I love shooting, and shoot 2 or 3 times a week. I use a variety of pistols in different calibres, but also practice with my Marlin 60 a .22 rifle with 14 rounds in the mag.

I will also be hunting this fall. In Alberta it is an integral part of the wildlife conservation programme. You draw a tag, and are told what to hunt and where. You have very little choice. Where and what you hunt is based on deer population around the proivince, for instance. Trophy tags are fwer and more expensive.

I used to agonize about people shooting tropphy animals - after all, aren't you taking out the biggest and most healthy animal? Wouldn't that continually weaken the species?

A few thoughts on this: the trophies are male - they have the racks not the females (no- I won't go there!). The females are far more important to the survival of the species.

The males, by becoming dominant have already "spread their seed" throughout the herd.

However, they are also at the pinnacle of their career and face near term expulsion from the herd by a newer, stronger and fresher rival. Their future consists of a a lonely death from hunger and predation.

Hunting trophy animals has actually led to larger trophy animals - hence the year on year increase in the number of record animals take.

Take hunting and predation out of the picture and what you get is one of two things: in certain circumstances a static population, with fewer young and an older adult herd that is very vulnerable to disease (since they are older and have fewer young to replace them); an exploding population that becomes unsustainably large, leading to death by starvation of most of the herd.

Predation is taken out of the picture by human population growth: and if you live in the UK and want to come to Canada, but believe we should leave the wolves alone, then stay home and do not come and add your footprint to Canadian soil! LOL

The mere fact that people live here has already changed the balance - that is why we need conservation management!

And like MMC has mentioned - you either pay someone to cull the animals or you sell the tags. A prime Rocky Mountain Ram tag can raise $20,000 for conservation, plus create jobs and put many more dollars into the local economy.

And yes, hunting is killing things - it's not catch and release! There is no hunt without the kill. The kill has been part of our social frameowrk for far longer than it has been looked down on. And in fact that kill is going on right now so you can have your morning bacon. It's just that most of us are not involved in the killing part, just the eating part. We pay immigrants minimum wage to rip the throats out of cows and pigs.

I have come to a personal decision that, if I cannot kill a deer, butcher it and carry it out, then I should not eat meat, period! Any meat, from any source. (I'm not saying I'd have the moral commitment to carry out that threat though! I do like a bacon sarnie!)

And I would rather have that defenseless animal die a quick death after living a natural life, than a slow lingering death from hunger, disease, cold or parasites due to over population.

By the way: there are more moose, deer, black bear etc in Alberta today than 100 years ago. Could be that these conservation practices work?

There are pretty stiff rules on bowhunting. The poundage - draw - of the bow the minimum length of arrow, the type of point used. It's not the weapon that doesn't kill instantly but the amount of skill the hunter has. The same as for guns.

Beautifully put


Yes - you certainly can't have a back up gun in bow hunting season - and tbh if you do not think you are capable of killing with one shot - you shouldn't be bow hunting. Its a tough sport.

Do you give half your deer to the poor?

But isn't the hunting needed because people practice selective conservation management
In so much people want the predator removed, and in some cases because it preys on “hunted” animals
Knock on effect is the prey species grows at an excessive rate, and thus justifies the need for the hunt
In large unpopulated area, this practice isn’t needed as a degree of balance is still maintained

Also natural control by predators is and always will be better for the species as it removes weaker slower animals than modern “hi-tech”hunting which tends to go for what is fashionable on the wall or dinner table..

Nice try but biologically/ecologically your logic is slightly flawed

I wasn't looking to get my essay graded!

robin hood robin hood.

I don't hunt. I'm not a good enough aim. Apart from that I prefer to pay people to do the dirty work. That's what butcher's shops are for. I have no objection to responsible hunting.

.

Fair point, fair point.

I honestly don't understand how people feel it's fine to kill an animal for a bit of fun. It's soulless and destructive behaviour. Perhaps it's worth considering if there might be re-incarnation and that you might come back to earth as a hunted animal, not to mention having to answer to God for this kind of cruelty.

Shoot at a range!

People do go to ranges to shoot. Hunting is not about shooting the gun. I realize that guns have been largely outlawed in the UK so that may be why you think hunting=shooting but the two are mutually exclusive. Why would someone who wants to shoot a gun head back into the woods to take one or maybe two shots?

Then I honestly dont believe you have:

a) bothered to read this thread
b) attempted to understand others positions.

Hunting (in Canada) is not simply about killing an animal for fun. Do yourself a favour and at least read the posts by MMC and Triumphguy if nobody elses. They sum up the reasoning behind hunting (and the issue of tags) better than I could even try to do in just one post.

I have read these posts. Animals regulated their own species well before people decided to cull them. Culling is just a way of keeping their numbers down to a balance that suits us in some way. Shooting animals can be explained in many ways, but 'because they need us to do it' is not a convincing argument. I wonder what the figures are for the animals that end up dying long painful deaths by the mis-aimed bullet and arrow are.

Very simply, we only want to kill/cull these animals because we're there to do it. They managed fine without human intervention. Being a vegetarian notwithstanding, I think it's fine to kill animals as a matter of need. I don't think the indigenous indian populations felt the need hundreds of years ago to cull the animal population. They just took the animals they needed to survive and let nature do the rest.

What about horses? They don't have predators in North America because people introduced them. They breed to excessive populations. Surely a cull is needed.

As someone infered earlier, human (that includes the native peoples) intervention and settling of larger tracts of Canada has reduced the number (and territory) of natural predators. Given your abhorence of Hunting I trust you do not intend to add your footprint to the number of humans in Canada?