.
Hunters are allowed a limited amount of game per year depending on the state or region.
The benefit of what a hunter can get out of an animal is the meat, antlers(deer, moose), bones(skulls), and fur.
And there's a lot more compassion in hunting than what happens at a farm.
Overpopulation=more to your limit
A good example is in the eastern part of the united states, where deer populations are high.
Hunters can harvest multiple deer in areas where there are surplus deer, and when there's not a lot, the hunter can only harvest one or two.
Predatory animals cannot control this by themselves in regions like this.
And when they're are little prey and a lot of predators, some animals need to be culled.
Wolves in Washington state have been causing damage to many species by surplus killing.
In Idaho 176 sheep were killed by a pack of wolves and left to waste.
Therefore, the pack was culled.
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Re: The importance of Hunting

Post by GleamingBlack » Wed Apr 16, 2014 2:46 pm

Sorry pal, but it seems you have no idea of the ecological system.

Animals don't need to be "controlled" by men. If there's too many deers, it's just because men hunted all the predators down, like Wolves.
Wolves, coyotes and other predators managed the deer and elk population quite good long before human race raised. There's no need to play "police". Wolves do not kill off their prey and if prey becomes less, Wolves do so as well. So it won't be to many predators.
Every encyclopedia will confirm that, just look it up. It's what you call ecosystem.

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Re: The importance of Hunting

Post by Chumpkins_ » Wed Apr 16, 2014 6:55 pm

Too much of anything isn't a good thing. If there were too many wolves, not enough prey, the prey might literally be derived out of the area. It's good to have the population managed, also, don't base your knowledge off of encyclopedias or online, as they may have outdated or false information.
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Re: The importance of Hunting

Post by Riceboy » Wed Apr 16, 2014 7:25 pm

SilverFang2014 wrote:Too much of anything isn't a good thing. If there were too many wolves, not enough prey, the prey might literally be derived out of the area.

Now
this right here leans more toward the word ecosystem than what Gleaming said.
Firstly and on the side: the ecosystem is just the general network of relationships/etc. with organisms and their environment. This does in no way mean all the organisms know when when to stop hunting. In an animal's mind, it's just food. The wolf does not spare much thought (if any at all) on how hunting their target pray will effect anything else aside from their selves and their hunger/etc. It's food. In general what I'm trying to say is, sure the WOLVES did okay... In some areas. But think back on the many other animal species that were gravely effected by their own need to pursue certain kinds of prey to the point that they disappeared from that area completely. Deer are gone, wolves go after other prey. That effects other species, including many plant species!
TL;DR: Silver's right. A lot of false information is spread. Don't give wolves too much credit, they don't think like we do.

Now on the main subject: hunting in itself can be good or bad or not have much effect at all depending on how it is organized. This is why there are "seasons" in hunting. (Deer season, duck season, etc.)
If you hunt something that's not in season, you get in loooots of trouble. This helps manage population in a way that keeps this "ecosystem" generally balanced enough to still be stable.
People hunting animals that are not in season are the problem. Sometimes a little population control can seriously help an area, and future generations of wolves and other organisms. This makes for a happy ecosystem because humans intervened.
Now I'm not saying ALL cases of hunting are right, but not all are wrong, either. It's a very situational subject! Every now and then, humans just gotta step in to fix things up. At the same time, there are humans that do things that could harm it. There's a fine line between those two types of people, it's important to know the difference.
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Re: The importance of Hunting

Post by GleamingBlack » Fri Apr 18, 2014 4:44 am

Randoven wrote:The wolf does not spare much thought (if any at all) on how hunting their target pray will effect anything else
Of course not. There's no need to "think". When prey is gone, Wolves won't become more. Some of the predators die if there's not enough prey. It's just the natural way the ecosystem works. No managing needed.

This makes for a happy ecosystem because humans intervened.

As I said: Other animals managed their life quite good long before human race "intervented". Nature doesn't need us. But we need nature.
We don't have to play lord of life and death.

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Re: The importance of Hunting

Post by Riceboy » Fri Apr 18, 2014 6:56 am

Like I said... Not exactly.

