Quote:
Originally Posted by Jono
So why bother with the killing part then?
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Jono, I understand your point completely. I am not a hunter and have no interest in hunting. I am too spineless to actually kill my dinner. When I do eat it, I prefer the meat that's born in little Styrofoam packages, neatly wrapped in cellophane.
Don't you see the hypocrisy of your opinion though? You eat meat, but seem to justify the slaughter of an animal as long as it is done out of sight. You mention PETA... their site is filled with information about horrendous conditions in slaughterhouses... animals that are scalded to death, kicked to death, bled to death. If you believe that animals are lulled to sleep listening to Barry Manilow before they are quietly euthanized, you are very wrong.
I support Peta not because I am especially against eating meat, but because I am against cruelty to animals, and strongly opposed to the wearing of fur. Peta long-ago recognized that they aren't going to convert everyone into vegetarians. They have done great work in terms of improving conditions for animals that are going to be slaughtered. I don't doubt that they have a brochure denouncing hunting. I agree that it is unnecessary and cruel... after all, hunting kills an otherwise healthy animal for an unnecessary reason. That can be said about the killing of an animal for food under any circumstances... hunting, or farmed... both are cruel and both are unnecessary.
Does anyone really think that in the long-term, humans will continue to eat meat? The resources required to raise cattle will be completely unsustainable within decades. Already, massive tracts of rain-forest are being burned to create grazing land to raise cattle to feed North Americans and Europeans. It can't and won't continue forever... it just isn't possible.
And you are absolutely correct about our natural predators... But how using a professional hunter versus a hunt undertaken by amateurs escapes me. As I said in my initial post, a hunt performed by
competent amateurs, where an animal is dispatched cleanly is no different. Whether the hunter is killing "efficiently and coldly" or "enjoys" the kill is, I suspect, completely irrelevant to the animal! Regarding PTs flubbed shot, I think if the truth be known, he's a big softy and intentionally missed the shot!
Clearly there are cultural differences at play here. Over hear, we have deer and moose galour... In Newfoundland, I think the moose outnumber the people! But to me, a guy who tracks, kills, field dresses, and schleps his dinner out of the bush can hardly be criticized as being barbaric when compared to a guy who prefers his pork chop come from an animal that has been raised in cramped, stressful conditions for months or years, then forced onto a truck with the help of an electric prod, then forced into a factory where it can hear it's "mates" being killed, before it is (hopefully) stunned into unconsciousness before having a steel hook jambed into its thigh, hoisted into the air and having its throat slit. Of course if the initial stunning isn't complete (and studies have demonstrated that this is the case in a fairly large percentage) this all happens to an animal that is still very much alive and mostly alert.
Just because your meat comes from a grocery store doesn't mean that that animal gave it's life up willingly, or easily!
