Do the public really view hunters as evil?

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I don't have a problem with hunting if you plan on eating the animal, or using parts of it for other useful things. I mean we as a species wouldn't have gotten very far if we weren't hunters.

So I have no problem with hunting, if its for a useful purpose (food, tools, clothing, etc)

But I DO have a bit of a problem with those that hunt for trophies, people that get some sort of ego boast by hanging the heads of the animals they kill on their walls and boasting about it as though it makes them more of a man or a woman to nab the biggest deer or bear, etc. To me that's just killing for a love of killing instead of killing for a purpose (food, etc)

But this is just my opinion, so shoot me.

Yeah we do.

Yeah, I said it.

The problem with the hunting argument is that wildlife management for many people means creating "crops" of animals specifically for hunters to shoot.

Opponents also argue that hunting is ineffective for solving human/deer conflicts. Studies show that car/deer collisions increase during hunting season because hunters frighten the deer out of the woods and onto roads. Contrary to popular belief, hunting does not address Lyme disease because the ticks are usually spread to humans by mice, not deer. And as long as suburban landscaping includes deer-preferred plants such as tulips and rhododendrons, that landscaping will attract hungry deer, no matter how many deer there are. Opponents also argue that hunting does not reduce the deer population because removing some individuals from the population results in more food per deer, which leads to the births of more twins and triplets. This also means that hunting is unnecessary because the deer will self-regulate and give birth to fewer fawns when food is scarce. If the deer population needs to be further reduced, immunocontraception can be used.

Hunting is ineffective because state wildlife management agencies intentionally keep the deer population high, for hunters.

Lands managed for hunting are sometimes purchased and maintained with tax dollars, even though 95% of Americans do not hunt.

When hunters talk about shooting overpopulated animals, they are usually referring to white-tailed deer, representing only 3 percent of all the animals killed by hunters. Sport hunters shoot millions of mourning doves, squirrels, rabbits, and waterfowl, and thousands of predators, none of whom any wildlife biologist would claim are overpopulated or need to be hunted. Even with deer, hunters do not search for starving animals. They either shoot animals at random, or they seek out the strongest and healthiest animals in order to bring home the biggest trophies or largest antlers. Hunters and wildlife agencies are not concerned about reducing deer herds, but rather with increasing the number of targets for hunters and the number of potential hunting license dollars. Thus, they use deer overpopulation as a smokescreen to justify their sport. The New Jersey Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife states that "the deer resource has been managed primarily for the purpose of sport hunting," (New Jersey Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife, An Assessment of Deer Hunting in New Jersey, 1990).

Hunters also shoot nonnative species such as ring-necked pheasants who are hand-fed and raised in pens and then released into the wild just before hunting season. Even if the pheasants - native to China - survive the hunters' onslaught, they are certain to die of exposure or starvation in the nonnative environment. While hunters claim they save overpopulated animals from starvation, they intentionally breed some species and let them starve to death.

Hunters and hunting organizations also promote the idea that hunting is necessary for "wildlife management" and "conservation." "Wildlife management" and "conservation" are euphemisms used to describe programs that ensure that there are always enough animals for hunters to hunt. Because they make their money primarily from the sale of hunting licenses, the major function of wildlife agencies is not to protect individual animals or biological diversity, but to propagate "game" species for hunters to shoot.

State agencies build roads through our wild lands to facilitate hunter access, they pour millions of tax dollars into law enforcement of hunting regulations and hunter education, and into manipulating habitat by burning and clear-cutting forests to increase the food supply for "game" species such as deer. More food means a larger herd and more animals available as targets. Hunting programs also cause wildlife overpopulation by stimulating breeding by conducting "buck only" hunts, which can leave as many as six does per buck; pen-raising quail, grouse, and pheasants for use as hunters' targets; transporting raccoons, antelopes, martens, wild turkeys, and other animals from one state to another to bolster populations for hunters; and exterminating predators like wolves and mountain lions in order to throw prey populations off balance, thereby "justifying" the killing of both "dangerous" and "surplus" animals.

Hunting simply decreases the competition for food among the animals that survive a hunt. As the potential for malnutrition is reduced, the incidence of death and disease is reduced. The animals left behind will be better fed, become stronger and their potential for reproduction will increase. As quite clearly stated in the college textbook "Wildlife Ecology and Management" (Fifth Edition, Pearson Education, Inc. 2003), "[h]unting mortality is frequently compensatory because it usually increases the life expectancy of individuals surviving the hunt, promotes higher reproductive rates, or does both."


The amount an animal is nourished directly corresponds to its ability to reproduce. Taking white-tailed deer as an example (the most hunted yet possibly also the most overpopulated species in the United States), studies have shown that the more well nourished the doe (female deer), the more likely she is to reproduce. The well fed doe may also reproduce at a younger age (and thus produce more fawns during her lifetime), and the incidence of birthing twins or triplets increases

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All of this helps explain why, even after decades of hunting, deer numbers remain high in much of the country. In fact, the basis for hunting regulations such as hunting seasons and bag limits (how many deer a hunter is permitted to kill), are premised on this compensatory theory. The goal is to allow the sport of killing to take place while at the same time, conserve enough deer for hunters to enjoy the following season. But how many deer exactly should each state allow to be killed and still have enough for next year? In other words, what is the "maximum sustained yield"? This is one of the persistently difficult and challenging questions facing state wildlife managers; and since these managers are compelled to satisfy their hunting constituency, the more deer in the field the better. If there aren't enough deer, the wildlife managers may end up without jobs (see prior blog post 9/25/09 "The Structure of our State Wildlife Agency System").

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHmwlYqRLhc

I don't post this to be crude. It does have a point. The cruelty that NATURE inflicts on creatures just like Bambi, is ASTRONOMICALLY more grotesque than any death dealt out by the hands of a human hunter. Human hunters often go to great lengths to ensure that the kill they make is clean. It is swift, and it is fatal. Every hunter I've known has lost several opportunities for a kill because the shot was obscured, which could lead to only wounding the deer, or whatever, instead of outright killing it.

Nature has no such scruples. Does anybody really think the Lion, or the Cheetah cares a lick if it orphans a bunch of baby Gazelle. No. If it can, it'll kill and eat them too. These Hyenas probably took hours to dispatch this Buffalo, and it surely went through absolute agony. The Hyenas aren't concerned about that. Their only concern is the ease at which they can take the kill, not for the feelings of the Buffalo. Most human beings (certainly the recreation hunters I'm familiar with) are very different. They are far more efficient. They don't target animals with young that can't survive on their own. They wait for a clean kill so they don't risk putting the animal through a slow and agonizing death.

Folks that criticize recreational hunters so vehemently typically have absolutely no understanding of the natural world, and what a cruel place it truly is. EVERY animal, if it had the mental capacity to do it, would probably welcome death at the hands of a human hunter with a powerful rifle. As opposed to starvation, being ripped apart slowly, and likely eaten while still alive by far less efficient predators, or freezing to death, or being wounded somewhere and succumbing to the elements. That's the harsh reality of life as a prey species. When I see hunters doing what they do, in as humane a way a they possibly can, having gone to great lengths to do it that way, it makes me glad. Hunter's are, for the most part, terrific people. Those who criticize them, usually don't know them, and don't know anything about nature. They surely think they do, but really don't. It's so arrogant.