The case against hunting: well worth taking a step back and thinking about.

[Pine Marten]

(Context: this anti-hunting opinion piece was published in the respected French daily Le Monde yesterday as part of a series of reports on hunting, one topic being explored in the run up to the presidential election in the Spring. It is openly presented as a partisan appeal, and hunting organisations were also invited to contribute but didn’t. In particular one environmental organisation, broadly opposed to hunting, provided a full dossier of coherent and credible statistics which were published in a separate article. As far as I can tell, hunting organisations didn’t.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At first my reaction was not to read all of this, but then I thought better of it and made a conscious effort to stand back and try and judge the arguments made for the abolition of hunting in France on its merits and see what I could learn. The article has the merit of being clear: the authors are the founders of a small party called Ecological Revolution for the Living, which is clearly antispeciesist. As such they have no need to pay any lip service to a balanced position, so it actually makes for a very clear set of arguments. It’s worth summarising them and thinking about their merits. Obviously they’re specific to the French situation but not any less fundamentally applicable elsewhere.

1. People get shot, killed and injured. Mostly hunters but also non-hunters. This is partly because of competing uses of the same land. Safety is now much improved, but any accidents are unacceptable. Hard to disagree with that, frankly.
2. Hunting isn’t a sport. The act of shooting has no quantifiable physical benefit, and you can’t compare shooting at live animals to football or jogging.
3. The main non-human victims are 30 million animals a year, of which two-thirds are bred and released for the purpose. I’m not sure the numbers are right, but the practice is certainly very relevant in the UK.
4. Accidental or deliberate killing of non-target species, in particular they cite the case of a golden eagle being shot. Rings some bells, I think….
5. Pollution from lead and plastics in ammunition. No additional comment necessary I believe.
6. The economic arguments in favour are weak. Personally I think they always are, you can always argue against stats or turn them whichever way you like. In France, hunters have to indemnify farmers for damage caused to crops by big game if they don’t meet cull targets, which they pretty much never do and the whole system is a perverse basket case.
7. Finally, tradition is no argument at all in favour. Plenty of past traditions have been lost or abolished because people realised they were appalling or just undesirable.

I’m not suggesting arguing each of these points individually, but to be lucid on how this case is going to be debated can only be useful.

Hope this sparks some constructive discussions. I can see many flaws and gaps in this, as well as some valid points that must be addressed.

 

[Norfolk Deer Search]

I have been poking about a good 20 years in this world of shooting and sitting back reading your post, i cant actually disagree woth any of it.

 

[BenBhoy]

I'd certainly disagree about it not being a sport. Taken from Cambridge dictionary

sport noun (GAME)​

A1 [ C ]
a game, competition, or activity needing physical effort and skill that is played or done according to rules, for enjoyment and/or as a job:

I highlight an "activity needing physical effort & skill" and "for enjoyment". Anyone who has stalked the Highlands, walked up grouse or partridge or swamped the foreshore before first light will concur it needs physical effort!

And don't underestimate the importance shooting & being outside has on mental health (buzz word at the minute). I'll wager most of us are happiest outside, rifle on back or 12 bore over arm, dog by feet & just thankful to be able to enjoy that moment.

 

[Pine Marten]

And don't underestimate the importance shooting & being outside has on mental health (buzz word at the minute). I'll wager most of us are happiest outside, rifle on back or 12 bore over arm, dog by feet & just thankful to be able to enjoy that moment.

I don't, and I have quite a lot to say on this but I thought I'd let the community react first, do some listening...

 

[Craigard]

Thank you for this summary, it's lucid, concise and the points raised are all valid. I'll have to read the original text and give each point more thought particularly, "hunting isn't a sport" and the powerful animal welfare arguments under pinning "anti-hunting" in the UK which should be understood by all of us. One thing I learned from Brexit is that often public opinion and political policies are based more on emotion than rational argument and scientific facts.

 

[Woodsmoke]

My first question would be to ask why these people are focusing on hunting, rather than some of the other barbaric practices the French are notorious for . . . . . Pate de Fois Gras and the practice of gavage, the outlawed-but-still-ongoing practice of eating ortolan (after first keeping them in darkness and then drowning them in Armagnac) . . . . . not to mention the myriad actual cruelties they encounter through standard industry food production methods.

