Ask Lemmy

As long as it's done responsibly and legally I have no issues with it.

I won't cry if anyone dies while hunting, but i do love venison

As a hunter myself, here are a few thoughts that come to mind on the subject:

1. As is almost always the case, “hunters” are not a homogeneous group. There are many reasonable hunters who hunt, among other reasons, because it’s an honest, nature-oriented, and animal-welfare-conscious way to obtain meat for their own consumption. But there are also idiots who are just eager to kill and/or want to bag big trophies (perhaps because they need to compensate for personal shortcomings). In my experience, however, that's only a tiny minority of the hunters I've met so far. Especially because of the pandemic, many people have been thinking about this topic, and I hope that young people will bring a breath of fresh air and sensible ideas to the community in this area as well. In my experience, the stereotype of the psychopathic gun nut is simply not true in the vast majority of cases.

2. We live in a cultural landscape. We must live in a cultural landscape because our survival (yes, even ~~after we’re gone~~ if we're vegan) depends on our ability to grow enough crops to feed ourselves. In a cultural landscape heavily shaped by human activity, natural regulatory mechanisms (more on this below) do not function, or function only to a very limited extent, because, for example, wild boars find much more food than they would in a natural (forest) ecosystem, which results in correspondingly high reproduction rates (up to 200% for wild boars). So I don’t think we can manage in the long term without some form of regulation. (It should be noted here that I am a big fan of predators like wolves and bears, and that we should reintroduce them wherever possible if we can manage to coexist with them.... Wolves and lynx, for example, are much better at regulating roe deer populations (or preventing overgrazing of young trees) than human hunters.) Furthermore, wildlife populations are only partially regulated by predators. For many species, disease and weather conditions play a more decisive role. These are, in and of themselves, natural processes that ensure populations do not get out of control and/or cannot permanently overuse local resources. In both cases, however, “natural regulation” is accompanied by an agonizing death for the individual, and it is this death itself that seems to be the main point of contention for some opponents of hunting, more on this below.

3. Ethical Considerations. Assuming I do my job as a hunter correctly, the animal (let’s say a deer) dies on the spot within seconds without suffering for long. If I don’t shoot the animal (and, as is currently the case in many countries, there are no large predators because they have been exterminated), it dies after about 15 years “of old age,” as the saying goes. What does that mean for the individual in practice? Eventually, its teeth become so worn down that it can no longer feed itself properly; it grows weaker, will likely fall ill at some point because its immune system weakens, and will either be strangled by a red fox, starve to death, freeze to death, or succumb to disease. In any case, the agony is significantly longer than if it were killed by a clean shot. So no matter how you look at it: There is no chance that the roe deer will not die, and (at least from my perspective) death by a well-placed bullet is the quickest, least stressful, and most painless death a roe deer can expect in the wild.

/edit: removed some dashed because I'm not a native english speaker and use an AI translator for more elaborate answers.

I won't shame somebody who would otherwise literally die of starvation if they hunt, buther, cook, and eat non-endangered animals for food.

That's about as understanding as I'm gonna get. I suppose I may disrespect slightly less someone's regular meat consumption if they went through all the time and effort themselves.

Population control is a copout. We should reintroduce the predators that were preventing overpopulation in the first place.

Except as I'm typing this out, I remember the dog who lives with us and how wr feed him meat based dog food since that's what his biology requires. So I'm rather selective and inconsistent about meat sourcing here, so I don't quite know how to conclude this comment at this point so I'm gonna just send it

I'm from Finland, which has a 1340km border with Russia.

When my grandad grew up you'd either hunt or fish if you wantes to eat. My dad hunted. I'm the only one of my siblings with a hunting license. I was raised with a lot of "when the Russians come"-mentality.

I've been moving countries, so I've had to give up my rifles and I'm not that passionate about it that I'd figure out where to go do it. But I do think it's a good skill to have, and I keep my license active.

And my two spaniels would love it.

the impact of hunting for food is so far below the impact of industrial agriculture and other things, it's fine

It's cool and good, but where I live it's becoming increasingly expensive. Yes to locals/workers hunting their own food on communal land. No to upper class bastards flying in to hunt, getting themselves and their setters airlifted back to a lodge for lunch, etc. And trophy hunting should not be a thing.

Do it responsibly and eat what you hunt?

Go to town.

You might be interested in deer management on the Isle of Jura, in Scotland. The human population is a couple of hundred; there are 5,000 red deer. https://www.juradmg.co.uk/

Personally I applaud hunting for food. We are animals too, part of the ecosystem. Hunting just for trophies is disgusting though.

Just like humans have done for millennia and are meant too. Hunt. Cook. Feed. Then shit.

Rinse and repeat.

A lot of people bring up the moral problems with eating meat, but I have barely any such issue in regard to wild animals, especially those overpopulating areas.

Of course, if a company ever made a big product out of reselling venison, we’d probably get perverse incentives where someone would start trapping and farming them. So, it ends up just being a homey domain of hobbyist hunters and all their family friends - but one I respect a lot.