Animals did okay. But in a lot of areas it got to the point where we did need to intervene. Unless you want a lot of your favorite animals to go cluelessly extinct, sometimes people need to give a little helping hand. It's not humans playing "lord of life and death" (not going to expand here that's dangerous territory) like you assume, or for some reason have gotten yourself to believe. Think of it more as humans finding a way to do their thing
without completely wiping out other species themselves. Sure, we've done that before. But again, that's why humans have set up seasons.
To put it simply for you: It's generally a way for humans to still hunt and allow it to be reasonable enough so an environment stays ok.
I think you're simply looking at it from the wrong angle. We're not trying to turn it into a huge sandbox game, we're simply making sure we don't muck up again.

And we still do muck up! It's what every living thing does. And heck, humans do it often.
But hunting is hunting. Though I don't fully support trophy hunting (I don't know man, it feels like a waste but I DO love taxidermy! But that's just me!) I'm glad there's a somewhat sensible way to do it so it doesn't completely throw off the chain.

TL;DR: Think of it as a way of people hunting but creating a system that works, and cycles so that it doesn't completely destroy the environment. Not as them trying to control every aspect of an animal's life as some sort of all-seeing land king. (Or something.)
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Re: The importance of Hunting

Post by TheImmortalWolf » Sun May 18, 2014 9:56 pm

hunting can be animal abuse if the animal is endangered
GleamingBlack wrote:Sorry pal, but it seems you have no idea of the ecological system.

Animals don't need to be "controlled" by men. If there's too many deers, it's just because men hunted all the predators down, like Wolves.
Wolves, coyotes and other predators managed the deer and elk population quite good long before human race raised. There's no need to play "police". Wolves do not kill off their prey and if prey becomes less, Wolves do so as well. So it won't be to many predators.
Every encyclopedia will confirm that, just look it up. It's what you call ecosystem.
You sound like your trying to be a know it all
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Re: The importance of Hunting

Post by AvidestSalute » Mon May 26, 2014 6:05 pm

Well, I'll tell you what I think about hunting and what good it does.

Hunting is a sport for man, and I'm pretty sure everyone knows that, but it keeps our whole ecosystem in line. Animals may have done pretty well without us before, but I believe that hunting controls the amount of animals in each population.
Although, hunting can only be used for two ways, which is the reason of collecting food for ones self, or just doing the sport. Both kind of help the ecosystem, but performing the plain sport seems to be just cruel.

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Re: The importance of Hunting

Post by GleamingBlack » Sun Jul 06, 2014 1:43 am

Randoven wrote:Like I said... Not exactly.
It's not humans playing "lord of life and death" (not going to expand here that's dangerous territory) like you assume,



Ok, so they decide which population is allowed to grow and which is not. They decide how much forest can be left and how much water can be clear. Human race decides anything and you say, the people do not play lord of life and death?



Randoven wrote: or for some reason have gotten yourself to believe. Think of it more as humans finding a way to do their thing without completely wiping out other species themselves. Sure, we've done that before. But again, that's why humans have set up seasons.


If you'd be right no species would die off because of human acting. Sadly it doesn't work that way …
I'm really wondering of which Earth and of which human race you are talking about. Must be a kind of parallel universe. :roll:




AvidestSalute wrote:Hunting is a sport for man, and I'm pretty sure everyone knows that, but it keeps our whole ecosystem in line.


That's complete nonsense.

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Re: The importance of Hunting

Post by laika_wolf » Sun Jul 06, 2014 10:19 am

I'm no expert in this, but here's my opinion:
Humans are animals.
We have a role in the ecosystems, too! It's not like we're some alien entity that just got here.
GleamingBlack wrote:Other animals managed their life quite good long before human race "intervented". Nature doesn't need us. But we need nature.
We don't have to play lord of life and death.

There hasn't really been a time (except for prehistoric times, of course) when the human race hasn't hunted as a part of the ecosystem. Nature does need us. We are a part of nature! We have a role to fill as omnivorous creatures. Imagine if wolves suddenly decided to just drop out of hunting, like some humans suggest we do. That would be horrible, elk would be running rampant!
Now, with our advanced weapons, I think we should manage how much and what we're killing. It's not like early humans ran around killing bears, lions, huge whales and more deer and ducks than we can consume.
I think what we need to do is to think "what would early humans do?". I support hunting as long as it is controlled, as it currently is. Hunting is not killing endangered species. They were made endangered by people who thought they could do whatever they wanted because they weren't a part of the environment. Hunting is not logging or destroying the environment. People that destroy the land don't realize that we need nature, as GleamingBlack said.
Basically, we need nature, nature needs us.
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Re: The importance of Hunting