Seems to be the same as here in the UK that fanatic anti groups focus their hatred on what they perceive as an easy target rather than do anything to counter the main perpetuators of cruel practices

 

[gixer1]

The below would be my immediate responses. (The number format got messed up and I don’t know how to fix it on my phone! )


1. People get shot, killed and injured. Mostly hunters but also non-hunters. This is partly because of competing uses of the same land. Safety is now much improved, but any accidents are unacceptable. Hard to disagree with that, frankly. people are hurt in almost all forms of sport or exercise, for the number of people shooting - accidents are incredibly low in the shooting world.

1. Hunting isn’t a sport. The act of shooting has no quantifiable physical benefit, and you can’t compare shooting at live animals to football or jogging. Try telling that to someone that has stalked a red up a hill, walked a grouse moor or spent the day beating! The physical benefits and mental benefits are huge - many an older timer at 80+ is still shooting or beating and staying active!
2. The main non-human victims are 30 million animals a year, of which two-thirds are bred and released for the purpose. I’m not sure the numbers are right, but the practice is certainly very relevant in the UK. Many of the bred and released animals survive and add to a thriving population of this species and provide food for other species.
3. Accidental or deliberate killing of non-target species, in particular they cite the case of a golden eagle being shot. Rings some bells, I think….Not really a common occurrence and n any of the shoots I’ve been on..I can’t see many guns spending money to shoot a BoP.
4. Pollution from lead and plastics in ammunition. No additional comment necessary I believe. The recent drive to non-lead or steel shot shows the commitment to help reduce this - however the land based pollution and plastic usage is a drop in the ocean compared to ocean and see pollution and the creation of plastics from general day to day consumers.
5. The economic arguments in favour are weak. Personally I think they always are, you can always argue against stats or turn them whichever way you like. In France, hunters have to indemnify farmers for damage caused to crops by big game if they don’t meet cull targets, which they pretty much never do and the whole system is a perverse basket case. That’s a French specific thing…can’t really comment.
6. Finally, tradition is no argument at all in favour. Plenty of past traditions have been lost or abolished because people realised they were appalling or just undesirable. A basic knowledge of food production is a great thing to have, the problem is now we try to blinker people and not subject them to how things are created, so tradition is very important, also the skills passed down from generation to generation as shooting is not just the trigger pulling part, it required dedication and commitment, early mornings and late nights, and focus on what is happening around the shoot long and short term.

 

[Ratten]

An interesting perspective certainly. My own layman's view of some of the points
1) Only a problem if your licence holders are idiots and not careful enough. I believe we're pretty good in this country on that point?
2) Yeah, it's a sport. Snooker is a sport and so is darts. And it requires skill so i think we're ok here
3) Most of them animals released should be considered a crop to be harvested from the land like any other. The fact it involves people shooting and generating income for the farmers that way as well is just a side consideration. What's more relevant is the poor takeup of game dealers of shot game - that is a good point
4) See point 1
5) We don't put a lot of plastic in the environment (and cf. point 1 we certainly shouldn't be). Nearly everyone is fibre / bio wad and re: point 1) if people are dropping empties. Lead - meh, arguments both ways, but it's heading in the direction of non-tox
6) A lot of people are employed in it and a lot of money is spent - it goes somewhere especially in smaller rural communities. I'm not an economist, but the cheque i write for a syndicate place each year is spent locally for a great part.
7) Tradition is something, but not the be-all. Certainly not a reason to do something terrible, but opinions on this are very mixed.

It's a discussion to be had, but i think current regs / rules and approaches if properly adhered to and enforced address a lot of the concerns. Some people will always object - and that is their right

 

[Fair Hill]

My reaction is..

1. I would estimate the amount of deaths or injury's as a result of hunting here in Ireland to be miniscule, or course any death or injury is a concern to all but we don't live in a perfectly safe world.

2. Hunting is a sport.

3. The whole purpose of hunting is to pursue animals, usually wild animals that are edible or vermin, how would the enviornment cope with an extra 30 million animals a year every year?

4. Not a real world issue for hunters.

5. We'd all like to see less pollution but hunters aren't responsible for a whole lot.

6. All sports cost money.

7. Just because it is an old sport doesn't mean it's a bad sport.

 

[andyk]

Hmm, interesting and thanks for posting. Let’s hope this thread can stay inquisitive and not descend into the usual arguments we have on here.

First thoughts, following the same numbers, are:

1. True but that can be said for many things. In some ways a parallel can be drawn with recent lockdowns. If you want to keep people as safe as possible from harm, it is best they stay at home and only leave for essential reasons. However, society broadly accepts that people will do things that are not risk free (to themselves and/or others) and that the happening of such risks are the price we pay for living in a “free” society.