My dad has been bow hunting and black powder rifle hunting for my entire life. he only uses primitive arms because he says "it's called hunting, not killing" and advanced weapons make it unfair. Most years he gets one or two deer. Some years he gets none. Sometimes he just sits in his tree and watches nature and doesn't even pick up his bow. Sometimes he gets incredibly emotional when he gets a kill.

A few years ago I learned how to tan the hides because I've always wanted to, and because he was becoming more and more passionate about not wasting any part of the animal. You can do it with simple chemicals or you can use the animal's brain!! (Unrelated fun fact, every mammal except the squirrel and the bison have exactly the right amount of brain matter to tan their own hides!)

I think it's great if you're doing it respectfully and consciously, and abiding by local conservation guidelines.

I like death but hate the outdoors

I get a lot of down votes for this but it's important since we wiped out natural predators. One of my favorite days was cooking up some venison my students; we had a field day or whatever and no the meat came from another hunter.

I almost died when a a bunch crossed over the highway in the middle of the night. Tokyo drift instincts kicked in lol. Thankfully a buddy bought a Jeep XJ and it saved his ass.

Then there's this ongoing argument against firearms; do you shoot the deer that ran into your car or beat it to it's death with a blunt object? And I mean this in a humane question, otherwise you leave it die suffering in pain.

I only go for kill shots. None of this trophy bullshit. I'm not going to make a game of chasing around a wounded animal.

Deer are a serious problem for most farmers in my area. Farmers have resorted to mass shootings of them, sometimes 20 or more a night. To remedy this the Game Commission issues multiple additional permits.
I have hunted all my life. As a kid wild game was food for the family. Now, venison is a delicacy for the table. Done right game is fantastic. Done wrong, it will turn your stomach.
I prefer to harvest a calm doe - special permits are only for doe, officially called, "antlerless" deer which are deer with no antlers or very small ones. One clean shot is preferred. This is where whatever weapon you use, practice and more practice counts. You must precisely place your shot. Of course, archery only gives you one shot. Archery deer produce especially good table fare because they bleed out completely and painlessly.
Once downed, the animal is field dressed and skinned as soon as possible. Then the carcass is immediately cooled.
People that harvest an animal that has been run and/or poorly bled out or left to sit around have meat that loses a lot of fine eating quality. Bucks, especially those in rut, have a strong taste - most people around here relegate the meat to sausage containing a mix of pork and seasonings to render it decently edible.
Hunting properly requires a LOT patience but it is a great way to get out and be with yourself to think, enjoy the woods and ruminate because not every trip yields good wild food.

I wouldn't be interested in going hunting myself.

I would disapprove of hunting for sport.

If someone does hunt and it's actually for food or whatever, I don't like it but it's not such a priority that I'm going to die on that hill.

I don't personally hunt. I never have, I'm a vegan, so I likely never will unless it is a task for genuine survival.

I don't mind hunters. I was raised in a family who hunts, out on the family land in WV they'd often hunt squirrels for making jerky. I think in a lot of areas where natural predation has been curtailed by human activity over the last few hundred to thousand years, it is potentially imperative that hunters do what they do. Near my hometown, there were semi-annual deer culls because the wild population was too high and could eventually cause a local ecological collapse.

I find sport hunting to be an atrocious waste of life. If you hunt an animal, you should make use of every usable part of that animal. Hides should be tanned and made into leather. Fur should be shorn off, and if it's long enough used to make yarns, otherwise used to make tinder. Large deposits of fat or gristle should be rendered to use as fuels, lubricants, or for cooking. Bones should be dried, crushed and burned to use as fertilizer. Sinuous fibers should be kept to make threads. Organs should be used as bait for fishing, or left out for carrion birds, or used to gather flies (and therefore maggots, to use for fishing).

As far as I can tell, every part of every animal can be, and therefore should be used.

I have no issues with hunting or hunters. I hate waste though. Especially wasted life.

I grew up in a tiny village where "everyone" had at least one hunting rifle, so I may be biased but I think it's fine as long as it's done in a sustainable way.

The main game was moose, and there was a strict quota every year about how many of them could be killed. And I can confirm that it was sustainable as it was still moose everywhere (to the point where I remember sitting by my PC one day, playing Quake, noticing there was a moose outside of my windows, eating apples on the lawn.

If humanity subsisted off hunted food, we would eat the last wild animal before the first afternoon of the first day. Hunting is a selfish, needlessly cruel, unsustainable practice.

I feel bad if I swat a fly or remove ants and other insect or rodents. It's unfortunately necessary.

Population control of deer is also necessary in areas with high density. I don't think I can do it, but I understand why it's necessary.

I also understand that hunting as a hobby is as much about enjoying the nature. I can do this fine without having to kill anything though. I'm not very competitive but if I wanted to use nature in a more challenging way, I'd probably hunt with a camera instead, which would still satisfy the game aspect of it.

My dream would be to own an area large enough to let nature exist alongside the humans, but this is just not possible for everyone to do. There's no wilderness left for nature where I live, so I guess population control is the only compromise for letting wild animals coexist with humans.

As for animal welfare I think meat production is a much more important part to regulate. It's disgusting how animals are breed only to be slaughtered without even having a chance to enjoy life even a little.