Unfortunately, fair chase hunters like me are being overshadowed by poachers, trophy hunters, "gun nuts," and sadistic ranchers who guarantee a kill for the right price.The hell with you, Dwayne D. Beynon, Port Deposit, Maryland.
And the hell with everyone like you.
[Excerpted from "Letters," National Geographic, March 2008, pg. 10]
14 comments:
"Poaching" is taking game on someone else's private property. Since we all "own" government land, shooting game there doesn't qualify; you are collecting your own game.
Hunting without a license is simply realizing that government does not own the animals.
Unless you want to believe that the government really does own everything inside its borders.
This moron epitomizes the mindset that says, “MY gun and its uses are okay, but yours aren’t.”
They are the people who own $5,000 shotguns and look down their elitist noses at folks who own $150 shotguns from Sears. They are the people who think the “sporting purpose” is the preeminent purpose, and those of us who clearly see the 2A’s REAL purpose are merely radicals who need to be reined in by “gubmint”.
Poachers are criminals, who should rightly be villified. But Benyon is trying to smear all the others with the same brush, undeservedly.
There is nothing morally or environmentally unsound about "trophy" hunting, although I have read some pieces that argue that hunters should voluntarilly eschew the biggest and the best, in order to improve the overall health of the herds. This is done in fishing, I believe, with not only a minimum size but a maximum one too.
I don't know who he's referring to as "gun nuts", unless it is what we call "slob hunters": those who get likkered up and shoot at anything that moves (sometimes even each other). I guess the insinuation is that these guys botch their kill and leave some poor wounded animal to die a lingering painful death, and go to waste. Except that there is no "waste" in nature.
I don't know what makes penned hunting ranchers "sadistic", unless this is related to the "botched hunt" theory, above. But if the kill is guaranteed, and the animal is penned, how can they "lose" it? Makes no sense to me.
Certainly, penned hunting is no more morally repugnant than picking your lobster out of a tank for your dinner...
David: Well said! Kent: very good
points...Anonymous: I couldn't
have said it better myself...The
Second Amendment ain't about
hunting...It's all about preserving
personal liberty and protecting
ourselves from the tyrants within
our government...I have no use for
people like "Elmer Fudd" from the
Socialist State of Maryland who
think that they are morally
superior to responsible gun owners
like us...To "nimrod45": Poaching
is a necessary solution to the
problem if you are starving to
death...Although,I think of it as
only a very last resort...There is
nothing "criminal" about self-
preservation...
Poachers are NOT criminals necessarily. Oftentimes they are meat hunters (you know,to EAT) who have decided that the damn government didn't put the game in the woods.
And who the hell are they to decide I can't have a bit of "the King's deer".
OK suppose that everyone felt like having a bit of the King's deer - how many deer do you think would be left?
I think that the State does have an obligation to husband and manage the wild game populations for everyone, since that is who it belongs to. If you're not a subsistence hunter, then you should pay for the upkeep.
Not that they get it right all the time, mind you...
Liberty can sometimes have unfortunate consequences, but that doesn't invalidate it. Otherwise you fall into the same kind of thinking that bans machine guns or advocates "one gun a month" laws.
"OK suppose that everyone felt like having a bit of the King's deer - how many deer do you think would be left?"
I'll bite.
Whitetail deer are undergoing a population explosion right now. There are more deer in North America right now than perhaps since Columbus dropped anchor.
That coupled with the fact that they are truly difficult to hunt, makes me confident in saying that I highly doubt that we're gonna run out of them anytime soon; regardless of how many new poachers we have.
Husbanding the game populations is one thing. But what the states are doing is far from husbanding. The penalty for taking an illegal deer is utterly ridiculous!
They can seize your gun, your truck, and anything else you used to commit the "crime"! That's overkill; pure and simple. Do you recognize the law enforcement tactic being used? It's the freaking RICO statutes, something cooked up to put the kabosh on organized crime!
So if I shoot a doe - when it's not legal to shoot a doe, I am handled like a mafia boss! OMG!