2. It isn’t an athletic sport but that isn’t to say it isn’t some form of sport. Marksmanship is as much as a sport as darts. I’d say shooting is rather analogous to golf in that sense, there is a skill to putting the ball in the correct place/hitting the target and there is usually some physical exertion involved in getting to and from the shot.

3. True, but the same can be said of farming or any other human activity reliant on animals. I accept the authors of that submission are likely vegan and opposed to all animal exploitation, which is fair, but I do have a problem with different standards, i.e. raising and killing a pheasant isn’t ok but doing the same to a chicken (usually in a far more mechanical fashion) is.

4. True, but I would expect accidental is quite rare. In any event, animals are killed accidentally in other areas and that is usually not a reason for bans, e.g. hit by cars, mashed by wind turbines.

5. That is something that is being addressed in most countries as we speak. If it is a problem, the solution is regulation of ammunition, not a full ban. Their argument is akin to banning electric cars because others use leaded petrol.

6. I’d agree that economic arguments are hard to quantify but that does not mean they are weak. Many people will obtain employment from the keepers, through to dog breeders and gun shop owners. It would be unwise to assume that if their jobs were got rid of overnight they would all find gainful employment elsewhere. This seems to be the crux of the anti argument on economics, they’d simply get jobs doing something else. One only has to look at what happened with the decline of heavy industries (admittedly a much larger industry) to see that economies do not necessarily create new jobs where others once were.

7. Again there is some truth to this but denying large portions of the population their traditions and by extension their identities, is not something to be done lightly. I’d repeat my comments about industrial decline and the effect the lack of identity that caused has had on many communities. Also, and at the risk of opening a can of worms, would note how it is usually considered a bad thing to deprive people of their identity and traditions when they come from other cultures to the West. With that in mind, it is somewhat irksome that antis are so dismissive of such things when they relate to our own traditions and identities.

 

[Pine Marten]

7. Again there is some truth to this but denying large portions of the population their traditions and by extension their identities, is not something to be done lightly. I’d repeat my comments about industrial decline and the effect the lack of identity that caused has had on many communities. Also, and at the risk of opening a can of worms, would note how it is usually considered a bad thing to deprive people of their identity and traditions when they come from other cultures to the West. With that in mind, it is somewhat irksome that antis are so dismissive of such things when they relate to our own traditions and identities.

Hold on to that one for later, we're going to need it in the next bit, which is formulating to pro-hunting argument...

 

[Pine Marten]

One thing I learned from Brexit is that often public opinion and political policies are based more on emotion than rational argument and scientific facts.

If we've all learned that, then that's an improvement.

 

[Pedro]

A conglomeration of facts, assumptions and opinions morphed into points that add up to an obviously slanted view of hunting. None of the positive points are made mention of. So, really a pretty unbalanced view of things.

You are right that there are negative issues associated with "hunting" in it's wider context that the hunting communities would do well to address. But whilst such people as this continue to solely emphasis any negatives at the expense of anything else, it's easy for people to see that they are biased and will give it the attention it deserves. It will be applauded by the converted and viewed as skewed by neutrals.

 

[Apthorpe]

(Context: this anti-hunting opinion piece was published in the respected French daily Le Monde yesterday as part of a series of reports on hunting, one topic being explored in the run up to the presidential election in the Spring. It is openly presented as a partisan appeal, and hunting organisations were also invited to contribute but didn’t. In particular one environmental organisation, broadly opposed to hunting, provided a full dossier of coherent and credible statistics which were published in a separate article. As far as I can tell, hunting organisations didn’t.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At first my reaction was not to read all of this, but then I thought better of it and made a conscious effort to stand back and try and judge the arguments made for the abolition of hunting in France on its merits and see what I could learn. The article has the merit of being clear: the authors are the founders of a small party called Ecological Revolution for the Living, which is clearly antispeciesist. As such they have no need to pay any lip service to a balanced position, so it actually makes for a very clear set of arguments. It’s worth summarising them and thinking about their merits. Obviously they’re specific to the French situation but not any less fundamentally applicable elsewhere.

1. People get shot, killed and injured. Mostly hunters but also non-hunters. This is partly because of competing uses of the same land. Safety is now much improved, but any accidents are unacceptable. Hard to disagree with that, frankly.

Except to the extent that society accepts far higher rates of accident in other pursuits. Arguments based on accidents are valid, but only when they are within the context of society's tolerance for risk in other areas. Are more people killed in France skiing? Driving? Swimming? We can ban shooting on the basis of deaths and injuries at exactly the same time that it is decided to ban everything else with equal or greater risk. So it actually turned out to be very easy to disagree with that, given three seconds thought.

