Let's build a coherent philosophical and ethical case for hunting.

[howa243]

I tend to look at the alternatives. If the alternative is that an animal is bred, fed (with allsorts of stuff) shoved onto a transporter and driven to a slaughterhouse then for me there really is no choice. Difficult to argue that the product is better, that the life of the animal is better and I would argue that its eventual demise is too.

We can make what we do look better by concentrating on a farmed product.

 

[andyf]

...the question is whether there's any moral cruelty involved that the individual deer would experience. There definitely would be cruelty in killing a female with dependent young for example, which is in fact the scenario retained by Bambi or Babar the Elephant.

I think I may have stumbled onto something there.

Think you're in danger of applying a very human idea of cruelty to an animal there. The orphaned youngster has no idea anything cruel has occurred when it's mother gets shot (or taken by a wolf or lynx, for that matter). It just gets on with things and dies, or not, as circumstances dictate.

To define the curcumstances as cruel, or to consider them in the context of minimising suffering/best practice, you need a perspective and context the deer doesn't have.

 

[Pine Marten]

Fair point. What I mean is that if you kill a female with dependent young, you know that you are most probably precipitating the death of the latter through starvation or predation. The fawn isn't going to think of cruelty, but I think it would be fair to say that the hunter had acted cruelly.

 

[Klenchblaize]

I always thought Society would agonise over how best to engage and compensate a 21st Century population spared the need to work at least 5 days a week to survive but instead such pitiful free time as has been realised since the 2nd World War has only seen us agonise over the defining of our differences rather than explore our commonality. ‎
‎
It may of course be that this is our destiny and in consequence we are no more than a product of a die already cast.

I truly believe this is not something we can address through reasoned argument when the only reason I hunt with a rifle is to seek an element of spiritual fulfilment that I simply cannot obtain through alternative mechanisms and most certainly includes the final act of taking a life. The venison being no more than a bonus. ‎

Now only 3 posts left so ‎don't expect them to be further squandered!
‎
K

 

[Greymaster]

An article here:

http://www.uvm.edu/rsenr/wfb175/wood_chapter1.pdf

http://www.amazon.com/The-Delights-Dilemmas-Hunting-Anti-Hunting/dp/0761804722

And another:

http://animalstudiesrepository.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=acwp_hmap

 

[Heym SR20]

I have been giving this quite a bit of thought - and certainly easier than dealing with the Tax implications for a client entering of a JV in Latin America, which is also troubling me.

Going back to my earlier incoherent ramble:

1) Man is an omnivore and this needs protein in his diet to survive - always has done and always will do. Yes that protein can come from plants or certain parts of plants, but hard to forage grow sufficient protein and store it etc for us to just survive on vegetables all the time.

2) Hence the inherent need to eat meat of some sort.

3) over time we have developed agriculture and in modern farming we are now using unsustainable ( but depends on your view point as many are pretty sustainable if done correctly) mono cultures, with domestic animals often very far removed from their "wild ancestors"

4) Increasing populations put huge pressure on land, and increasingly we will have to use arable land to grow staple carbohydrate producing crops, and not for animal feeds.

5) Thus we are left with marginal land and probably one of the best uses of marginal lands are mixed forestry which produces a whole variety of useful products - timber, fuel and quite large quantities of protein in the form of all sorts of grubs, animals and in particular things like deer, and birds.

6) By judiciously hunting that game we provide a sustainable source of protein.


I will fully admit to get a good deal of satisfaction from going out into the woods and shooting a buck for the table. Its good for my soul, good exercise and puts food on the table, and I would like to think by eating venison, wild duck, wild geese or indeed pheasants I am reducing the pressure on intensive agriculture a bit.

In the west we do eat far too much meat for our own good. Personally the meat that I do eat I would prefer it to be sustainably and ethically produced, and by pulling the trigger, I have a little bit of control over that.

 

[User00025]

The arguments both for and against are excellent, but some folk have not even got a clue where anything is sourced from.
Once whilst eating a venison sandwich I was asked by two young ladies what I was eating. When I told them the look of horror on their faces was pitiful. I then asked what they had for dinner the night before. The one girl said pulses and salad as she was vegetarian,Ok fine I said, how about you? to the other. Rump steak she replied with a smile. So you are critical of me whilst eating a decomposing piece of a cow's a..e yourself I said. She almost threw up and then said "well it came from the supermarket",not even a clue where meat came from. There must be more education in primary school because many young folk think things grow on trees whilst in my day we were taught where everything came from ,with the exception of babies,we had to sort that one out for ourselves

 

[Erik Hamburger]

For me it is about conservation.
Not the kind of conservation as practiced by the Natural Trust and the Wildlife Trust, as for them it appears to be a romantic dream about preserving Victorian farming methods.
Conservation, for me, = sustainable utilisation of a natural resource.