There are different types of "poachers." Like the ones who kill a bull elk, chop its head off and leave the carcass. Or the ones who shoot a spike in a 4-point area, and leave the carcasses to rot.
It's convenient to talk about the population explosion of white tail deer in the east. But what about Coues white tails in Arizona, Tule Elk in Commiefornia, or desert bighorn sheep?
If anyone who wanted to simply killed one of these, they would soon be extinct.
As for meat poachers, many shoot a deer, then go home to watch football on their bigscreen TV, drink beer and order a pizza.
If a guy is starving, they could take lessons from many college students who buy enough dried pinto beans, potatoes and meat for under ten bucks to make meals for several weeks.
But many poachers actually use everything they kill, and use it wisely. Those are, admittedly, different circumstances.
I don't think that abiding by game counts done by wildlife biologists, with the license restriction set forth along with then are anywhere near in the same category of the slippery slope of "allowing" our elected officials to ban machine guns, etc.
In 40 years of hunting I've learned that probably half of the hunters that I've encountered in the field are slobs. I can follow them through the forest by the garbage they leave.
But that doesn't mean that I believe in any way, shape or form that hunting on game ranches or "trophy" hunting is bad, or that I now accept infringements on guns by state agents.
Oh - and I also believe that the assholes who leave bags of trash, broken bottles and piles of human shit all around their campsites should be cited for littering. Does that make me a statist?
I don't have time to clean it all up myself, although I've cleaned up a hell of a lot of these slob's garbage in my time.
I also don't like going to the lake to try to fish and also having to clean up baby diapers, tons of beer bottles and rotten food, and, or course, the human shit nest to the lake.
If someone has a simple answer to solving these problems that don't involve the state, I like to hear them.
Maybe a season of littering slobs would solve the problem...:)
But it still incenses me when a holier than thou "fair chase" hunter who wears his holiness on his sleeve gripes about "gun nuts."
What an A-hole.
Ned
Well, nimrod, explain then, how it is the state's animal if you want to hunt it. and you must pay a fee, or three (usually) to be allowed to take your chances on getting one. But let that big antlered sonofabitch come through a windshield and decapitate a mother of four, and it's "Hey it's not our deer, we don't owe you shit for not keeping it out of the road." Works just the other way for farmers and ranchers, though. If their animal, that really is theirs gets hit,the owner of the animal is liable for ALL the damages.
Can't have it both ways. Oh, and in case you didn't know this, it was hunters who started the conservation movement by asking for licensing to provide for funds to manage wildlife.
If a man hunts to eat, he should not need a license. If he hunts for sport and food is a secondary consideration he should voluntarily contribute to the upkeep of lands and venues for hunting. But as you know those are shrinking every year, despite higher and higher mandatory fees to hunt our own animals.
I haven't hunted in years, I have deer on my place. So the only dog I have in this fight is the dog of liberty. The king does not own these deer, nor do I exclusively.
When I hunt Africa, I'm a plains game hunter because I like the way they taste, does sometimes having a nice rug or shoulder mount made out of an animal I ate make me a dreaded "trophy hunter"? Would leaving behind the inedible bits make me more ethical than making a nifty coathook for the front hall?
Is it keeping some sort of trophy of the hunt what makes a "trophy hunter" or shooting something just for the sake of a resulting trophy? I think anti-hunter people leave that a gray area on purpose. Use every part of a pig but the squeal but no impala shoulder mounts for you, son! I don't care if you and your hunting party ate it the same day and are the only thing that keeps African game even alive because without trophy fees they are just large ag pests to the native folk. My friend used to have zebras, I shot one for him and the rest were culled by others because they were outgrazing everything else. Same with giraffes and elephants.
Anti-Trophy hunting people have a serious lack of understanding of both wildlife management and economics.
People just don't seem to "get" who our real enemies are.
Funny, I don't see anything about hunting in the 2nd Amendment...
(looks around for cover or concealment)
There isn't a damn thing in the second amendment or the constitution at large about hunting or sporting purposes. Every politician who hangs any of his credibility on either of these red herrings is a charlatan at best, and a traitor at worst.
*@%^ them and the spavit legged, slat sided horse they rode in on.
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