20 thoughts on “Snow hunt”

  4. Hello Boadicea

    Why would anybody want to ban hunting?

    Hunting is a very important part of nature conservation, viewed by some perhaps as a necessary evil but necessary none the less.

  5. So how do you suggest that population numbers are controlled?

    Hunting here is a very regulated industry, farms, reserves, parks are surveyed and the number of animals that the land can sustain is calculated.

    In most cases natural predators have been removed, carnivores and disease, how would you propose to limit numbers.

    I often buy game from a local farmer, his property can sustain 200 kudu, after a successful breeding season he could well have almost 300!

    Hunting provides much needed employment, injects a fair amount of cash into the economy and maintains the ecological balance.

    Relocation isn’t an option as most other farms will be in similar positions.There is no other way, you can’t go round up 100 wild animals like cattle and ship them off to an abattoir.

  6. I have to confess that I, personally, am not a big fan of hunting, though I have done a little bit in the course of my life. But I will readily admit that hunters generally speaking do more for game conservation than most. Hunters tend to love nature. It is in their interests to maintain sustainable levels of game and the money they provide goes to make that happen.

    The only negative aspect of what they do is the actual killing of animals. I know some will say that this is exactly the point, but think about it like this. In most cases, the animal does not know it is being hunted or if it does, it does not realise that it is about to die. Animals are not sentient creatures that are able to consider the consequences of their actions or the actions of others. So, one second it is grazing, the next, it is possibly startled for a second and then it is dead. Quick and a lot less painful than were it to be chased down by wolves or lions or other predators. Then of course there are the animals that die of disease, starvation, parasite infestations or old age. That kind of death without the benefit of drugs or pain killers is far more uncomfortable, I would argue, than death by a bullet.

    Many people try and transfer human thoughts and emotions into the minds of animals. It is perhaps understandable, but it is wrong. Animals do not understand about life and death. When the cattle truck comes to take them off to the abbatoir, they do not make the connection with what is about to happen. You would think by now, the cattle underground resistance would have organised escape committees and teams of saboteurs to destroy the roads and rail networks, if that were the case.

    One of the worst aspects of death, I submit, is the fear of it. If somebody comes up from behind and shoots me in the head, it wont bother me, because I wont know about it. But if I am told that tomorrow morning I am going to be shot, I will be in a state of terror for the next 24 hours. Animals do not have that knowledge.

    The fact is that, many hunters will deliberately choose the old and infirm animal to cull. Don’t forget, culling is an important part of game conservation. Whether we like it or not, as humans, we have set up permanent settlements and wild life is therefore restricted to certain areas. If they are allowed to over breed, they will destroy their environment which will lead to massive declines in numbers. If we are to live together, we must manage their numbers. That is my very same argument for maintaining population levels in Africa and elsewhere in the 3rd world, though I would not go so far as to promote hunting. Well not yet anyway.

  13. Soutie and Sipu

    We are talking about two different things issues. There is hunting animals for the sheer joy of killing something – I think the hunter’s face on this video exemplifies that!

    And there is what I would call ‘land-management’. – culling so that those that are left do not eat themselves out of house and home – so to speak. (I hear a comment from Christina here 🙂 !)

    Two entirely different issues.

    I get very annoyed when some load of animal rights people in the UK come out here protesting that the brumbies are being culled. I got even more annoyed when I saw a report from the USA slating Australia for attempting to cull the vast numbers of feral camels.

    Both do irreparable damage to the environment and the camels are credited with so damaging the environment that they were the cause of some of the horrendous sand-storms in the last few years.

    No problems with culling – especially if the meat is then used for food!

  16. Sheona, I also assumed that – but it seemed to me to that he portrayed the ‘delight’ of those who hunt solely for the pleasure of the kill.

  18. Boadicea, my reading was that the hunter couldn’t believe his luck at finding so many reindeer who didn’t run away, but I suppose that could also be for the pleasure of killing rather than enough venison to fill a lot of freezers.

  19. Hello Soutie. I laughed at this, and it’s not anywhere near as easy as he makes it look.
    I don’t think he would get much game shlepping through the local woods like that.
    Bag limit for a rifle here is two in any one day so it was not filmed (shot?) in Maryland, no reindeer here in any case..

    I don’t know anyone who hunts for the “fun” of it, the meat all goes in the freezer.

  20. I deliberately didn’t tag this post ‘humour’ or ‘Santa surprise’ because that would have taken away the shock value of the unexpected ending.

    I thought it funny and worth sharing and I’m pleased that others saw it the same way.

    The fact that it led to a discussion on hunting and the merits thereof has added value.

    I’d like to add, that the ‘joy,’ ‘pleasure,’ and/or ‘delight’ shown on the hunters face wouldn’t be unusual (in fact completely normal.) Wild animals aren’t kept in an enclosure for the paying public to come along and take potshots, a whole weekend can be spent on a hunt without a single sighting of a suitable animal never mind a kill.

    As LW says nobody hunts just for the fun of killing an animal and then what? Leave it’s carcass rotting in the veld, no, never all for the table. The obvious exception would be poachers, who are being increasingly harassed and on occasion shot dead by our rangers, I’ve no problems there.

    We haven’t mentioned trophy hunting, animals where the carcass is of little use (lion, giraffe etc.) These animals aren’t cheap to shoot, a lion would be up in the US$ 10,000 range, but numbers have to be controlled and if the proceeds go back into nature conservation and park management I don’t have a problem.

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