 

[Pine Marten]

Agreed, the use of renewable natural resources is also a powerful point. Whaling could also tick that box of course, but didn't. Principle stands, but a poor precedent.

This is great, we're making progress here. I'll try to summarise where I think we are so far and where to go next tomorrow. Thanks everyone! Keep it coming.

 

[Buchan]

“Why is it morally justifiable to kill that particular deer?” Because they are part of a population that I’ve been asked to control. This is either by an impact assessment or by the farm owner seeing wall damage and the loss of grazing land in late autumn and spring. (I’ll pass over the arguments of population control).

However, as far as the wider question about the morality of killing animals goes, why does the proponent regard death as bad? Is death regarded as bad because we as a species grieve? No other species does (to the same extent) and it might be argued that the concept of loss is what made our species into the social animal we are. That sense of loss of a key member of our group, the understanding of the loss of the contribution that person might make for food gathering etc would create a sense that death is a terrible thing. That would lead to the altruism that defines us – helping each other so as to avoid that death. With domestication we’ve extended that attitude to our livestock (and hence the wider wild animals). Ignoring religion, the further we get from feeding ourselves, the easier it is to continue to apply that morality to the killing of all animals – because we can get our food and clothing without killing an animal and so that death seems unreasonable.

However, if it is death that is the issue, the depravation of life, what of the plants that are killed? Yes, a trite argument perhaps, but to make any distinction between plant and animal death means conferring sentience on those animals - for that is the only reason for death to be a negative experience.

I’ve deliberately left out the arguments for population control, for the sustainable harvest of a resource and for the maintenance of balanced ecosystems, as I think it strays from the central question PM is asking. This is interesting stuff, I’m looking forward to listening to the programme.

(PS, We do need to eat meat, or have a synthetic source of B12)

 

[Cootmeurer]

Another possible argument is that shooting wild game is the most environmentally responsible method for harvesting food from certain lands. Quite a bit of land is so unproductive, either due to climate, or terrain/slope, etc... that putting it into agricultural production (either crops or herded animals) is quite harmful (with resultant soil erosion, etc...). By leaving the land natural or semi-natural, you may still harvest a renewable product from that land.

 

[Greymaster]

Several years ago, Dennis Olson (1980), who was then teaching at the Environmental Learning Center in northern Minnesota,
published a searching article superbly expressing his views as a hunter. He describes his thoughts and experiences as he hunts a deer with bow and arrow on an early October morning:

I recall discussions with friends, sensitive people. Preservation logic is one thing that binds us. Wilderness teaches us. My friends have expectations of a naturalist:
"We look to a teacher of the woods for inspiration, for a spirit of integration with plants, animals, and Earth. His sensitivity must be manifest in a deep humanity toward animals. Knowledge of nature's nuances must lead him to respect and preserve life."
But I am a hunter and they are not.
"A hunting naturalist is a contradictory creature," they argue. "With his own hand, he takes the very life he respects. Can respect be shown in making a corpse?"
"The gossamer of life, so tenuous and fragile," the poet says, "can scarcely withstand this violent betrayal. How can anyone kill except in need?"
Hunter. Like it or not, I belong to a group.The arguments turn in my mind as I drive to the woods I know from childhood. I park and get out, slowly adjusting to the darkness ...
A sharp-shinned hawk flashes between the trunks. A twist, and he continues his erratic maneuvering-toward me! Perhaps he caught a blink of my eye. Expecting a close fly-by; I watch in admiration. He lands on my bow! My excitement sends slight tremors through the bow limbs, but he perches and scrutinizes the leaf litter. Mouse movement spins his head and he is off again in wild flight. A predator. A killing efficiency honed by the millennia.
An hour passes and I still wait.Humanity is a curious invention. The constraint of positive emotions, love and care, is placed upon human potential for carnage. The rest of nature is simply indifferent. Plants and other animals don't need moral control because they don't have our omnipotence. We feel we should be humane to other animals. Fairness is humane. The bow and arrow I hold are more fair than cannons. A wolf would use every means it has to make the kill and, if it could, would think me too generous. It doesn't understand my power. Maybe I don't either.

