Our weekend adventure

[GB]

Personally, I would never be able to hunt. I would rather pick up my camera and take a picture than pick up a gun and shoot.

That being said, I have the utmost respect for people who hunt and eat what they kill. I think people forget where their food comes from sometimes. Anyone can walk into a supermarket and by some chicken breasts or ground beef or buffalo, some frozen turkeys or ducks, or any number of other animals. Why is it any different to buy those things than to go out and do it yourself?

And as for enjoying it, again I personally would not enjoy something like that, but for someone else to go out and hunt their own food, I can see how there is a satisfaction in that. I wonder if the same people here who are so upset about this get equally worked up at people who fish? What about people who kill the mosquito buzzing around their head?

What I do have a problem with is people who hunt for sport and let the animal rot. I find that horrible and think the practice should be illegal. JMHO.

 

[pdswife]

Thank you GB.

Paul would never let anything he shot go to waste.
He's been hunting for 8 years now and this is his first kill and only
the second shot that he's taken.

Hunting is not an easy thing to do here in Washington. I know in some places you can sit on the side of the road and wait for the animals to come to you but here... you walk for miles and work your butt off for hours and hours before you even see anything. It is a sport ... but in no way is it a game.
It's hard hard work and worth every second.

I couldn't shoot anything with a face either... mostly because I don't think I could do it in one shot. I can't aim well enough and I'm afraid that the animal would run and that I'd never find it.

Like I said before though...that bear had it 100 times better than the cows, pigs and chickens most of us eat every day.

 

[suzyQ3]

.... Well... I think the best way I can describe it chopstix is that

when I eat a tomato from the store it's just a dang tomato but... If I go out and plant the seed and watch it grow and the shoot comes up and turns in to a plant and then a little yellow flower appears and then a little green tomato pops out and then it starts to turn a pretty shade of red and the sun warms it and then I pick it and eat it it's a TOMATO!!!!!

It's just different... it's better.
It's something that I did. ( or in this case that my husband did)
Better...more real...more exciting...
Hard to explain.

I respect your point of view, even if it is not one that I share. I also appreciate your openness to those who might disagree.

So I hope you understand my discomfort with what chopstix referred to as "uncontained excitement" in the pictures, as well as some comments that had a glib or almost cruel subtext that I'm sure you didn't mean.

Having said that, I do not see any legitimate comparison between growing and consuming produce and killing animals for sport. I understand quite well that we have to kill animals in order to survive (although I guess the vegetarians among us would take exception to that opinion). I just personally don't relish the thought nor think of it as some great achievement or badge of honor. Again, this is just my personal opinion.

 

[FryBoy]

...that bear had it 100 times better than the cows, pigs and chickens most of us eat every day.

Having spent time in a slaughterhouse, I can assure you that is not true.

Mammals that are slaughtered for food in this country are first knocked unconscious by electric shock to the brain. Their jugular vein and carotid artery are then quickly cut, draining the blood from their brains and killing them nearly instantly.

In contrast, death by shooting is slow and extremely painful -- for humans or for other higher animals. Unless the bullet destroys the brain or pierces the heart or a large enough artery to permit the near instantaneous loss of blood from the brain, the animal suffers the pain of the wound until there has been sufficient blood loss to render it unconscious and eventually dead. That seems to be precisely what happened to the bear Paul shot, which I understand took several minutes to die.

 

[Alix]

OK, can we let this be now? pdswife, I am closing this thread, PM me if you wish, I will discuss it with you.