I’m interested in hearing what Lemmings think about hunting. I started hunting deer years ago because I wanted to be a part of the process, like if I couldn’t handle killing and gutting an animal I shouldn’t be eating meat. IMO, it’s much more humane than what factory farmed animals endure. Less suffering overall than most natural deaths. Overpopulation causes disease and starvation and we killed off their predators, so we kind of owe it to nature to fill the ecological gap.
Also, I fucking love it. I watch the sun rise, think, record birds I’ve seen, think, watch squirrels play, think a bit more, and sometimes, I get some food.
Idk. I’m not looking for approval or trying to change your mind, just wondering what people think.
How do you expect a predator to live a life of peace?
I suppose the way cats and dogs do? I have no idea about the logistics of it all, but I think the ideal case is that no animal is killed for any reason.
I don’t think that’s a realistic goal to pursue, but I think it’s fair to say hunting isn’t the only possible alternative to prey animals being killed by predators. Maybe the most practical, but not necessarily the ideal.
All predators are kept in captivity, and fed factory farmed meat? Prey animals run unchecked, overpopulate, and die of starvation, disease, and car accidents?
Nature is not kind, and nature demands balance. Humans disrupted the balance by reducing predators, so hunters take that role to maintain the balance.
If it makes you feel any better, a bullet is the fastest, kindest death any deer is likely to see. Much preferable to slowly being torn to shreds and eaten alive, wasting away from starvation, trembling as mind and muscle are eaten by prions, or choking on blood as it lies broken, hit by a car, possibly taking a family with it.
As I said, I have no idea about the logistics, but I think it’s a good starting point to agree on what the impossible ideal looks like, and then see how close we can get.
I suppose in a ideal world, predator animals are kept free but separate from prey, provided with stimulation and synthetic food that keeps them healthy, and both predator and prey populations are kept in check through sterilisation or birth control.
We don’t have to solve problems the way nature “solves” them (and we usually shouldn’t).
But a bullet is also the fastest, kindest death many humans are likely to see, versus wasting away to hunger, cancer, Alzheimer’s or whatever. Does that make you feel any better about people getting shot?