 

[Taff]

I tend to look at the alternatives. If the alternative is that an animal is bred, fed (with allsorts of stuff) shoved onto a transporter and driven to a slaughterhouse then for me there really is no choice. Difficult to argue that the product is better, that the life of the animal is better and I would argue that its eventual demise is too.

We can make what we do look better by concentrating on a farmed product.

having farmed beef and sheep, I would say my animals had a better life than a wild deer and we produced a far better product, tryin to stereo type, meat production to save your own sport, ( as that is what it is ) will achieve nothing, when was the last time a cow dog was required, to track a badly shot cow. Alienating farmers would just weaken our cause.

 

[Greymaster]

having farmed beef and sheep, I would say my animals had a better life than a wild deer and we produced a far better product, tryin to stereo type, meat production to save your own sport, ( as that is what it is ) will achieve nothing, when was the last time a cow dog was required, to track a badly shot cow. Alienating farmers would just weaken our cause.

Super dairies have been established in the UK in which the cows live indoors for their 250 day lactation. I daresay this does not compare with free ranging cattle production down under.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-11074966

 

[howa243]

having farmed beef and sheep, I would say my animals had a better life than a wild deer and we produced a far better product, tryin to stereo type, meat production to save your own sport, ( as that is what it is ) will achieve nothing, when was the last time a cow dog was required, to track a badly shot cow. Alienating farmers would just weaken our cause.

Not 'trying' to alienate farmers at all. Just think that if people knew what it took to grow an animal to the requisite size and then get it onto a plate, that this would be a big wakeup call. Having taken pigs, sheep and cattle to abattoirs, I don't honestly imagine anyone finding this a pleasant experience. It certainly isn't for the animals. I obviously disagree that a life for an animal on an intensive farm, is better than one without boundaries, worming, crushes, antibiotics, dagging, shearing, etc.

As to the kill, I am not suggesting that I am totally happy with current regulations in the UK. I would be happy to see compulsory training but even then accept that some animals would be wounded rather than killed outright. Personally I see that as a risk worth taking.

Coming back to the OP, I do think training will be part of the answer.

 

[Buchan]

The programme was a compilation of about 6-8 philosophers' views and as one person put it, "philosophers pick and choose". What came across very strongly (to me) was that while they may have been good philosophers, they were rotten biologists/ecologists/scientists.

Central to the programme was the single tenet that death is bad. If death is a bad thing and animals have some cognisance of the future, this would mean that the whole time our deer are grazing they are fearful of death. This is distress (as opposed to eustress – good stress) and is a physiological state that is, ultimately, harmful. This is not good in evolutionary terms, so the only time our deer suffers distress, they run away from the predator and the distress is short lived (death or escape) so not harmful.

Only one person put forward the argument that for the individual, death is a null point and it is only the friends and relatives of that individual that suffer by their death (and by extension society, hence laws against murder). He then suggested that cannibalism was acceptable as eating animals. This might be good thinking, but it’s lousy for disease transmission and species survival.

Perhaps the most remarkable argument was the “morally permissible moral mistake” that relates to the closeness of one’s act with the effect of that act. The proponent suggested it was morally more acceptable to pick up meat in the supermarket than to kill for ones’ own consumption, as the single mistaken act would make no difference to the supermarket and the number of animals killed. (Which is as weak an argument as not voting).

The programme didn’t really address the single moral question, as even the philosophers got tied up with anthropomorphism and welfare, but like PM, I find it is a challenge to come up with an answer. Which is where I turn to Douglas Adams and his marvellous, “Dish of the Day”. If it is morally wrong to kill an animal to eat because it doesn’t want to be eaten; is it better to create an animal whose whole purpose in life is to be eaten?

 

[bewsher500]

having farmed beef and sheep, I would say my animals had a better life than a wild deer and we produced a far better product, tryin to stereo type, meat production to save your own sport, ( as that is what it is ) will achieve nothing, when was the last time a cow dog was required, to track a badly shot cow. Alienating farmers would just weaken our cause.

with all due respect to you and the UK farmers...NZ is a far different place to the UK when it comes to farming!!