Post by calxmity » Sun Jul 20, 2014 9:06 am

GleamingBlack wrote:
AvidestSalute wrote:Hunting is a sport for man, and I'm pretty sure everyone knows that, but it keeps our whole ecosystem in line.
That's complete nonsense.
How is that nonsense? What part do you not understand? The "hunting is a sport" part or "keeps are whole ecosystem in line" part? Because quite frankly, both of them are true. Most likely (in my area) the deer population would overpopulate tremendously and cause a problem if people did not hunt. I don't mean to sound rude, so don't take it to offense.
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Re: The importance of Hunting

Post by ovedur » Sun Jul 27, 2014 12:41 am

SilverFang2014 wrote:Too much of anything isn't a good thing. If there were too many wolves, not enough prey, the prey might literally be derived out of the area. It's good to have the population managed, also, don't base your knowledge off of encyclopedias or online, as they may have outdated or false information.
  • I agree with you, SilverFang.

    I believe that as long as they aren't killing too many of them, I think that hunting should be allowed. Overpopulation and such can be a problem in the environment. I'm sure that we've all heard this, but the reason why overpopulation is bad is because one breed of animal may overpopulate and then they'll end up taking the food for the other animals. This will cause the other animals and possibly the own species to die out themselves. However, if you're hunting for fun (like poaching), I do not agree with what you're doing, such as the people on the Facebook page, The Only Good Wolf is a Dead Wolf, but I'm sure people don't need to start talking about them here.
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Re: The importance of Hunting

Post by firedog6 » Sun Jul 27, 2014 7:45 pm

I don't like hunting. I understand your concept. This is my opinion and that's yours deal with it.
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Re: The importance of Hunting

Post by alethe » Sun Jul 27, 2014 7:48 pm

-Drift- wrote:
SilverFang2014 wrote:Too much of anything isn't a good thing. If there were too many wolves, not enough prey, the prey might literally be derived out of the area. It's good to have the population managed, also, don't base your knowledge off of encyclopedias or online, as they may have outdated or false information.
  • I agree with you, SilverFang.

    I believe that as long as they aren't killing too many of them, I think that hunting should be allowed. Overpopulation and such can be a problem in the environment. I'm sure that we've all heard this, but the reason why overpopulation is bad is because one breed of animal may overpopulate and then they'll end up taking the food for the other animals. This will cause the other animals and possibly the own species to die out themselves. However, if you're hunting for fun (like poaching), I do not agree with what you're doing, such as the people on the Facebook page, The Only Good Wolf is a Dead Wolf, but I'm sure people don't need to start talking about them here.
Agree here as well. Hunting isn't abuse. Its no different from a wolf killing a deer. We're just filling our role in the ecosystem.


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Re: The importance of Hunting

Post by Nordue » Wed Jul 30, 2014 5:41 pm

  • Like anything humans do, hunting has positive and negative consequences on anything it affects, from the level of the individual being killed to the entire ecosystem that individual is apart of, as many have referred to here before me. I am not going to go into details of this, because people are more than capable of doing their own internet research on the topic.

    Being a First World Westerner who grew up in a suburban environment, I have never experienced killing an animal with a hunting weapon. But when in its purest form, hunting for the purpose of food or materials, using almost the entire animal, and abiding by the laws of ethical hunting (like Fair Chase), I believe hunting can be ethical and useful. Hunting for population control is often used when things get extreme, to reduce the amount of damage done from a species invasion or overpopulation. But it requires strict moderation and constant human intervention to be effective. In short, it is a solution, but not a permanent one. Driving a species to extinction with hunting can have a cascade effect on other species in the ecosystem.

    It is so interesting, yet depressing that humans are the first species to exist that has the conscience to recognize, have opinions, and take action based on consideration of not just the individual, but the entire ecosystem. That is why this discussion is taking place at all! Humans are a very interesting species. But I am straying!

    HunterStrait makes a good point, that the food we eat often comes from unethical practices, especially our meat and dairy products. That's something that often goes overlooked, or unacted upon, or quietly ignored as we make another trip to our local supermarket chain to grab our usual products. One could even argue that the proportion of unethical food production practices largely outweighs the scale of unethical hunting instances, since all people eat, many from chain/commercial grocers, and not everyone practices hunting.

    That's my opinion though.

    This topic is progressing okay so far, which I am happy with as a mod. But lets do keep in mind that none of us have our doctorates in Ecology or Ecosystem Management, so no one here has any overriding authority on any of these topics really. But continuing to compare and share opinions is good!

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