Bollocks, you have completely missed my point. I am completely against factory farming which amongst other things is completely unnatural and therefore cannot be cannot be considered to have a place in the natural food chain. Sadly this is where 99% of the modern world gets it's food. I have no problem at all with how the less developed, for want of a better term, peoples of the world hunt to get their food. Killing anything other than through necessity is morally wrong.

And as for the video clip, I feel that is probably one of the most offensive things that has ever been posted on this site. I was almost willing to recind my comment about inbred Albertans posted part in jest on another post, but not any longer. The waste of sperm with a gun may very well not be Albertan but he epitomises the rednecks that we get around here. As someone else said, high powered rifle against a bear minding its own business. I can but hope that one day the gun jams and he gets what he deserves!!!

Just out of interest, what is too many? Surely a point of balance will naturally be acheived, or do we have an imbalance because man has already wiped out large numbers of their natural predators?

That would be more acceptable than the slaughterhouses and some of the "rescue" places that they end up in (as you well know )

Just because its an animal I love it doesbn't mean that I am all for keeping them alive and letting them run free at all costs. The world has moved on and sad as though it sounds there aren't many natural predators for horses these days (not in the numbers that stupid breeders are churning them out at).

Are there too many wild horses??? or are there too many domesticated (though granted unbroken) bred for the helluv it ones that end up in slaughterhouses sick and skinny beyond belief.

Do you think that turning these out to hunt would be cruel given their state of health, not to mention their familiarity to humans hence a "hunt" would probably entail goinjg up to them with some licquorish and putting a bullet in them.

Tough one - and one that would need to be looked into if it is indeed an over population of wild horses

They don't have natural predators, they're not native to North America. There are now herds in the southwest much larger than the food source can support. The BLM tries to get people to adopt them but winds up having to cull.

Oh, there certainly is, I wasn't thinking of using domestic horses for hunting. Have a look here:

http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/wil...and_burro.html

SORRY! Wrong thread :S

huh??

Depends where you go, the big cities offer all manner of noodle variants and things on sticks.

reminds me of Terry Pratchett books - Rat on a stick . . .

I'm pretty sure I had that in Malaysia.

Ah, you are a fan of "Cut-Me-Own-Throat" Dibbler. I think he also moonlights at the cafe in the ground floor of the building where I work.

Thank you Mr Dibbler. Sausageinnabun - one Ankh-Morkpork dollar to you, and that's cutting me own throat.

[Damn. Too Slow!]

I'm not quite sure I understand what your point is, in that case. You're against factory farming, and you're against people hunting where factory farming and supermarkets predominate. What are we to do when we want to eat a dead animal - hotfoot it to the nearest organic farm-gate shop? Not really a practical alternative for many urban dwellers. If they're going to head off into the wilds, they may at least make it a memorable trip by stalking a prey beast while they're out there. It seems you're trying to have your cake and eat it, here.

Define "necessity." I can see the argument against sport hunting when it's for the trophy rather than for the pot, but pretty much every poster on here has commented that Canadians tend to eat what they've killed on the hunt. Eating, I would say, is a necessity. For sure, there are alternative sources of meat, but it's been well pointed out by others on here that wild prey probably lives better than its farmed counterpart, and (in my anecdotal experience) tastes better too.

Much more so than most people think. Only a few would go to Flesherton for milk but I think a lot more people would go and buy animals at the farm if they knew how easy it is, farmers these days have telephones, fax machines, some are even web enabled. Half a day in the car isn't a huge investment of time if you pick up a sheep from one place and half a cow from another.

If you could get more people to do that it would be fab - but (and many apologies to city dwellers on here as this is a generalisation) many want the convenience of niopping to the shop for a pound of beef.

If I told you we had half a 4H beef last year and is only just running out now - all made up by the butcher into whatever - joints, steaks, sausage, hamburger meat - the works.

Thats why we have the cows this year (3 now) 2 to sell when fattened and 1 to butcher for possibly a couple of years worth of meat.

At an outlay of $40 per calf (or was it $30 ) and 6 months worth of feeding it a bit (good pasture out here), its well worth it to us.

I would whole heartedly recommend anyone to even go halves on a 4H beef and stock up your freezer, saves time, money and I don't know why but you kinda feel part of the whole process of the reason it was born and raised if that doesn't sound daft.