We put unwanted male chicks through grinders ..live....FFS
The poultry industry is an absolute disgrace with chickens that are 21 days old and so fat they can't walk....but we still buy them!
The dairy industry is being systematically screwed into the ground by price pressure and the welfare of the cows in the major producers who can compete with supermarket terms is questionable at best. Small dairy producers are a think of the past unless they become niche product suppliers
The by product of male dairy cows is the Veal industry...I don't need to explain what happens to male calves shipped to the Continent

not seen a cow dog been needed to track a badly shot cow.....but I have seen plenty of badly slaughtered animals.

no intensive livestock production can ever compare with the wild but I honestly think that is a stupid argument to take in trying to protect what we do

IMO the reason we have so much pressure on the deer population is our insistence that they must be in the supermarkets in some form or other.
Commoditisation of wild animals has never served anything other than lead to massive over harvesting

Have we learned nothing from the farcical fishing industry?

 

[Chasey]

having farmed beef and sheep, I would say my animals had a better life than a wild deer and we produced a far better product, tryin to stereo type, meat production to save your own sport, ( as that is what it is ) will achieve nothing, when was the last time a cow dog was required, to track a badly shot cow. Alienating farmers would just weaken our cause.

Id argue venison was better as a product than beef but pureley in a nutritional and health concious basis not on how it was raised.

The big one is the slaughterhouse. Having seen that close up id say the deer were better off not knowing what hit them and people should see a direct comparison between the two systems of dispatch

This has nothing to do with farmers who are doing the nation a service and doing it well. This is about Tesco meet shopers having no concept of how that Sirloin ended up in that box

As for badly shot deer? I hope I am corect in saying thats not a common occurance. Ther have been cases of anamal neglect on farms as well so possably thats a balanceing argument but we are not trying to score points on this issue.

Our problem is there are 1000s of hunters and millions of people to whom hunting does not make any sense and they cant see a link to it and food baught at tesco.

So when it comes to a vote? we will loose

There was an excelent TV series on some time ago that dealt with rearing meet and takeing it to slaughter and then prepairing it for food. I was very impressed with the producers for being so brave.

Sadly I cant remember what it was called.

ATB

CHasey

 

[Heym SR20]

The whole domestic animal food chain really needs looking at. When I grew up near Wallingford there were three or four butchers within a ten mile radius that all slaughtered and butchered onsite. I used to help out on the farm next door and with the lambs a couple of times a week we would select a dozen lambs, load them into the trailer and drive them down to butcher who quietly took them in one by one. Cattle were the same, indeed the butcher would come to the farm and select a couple of steers. Very little stress. Only one of the butchers is still in existence and he can no longer slaughter on site. Otherwise its big supermarkets, and I understand that the supermarkets use one or two large slaughter houses. Sheep are transported from Southern England up to Newcastle for slaughter and then to be distributed into the food chain.

Quite why live animals need to be transported long distances for slaughter beats me. It is very stressful and animals are mixed in groups that they don't know. When I read Agriculture at Reading in the late 1980's there were ethics in farming lectures and the whole process was likened to them people being removed from their homes and herded onto trains.

It is rather saddening that a once humane system has been largely dismantled for head long rush to supermarket and large business. And before any body puts on European directives, yes Europe has put many directives in place giving guidance as to how things should happen. Its only the British government that seems to have the innate ability to take guidance directives and then to enshrine them in law and then give this to clipboards to implement. One of the local abattoirs had to close because its walls, according to the inspector, were 2 cm below the guidance requirements. Another friend was producing and processing free range chickens sold direct to the end consumer. He ran his small processing unit for half a day a week, and it was just a few minutes from field to being butchered. He was doing 10,000 birds a year. He wanted to expand to running his processing unit twice a week which would have then meant a profitable business. Oh no says the inspector, you now have to employ a full time vet to oversee the slaughtering - not economically phaesible - not a vet there to oversee the slaughtering, but a full time vet - bureaucracy gone mad.

If we are going to eat meat, and to keep and slaughter animals for the purposes of eating, at very least we should do it efficiently and humanely - not only from a ethical point of view, but also from a meat quality point of view - adrenalin does very little for meat quality.

 

[Pine Marten]

Chaps, there is some very useful discussion here but I fear that wild vs. farmed meat is not actually quite on topic. It's related and relevant, but it's attempting to answer a different question.