I don't like hunting, but I'm not necessarily against it. I've also never met trophy hunters, so it's never seemed needlessly cruel to me, although I know it exists. I think it's unrealistic to expect every family out there to be vegan, and I'd rather they eat hunted meat for 3-4 months out of the year than buy it from a grocery store. It's also far healthier than hormone-pumped beef.
I don't know the validity to the population control arguments. Growing up, it was presented to me as something of a necessary evil, since the highways were expanding and the deer were being run out of their habitats and getting killed on the roads or eating too much of the farmers' corn. And of course, we'd stupidly hunted all the wolves a few decades back on top of it. Also, it was a huuuuge taboo to hunt the biggest buck you could find. That apparently made you a huge dick.
This is somewhat sensitive to me because for years growing up (in small town Appalachia) my family got through the winter months eating hardly anything but venison and corn bread. We just would have starved without it. I think sometimes that my family's right not to starve precluded a few deer's right to live.
At my college the vegans seem to fall into two categories: the "rights" vegans and "welfarist" vegans. Here, it's around half and half, but online (as a "welfarist) I think I'm outnumbered. Just a general comment/query.
I feel about the same as you, as most of the hunters I've known eat what they kill and preserve the meat for the winter. They're also proficient with guns so they kill more humanely than the morons that come up once a year from the city. With the exceptions of trophy hunting and Dick Cheney-style canned hunting, I consider it a lesser evil than the factory farming system, reasoning that until they get killed, the animals are living the most natural and free life they can hope to enjoy in this f**ked up day and age.
I agree that to feed families that need it. 100% I hope you don't feel offended by this post, as such circumstances are completely understandable. It is how mankind survived.
Stocking the hunted meat in the freezer also diminishes the "demand" from buying at the grocery store.
I do, however, get very upset with these hunters around here who don't hunt for food, but just for the "sport" and waste the animal.
Thanks for your comment. I don't feel offended by this post - I do feel offended by some of the comments, though. It's like there's this assumption that all hunters are cold-hearted murderers with no respect for life. I sometimes feel like I'm a bit of a dissenting voice on this board. Until a few months ago, I had no idea Cheney-style "canned" hunting even existed (I probably learned that from a post here, in fact), and of course that's just sick and wasteful to me.
But I've always associated venison as being a "poor people's meat." It's clear to me now that city boys are after it, too, but that's besides the point. I wish people would stop blaming individual hunters for being "fucking murderers" or whatever and instead blame the system (capitalism) that forces people to just plain eat whatever makes it into their kitchens. It's the same system that's supposedly running the deer out of their homes when highways are built, and that kills their predators to protect the livestock richer people will eventually buy at the grocery store. I think that's the bigger picture.
A couple of years ago, some teens in my neighborhood killed a bear by chasing it to death in a corn field. They rode in their quads and shot it after it couldn't run anymore. Several homes (mine included) had lots of meat after that, but the kids' parents were furious, appalled, and saddened. I don't imagine anyone, really, was congratulating them. I still feel queasy and upset thinking about it...but it's not *all* hunters that are like that, and I wish that were more clear.
I don't know the validity to the population control arguments. Growing up, it was presented to me as something of a necessary evil, since the highways were expanding and the deer were being run out of their habitats and getting killed on the roads or eating too much of the farmers' corn. And of course, we'd stupidly hunted all the wolves a few decades back on top of it. Also, it was a huuuuge taboo to hunt the biggest buck you could find. That apparently made you a huge dick.
This is somewhat sensitive to me because for years growing up (in small town Appalachia) my family got through the winter months eating hardly anything but venison and corn bread. We just would have starved without it. I think sometimes that my family's right not to starve precluded a few deer's right to live.
At my college the vegans seem to fall into two categories: the "rights" vegans and "welfarist" vegans. Here, it's around half and half, but online (as a "welfarist) I think I'm outnumbered. Just a general comment/query.
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Stocking the hunted meat in the freezer also diminishes the "demand" from buying at the grocery store.
I do, however, get very upset with these hunters around here who don't hunt for food, but just for the "sport" and waste the animal.
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But I've always associated venison as being a "poor people's meat." It's clear to me now that city boys are after it, too, but that's besides the point. I wish people would stop blaming individual hunters for being "fucking murderers" or whatever and instead blame the system (capitalism) that forces people to just plain eat whatever makes it into their kitchens. It's the same system that's supposedly running the deer out of their homes when highways are built, and that kills their predators to protect the livestock richer people will eventually buy at the grocery store. I think that's the bigger picture.
A couple of years ago, some teens in my neighborhood killed a bear by chasing it to death in a corn field. They rode in their quads and shot it after it couldn't run anymore. Several homes (mine included) had lots of meat after that, but the kids' parents were furious, appalled, and saddened. I don't imagine anyone, really, was congratulating them. I still feel queasy and upset thinking about it...but it's not *all* hunters that are like that, and I wish that were more clear.
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