Cruelty Conflict?

[roy reali]

I can not stand any cruelty to animals. When I see a dog that is tied up in a yard 24/7, I want to release the animal and put the owner in the same situation for a week. When I hear about kids that torture cats, I want to do the same to them. Once in awhile we have news reports of wounded wild horses, caused by some idiot using them for plinking practice. I won't write what I would do to them so as not to have this thread locked.

Come fall, I grab guns and go hunting. If I get lucky and draw a big game tag, then I'll do everything that is legal and moral to fill it. In other words, I plan on killing something. If I am walking through the desert scrub and a quail takes off, my shotgun will launch pellets towards it in hopes of hitting it. I am going to try to kill the little bird. Jackrabbits? I don't even have to wait to shoot them.

When I explain these views to some folks, they call me a hypocrite. They see a conflict. How could I be opposed to animal cruelty and yet kill animals?

Am I a hypocrite? Do I have a conflict of interests going here?

 

[SCcdp]

There is a vast chasm between sportsmanship and animal cruelty. I too can't stand to see a dog tied up or a any animal treated in a cruel or tormented way, but I dearly love to hunt and fish.

The older I get the less it has become about killing or taking game and more about the experience. That isn't to say that I don't pull the trigger and fill my tags but I am always mindful of harvesting my game in the most efficient and ethical way possible.

I wouldn't sweat anyone that calls you a hypocrite. License buying sportsman do more for the resources than any hippy tree hugger ever thought about doing. Our dollars pay for programs that ensure the long term viability of not only the resources we enjoy but also the habitat those resources dwell in.

 

[ZeroJunk]

I am an avid hunter, but I dodge wooly worms crossing the road.

 

[Xfire68]

There is a big big difference between making an animal suffer and taking a animal clean and quick in a hunt! We as hunters do are best to make sure the animal is taken without making it suffer where a "person" (I use that word loosely) intends harm on a helpless animal but, they call it their "pet".

Your not hypocritical in any way!

 

[Kreyzhorse]

Not a conflict of interest. Hunters strive to make a clean quick kill and most of us eat what we kill.

People that mistreat animals typically do so out of ignorance or for fun or simply because they don't care. Those people have nothing in common with hunters.

 

[.284]

Would one be a hypocrite that believes in animal rights yet throws a steak on the grill every weekend? Some would argue yes but, I believe that apples shouldn't be compared to oranges. On one hand, we have domesticated dogs, cats, and horses to become our pets (in some cases darn near part of the family). On the other side of the fence we use cattle, chickens, pigs...and so on as food. Sure some extremists look at our use of animals as food as cruelty to animals but, most don't give that a second thought. Now, show a home owner on television as some agency is removing 20 starving cats from the property and most would agree that a crime of animal cruelty has been committed. To me hunters are farming nature's livestock as well as practicing conservation, restoring habitat, and respecting what we kill more so than a slaughter house does.

I guess to the OP, I'm saying animal cruelty is animal cruelty and hunting is hunting.....totally different. JMO!

 

[briandg]

I would have expected a post like this from a troll, but you are obviously sincere.

Cruelty takes a lot of forms. Personally, I don't see harvesting an animal with a rifle as cruel. Harsh, but not cruel. I have mixed feelings about bowhunting, as this isn't the same as a rifle wound. I find trapping and some other activities to border on cruelty. Those are all my personal feelings.

What I find to be appalling and unforgivable is abuse of pets. many pet owners buy them because they feel empty without one, but once they have it, realize that they really just don't give a crap.

A teenager I knew bought a dalmatian in the 90s after the Disney flick came out, because they were cute. She couldn't keep it indoors, so she staked it under a tree with no shelter. (dirt) she wouldn't feed it, because she wanted it lean and beautiful. She didn't pay any attention to it because she was a shallow **** that had no bond with it, and that dog lay under the tree in it's own feces, hungry, thirsty, lonely, cold and wet, devoured by parasites of every kind, and probably spent its days wondering if it could bite out its own jugular vein. This is the sort of cruelty that resulted in the execution of the commandant of Andersonville prison

She thought that I was cruel for hunting. I thought that she was horrendous. It would have been a kindness to kill that dog and spare it from the next few years of this treatment, IMO.

I'm a good man. I spend my life doing the right thing. I pursue animal rights. I own pets, and take better care of them than I do myself. I hunt, and I can reconcile that with my philosophy because it is not cruel. Death is unavoidable. Predators are everywhere, and I am the only predator that is going to try and be humane when I harvest my food.

When someone calls me cruel and a hypocrite, I have been known to tell them bluntly that they have not the slightest clue what they are talking about, and that only an idiot would make such a statement such as they just made.

 

[mothermopar]

I'm not a hunter, yet see nothing wrong with hunting (so long as the animal is used for something productive)... and I'm an animal lover who owns 2 dobermans, a betta fish and a frog.

Your arguement is based on cruelty. Hunting properly is cruel. Leashing a dog outside 24/7/365 is, IMO.

You stand on solid moral ground for your views/opinions.

 

[moosemike]

You are not a hypocrite. I'm an avid hunter but I get upset if I hit a squirrel with my vehicle. I agree with everything you said about dogs, horses, and cats too.

 

[markj]

Its like the difference between kinky and perverted, kinky uses a feather, perverted uses the whole chicken.

In other words you try to make a clean kill with little suffering, instead of tieing it up and slowly killing it in a way that could be defined as torture. Well unless you shoot it many times........

 

[cje1980]

I think most hunters are that way. They believe in ethical hunting behavior and don't want to make an animal suffer. It makes me very angry to see animals abused and neglected.

