I started smoking again when my son had his accident with the bus and I really want to quit again. Maybe moving to an acreage would be the answer. I would shit a brick if I heard coyotes when I was out having a fag.

You're quite right in saying that 'you just don't understand different ways of life until you experience them yourself' but there can never be any justification for killing any living creature purely for fun.

You know the funny thing is - even very late at night when its pitch black (and you can't see another house in any direction at all anyway) - you hear all these things moving in the bushes.

Back in the UK I would have s**t my pants, here you just think - oh its either a deer, moose, coyote, one of the cats, porcupine etc - it seriously NEVER crosses your mind it could be anything dangerous

If it were purely for fun then i'm sure as shit it would be banned - however (and this is my last last word on the subject) whilst it IS fun - n doubt about that, it provides as service especially as coyote and gophers in the prairies are as much of a pest as rats are in the cities.

Deer, moose, elk, caribou provide food, other big game comes down to population control.

For more education see my thread regarding this whole issue started I think it was around August last year.

I find it best to tranquilize them first, then tape plastic tubes to their legs because its funny when they wake up and try to run away, they look like robots.

furry robots

Any living creature?

You're not one of these animal rights people, are you? I kill spiders, I use bug spray when necessary, and though I don't regard killing as fun, sometimes it's necessary. Wildlife population control is necessary to maintain the long-term balance of numbers because the number of predators has been reduced. Maybe we wouldn't have so much poverty and starvation if countries restricted the population to numbers it could adequately support, instead of allowing people to have as many kids as they'd like.

Humans could learn a lot from the animal kingdom.

So what do you propose? Death squads to go around killing people to control our numbers?

Your post said COYOTES ARE FUN TO SHOOT and made no reference to pest control or any other reason to kill them -just that it was fun. And thank you I don't need education on this and if I did, I would look for it somewhere other than a British Expats site and I would want it from someone other than a 'gun wielding harpy'.

No, but educating people that it's not just climate change that affects our future will help.

People live longer, and have more children, because medicine is so advanced these days. Unfortunately, many people see having children as a right, not a responsibility. I don't know what the answer is, and I suspect neither do you, but sarcasm definitely isn't it. What's needed is an international agreement on population control, but too many businesses make money off of the way things are to want to change.

Do you kill spiders for fun - probably not. Is wildlife population control done for fun - guess not. Will killing animals for fun improve the world's proverty and starvation - don't think so. I didn't say these things were wrong, I said killing animals for fun is.

The chef at my favorite restaurant scavanges the carcasses of animals that die of natural causes.

No, I kill them for peace and quiet. If I don't, then I get a constant high-pitched whine in one ear that the doctor only gives one cure for.

No, but people have fun while killing animals for food.

Apologies, you're correct. Having fun whilst killing animals is okay though.

Yawn

You do have to be careful around here. I live in north central Calgary and we have a problem with coyotes between our backyard and the school. There are 5 coyotes that live somewhere near here.

I watched a small dog get attacked and taken away by this pack of coyotes. A man was walking a large dog on a leash and a small dog off leash. The small dog spotted a coyote and took off toward it at full speed. Needless to say, the other coyotes appeared pretty quickly and that was the end of that.

Also, one of the neighbours on the other side of the park had their small dog attacked and killed in their backyard by these coyotes.