Can Someone Explain Hunting to Me?

[slickpoppa]

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but it is a fact that hunting is necessary to keep many wild animal populations in check and healthy (many of their natural predators have been removed).

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Along these lines, in parts of Africa, certain animals such as elephants would be extinct if it weren’t for privately owned hunting concessions. Private owners have the incentive to not only keep the animal population thriving, but to also kill poachers.

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Solution to the tragedy of the commons at work, folks. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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Private ownership is not a panacea though. It stops poachers, but it does not necessarily stop overhunting by individual landowners. As long as people value animals more highly dead than alive, stopping overhunting is a serious problem even with private ownership. If the species in question is migratory and many different people own land in that species' range, then each landowner will have an incentive to kill as many of that animal as possible while that animal is on their land because they know that is exactly what everyone else will be doing. Of course, in theory, there are ways that you can contract around this problem, but the transaction costs and costs of enforcement may be prohibitively high. Also, it is not guaranteed that all the landowners will be rational and want to preserve the long term viability of the species contractually. They may just want to make as much money in the short term as possibly by killing every animal in sight.

There are really two solutions to this problem:
1. This is actually an instance where a monopoly can be good thing. If one landowner owns the entire range of land in which a particular species inhabits, then he will have an incentive to conserve the species because he does not have to worry about other landowners killing those animals as they migrate.
2. If there is strong tourist industry in which landowners can make more money by showing the animals to rich white people rather than killing them.

[nef]

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Re: Andy's OP, I don't know any hunters who don't either eat what they shoot themselves or donate it to charities. I would probably look down on a hunter that just killed animals for sport and then did nothing with the carcass, as would, I think, most hunters.

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This is a legitimate and good point that most hunters do not hunt just for the Kill or the Sport. In fact, this is rather rare in my opinion (except perhaps in some instances of 'Big Game Hunting') but I have no statistics to back up this assertion.

-Zeno

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I don't know anyone who doesn't take the meat from game animals. You can get the trophy and still eat the meat. The common shoulder mount you see, which is the neck to the antlers, doesn't waste much of the meat. The idea of killing game and letting it lay after taking a trophy mainly comes from foreign poachers selling ivory or tiger penis or some such.

There are several reasons why hunters go after trophy bucks. They are rare in the same way a 34D-24-36 female human is rare, they are the best genetic specimens of the breed. A true trophy buck is older, 4-5 years old. They have proven their cunning by surviving mother nature and .30-06 for several years. They are much more careful than the yearling bucks and it takes a lot of preparation in the off season scouting to have a decent chance at a trophy buck.

There are also types of hunting where you don't eat the meat. I guess it would be more like pest control. When you catch a mouse in a mousetrap, or step on a spider, do you eat the meat?

Many people consider shooting groundhogs, raccoons, skunks, coyotes, feral cats, prairie dogs, etc just like catching a mouse in a trap. They are overpopulated nuisance animals and if they come on your property you get rid of them. Its probably more like pest control than hunting, although people do travel and pay $$$ for prairie dog or coyote hunting. There are so many coyotes in the forest preserves here, the foxes are pushed out, I had foxes living in my backyard all last fall. (No, I did not shoot them). Also, on the public land where I hunt they are practically begging for people to hunt coyote in the off season.

Ranchers will sometimes pay to have you shoot coyotes on their land, and you can also get some money for decent pelts. Another thing that gets a bad rap is trapping and most trappers use traps that you can release the animal unharmed. Also the animals don't really chew their paws off, they sometimes even go to sleep. You don't need sharp toothed steel jaws to hold a fox or raccoon.

[andyfox]

Yeah, but nothing dies a violent death when you get your kicks playing on-line poker.

[andyfox]

"if one eats meat but frowns on hunting, there is probably some sort of disconnect occurring between the emotional and rational parts of the mind on that issue."

I eat animals. I have no qualms about it. I'm asking why someone would hunt for sport and not have qualms about it.

I'm anything but an animal rights guy.

[andyfox]

I gave you a fat one right over the plate, didn't I?

[John Kilduff]

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"if one eats meat but frowns on hunting, there is probably some sort of disconnect occurring between the emotional and rational parts of the mind on that issue."

I eat animals. I have no qualms about it. I'm asking why someone would hunt for sport and not have qualms about it.

I'm anything but an animal rights guy.

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Well, many sport hunters are aware that they are doing the animal population some good by helping keep the herds down to healthy levels.

Some of other sport hunters, though, are probably just thoughtless or insensitive, or even sadistic bastards. Maybe that's what you're trying to get at?

[revots33]

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Well, many sport hunters are aware that they are doing the animal population some good by helping keep the herds down to healthy levels.

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Again this is probably because I'm a wimpy non-gun-owning city guy...

but there's a big difference to me between "helping the animal population" and "shooting a defenseless deer".

My assumption is that the act of shooting the defenseless animal involves SOME sort of enjoyment on the part of the hunter. It's not like he wakes up on a Saturday morning and says, "damn I hate shooting deer but I've got a moral duty to help their overpopulation problem."

[slickpoppa]

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Well, many sport hunters are aware that they are doing the animal population some good by helping keep the herds down to healthy levels.

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Again this is probably because I'm a wimpy non-gun-owning city guy...

but there's a big difference to me between "helping the animal population" and "shooting a defenseless deer".

My assumption is that the act of shooting the defenseless animal involves SOME sort of enjoyment on the part of the hunter. It's not like he wakes up on a Saturday morning and says, "damn I hate shooting deer but I've got a moral duty to help their overpopulation problem."

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True, but I don't think the enjoyment necessarily comes from killing a living creature. It comes from the challenge of the hunt. Let me put it this way: if someone invented mechanical deer that behaved and looked exactly like real deer, I bet most hunters would have no problems hunting the mechanical deer.

[yukoncpa]

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True, but I don't think the enjoyment necessarily comes from killing a living creature. It comes from the challenge of the hunt. Let me put it this way: if someone invented mechanical deer that behaved and looked exactly like real deer, I bet most hunters would have no problems hunting the mechanical deer.



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Yeah, hunting is too much work. I gave it up after a friend bought me an automated trap and skeet thrower. Now those are fun.

[batair]

I grew up hunting but no longer hunt, it really comes down to one thing "power" or the illusion of power over another living thing.