I don't do any small game or predator hunting. I only kill an animal I intend to consume. However, I understand the reasons why some people hunt small game or predators and don't have a problem with people that do so. I also understand how it benefits the eco system. I just don't believe in killing anything I don't intend to eat.

 

[FrankenMauser]

They see a hypocrite.

I see them as a hypocrite.
They think beef is humanely treated, and lives a happy life in California (where happy cows come from... don't you guys watch TV?).

Even when you show them the conditions cattle are kept in on Feed Lots, and the crap corn they're fed - they still think they're "right". Beef are for food, after all. (The subject of corn is a completely different topic. I'll simply say that corn greatly contributes to parasites, diseases, and cattle can barely digest half of it.)


The antis and non-hunters in my extended family think we hunters shoot anything that breaths, and enjoy watching the animals suffer. Yet, I have issues putting a baby bird, fallen from its nest, to a quick death (species that won't survive once out of the nest). When I show videos to the antis, demonstrating how many pigs are killed in modern slaughter houses... they tell me that's only the one factory. (I like the compressive asphyxiation videos. There's nothing quite like watching your accuser's face, while seeing 40 pigs crushed by a hydraulic ram.) It's different other places, they say... (Other places they don't mention, and can't say how the slaughter takes place.)

Like Kreyzhorse said - It's ignorance that's the problem. Most hunters try to be ethical, and educated about their protein sources.

The other side of the equation always seems to have the holier-than-thou attitude, that THEY could never be part of the problem. Beef, chicken, turkey, pork, lamb, and fish all grow on grocery store shelves, after all...

 

[Mr Dish]

On one hand, we have domesticated dogs, cats, and horses to become our pets (in some cases darn near part of the family).


What do you mean "darn near" part of the family...?

We have 2 dogs and a cat, they are our kids. My Golden Retriever is my Favorite child...and yes I tell my Daughter that too. After all, the dogs are the most anxiuos to see me when I come home.

I once took a dog away from a Customer. They had it tied to their front porch and it was starving to death, literally. My Vet said if I had not rescued it, then the poor thing would have died. I have also gotten into an altercation with a father who was smacking his little boy around in the grocery store.

Sometimes you simply have to stand up for what is right. Personally, I don't worry so much about what others think.

 

[RichardWA]

Sometimes tying a dog up is not cruel, One of mine is tied when no one is home because he likes to run off. I would rather he was tied up than ran over by a vehicle.
The other dog is tied all the time. Why? because he only likes 2 people, that would be my wife and I, and I don't think he needs to be running around biting people and killing other animals. But, if anyone wants to come over and untie him that would be a show I would love to watch! As far as tieing me up for a while, That probably wouldn't work out to well!

 

[johnwilliamson062]

Do you derive pleasure from the torture of animals?
It is really that simple.

Of course, I have read a couple studies which indicate those that are most homophobic have gay tendencies they are fearful of and are suppressing/masking them with anger.

 

[animal]

Hunting is completely incompatible with animal rights…. so is pet ownership.
An animal can have no rights unless you are willing to relinquish your right to use them for your own purposes. Killing them is murder. Ownership of them is slavery.


The solution is simple. The conflict between hunting and cruel treatment is an illusion because : Animals must never have rights. Only humans and human collective entities (corporations, clubs, governments, etc.) can have rights.

Because of your right to property, the animal you own can enjoy protection by you or by law protecting your rights. As property, an animal's status as a pet or livestock can be recognized as having value. That value can be defined according to free market principles concerning animals to which the owner has no emotional attachment. Concerning animals to which a person has become emotionally attached, additional value can be assigned based on the total cost of the animal and it’s upkeep over it’s remaining life expectancy, the amount the owner would be willing to pay in order to save its life, or a number of other methods which could be easily defined by law. Questions of felony vs. misdemeanor can be resolved according to the animal’s value, just as in considering the destruction or theft of any other property.

Cruelty to animals can be punished as a violation of the principle of proper use. (and defined as morally wrong through the harm it does to humans that witness or practice it.) Cruelty can then be defined as causing suffering unnecessary to the proper use of the animal, and penalties assessed according to different levels of cruelty (torture can be defined as more heinous than neglect, for example).

Recognizing State ownership of game animals allows for their protection. Recognizing a proper use of game animals being the hunting thereof … resolves the perceived conflict

 

[Art Eatman]

I've always figured that cruelty to an animal involves in some way a wilful reduction in its health. Starving, beating, excess "incarceration", etc.

The hunting of game animals involves food. Food is meat, veggies, fruit, etc. Something's gotta die in order that anybody eats. It's a biology thing, brought to you by Mother Gaia.

Hunting/shooting predators is protection of food. Want more rabbits to eat? Shoot more coyotes. Want more alfalfa hay for your cows? Shoot more prairie dogs.

Just remember that whether hunter or animal-hugger, when we sit down to a restaurant meal we've merely hired somebody else to do the killing and scut work for us. Nothing wrong with that...

 

[snipecatcher]

I am an avid hunter, but I dodge wooly worms crossing the road.

Glad to know I'm not the only one. My friends think it's weird. I will hunt most anything, but I will not kill something unless it has a purpose, whether it be for food or fur.

 

[moosemike]

brought to you by Mother Gaia

Who the heck is that?

 

[kaylorinhi]

Cruelty

The "general" way I conduct every hunt is: I treat every kill as if it were a beloved pet or other animal of mine that I was forced to use for food. As quick and Painless as possible, I have made a bad shot in the past, just one, and it still haunts me to this day! The one bad shoot I made is the reason I continue to practice and stay frosty even in the off-season.