1. Hunting isn’t a sport. The act of shooting has no quantifiable physical benefit, and you can’t compare shooting at live animals to football or jogging.

That is not an argument for or against the legitimacy of anything. In fact, hunting is a sport. Football is a game. Sports are field sports plus boxing etc - an active pursuit with the likelihood of blood being shed. What are commonly referred to as "sports" are "games".

1. The main non-human victims are 30 million animals a year, of which two-thirds are bred and released for the purpose. I’m not sure the numbers are right, but the practice is certainly very relevant in the UK.

This argument is effective when animals are not used for food or any other purpose. In a vegan world, that is valid. However 30 million animals is no more than 3% of the animals killed per year. Attack the 97% first and then come back. If one does not attack the greatest harm first, then one cannot claim the argument is one based on welfare or ethics.

1. Accidental or deliberate killing of non-target species, in particular they cite the case of a golden eagle being shot. Rings some bells, I think….

This, again, is the consequence of operating from a flawed premise - that human behaviour and regulation is capable of being perfect. Because something individually wrong has been done, the entirety must be damned, is a false argument seldom opposed. The same argument could be used to result in banning animal welfare activism. In neither case is it appropriate or sensible. Killing of non-target species like an eagle is already illegal, so what conceivable benefit can there be to making something illegal illegal? It is symptomatic of the brain-dead functioning of most of our liberal establishment over past decades - the conceit that a problem is solved merely by condemning it.

1. , is Pollution from lead and plastics in ammunition. No additional comment necessary I believe.

Like most of the arguments here, this needs to be put into context, and restrictions made in context. The amount of plastic waste from ammunition is insignificant (although I think should be eliminated altogether as far as possible) and is not persuasive as an argument for banning hunting, not least because we don't need to use plastic bits at all. The pollution from lead: This is highly contentious and the data set and science behind this is very low quality and insubstantial. It is not likely to be material outside wetlands where it is already banned, and apparently we'll all be pretending other projectiles are as effective soon enough anyway. Doesn't lead to conclusion that a hunting ban is necessary.

1. The economic arguments in favour are weak. Personally I think they always are, you can always argue against stats or turn them whichever way you like. In France, hunters have to indemnify farmers for damage caused to crops by big game if they don’t meet cull targets, which they pretty much never do and the whole system is a perverse basket case.

The economic arguments in favour of the majority of human endeavour are weak. So what? The money allocated to football/ conservation/the textile industry/ electronics etc is hardly efficiently allocated. Ultimately, this is another "hair-shirt, go back to living up trees" argument.

1. Finally, tradition is no argument at all in favour. Plenty of past traditions have been lost or abolished because people realised they were appalling or just undesirable.

All our concepts of acceptable and desirable human behaviour are traditions. The fact that a tradition exists now is, in itself, a strong argument in favour of it. Tradition, being the accumulation of multiple informed opinions developed over a long period of time, is a far more valid argument than the opinions of a small group of snotty morons suffering from the conceit that poor education + minimal intellect + sanctimony = correct opinions.
You'll probably dispute this, but consider that slavery is only considered an evil because of Anglo-Saxon cultural tradition. The recent Covid outbreak has shown that a "modern" perspective is that virtually all fundamental human rights are "undesirable". You really cannot accept that part of their argument.

1. I’m not suggesting arguing each of these points individually, but to be lucid on how this case is going to be debated can only be useful.

Hope this sparks some constructive discussions. I can see many flaws and gaps in this, as well as some valid points that must be addressed.

The same issue affects all of these spurious campaigns to ban hunting, shooting, fishing, private ownership of land, etc. etc. and that is that they are inherently opposed to the basic building blocks of civilisation (not just Western), and that nobody is willing to oppose these people on the basis that their activism is fundamentally wrong. The details of each campaign are hardly relevant, the key points are that a small but very vocal bunch of hard left-wing morons seeks to co-opt the idle consent of a mass of idiots opining on things that are none of their business or beyond their comprehension, in order to ban things that they don't comprehend as a form of warfare on society.

Yes, a few birds of prey get wrongly killed, yet at the same time vastly more birds of prey exist because of the same activity. The excessive focus on the individual and specific, in ignorance of the general is harmful - even to the animals concerned.

 

[Pine Marten]

A conglomeration of facts, assumptions and opinions morphed into points that add up to an obviously slanted view of hunting. None of the positive points are made mention of. So, really a pretty unbalanced view of things.

You are right that there are negative issues associated with "hunting" in it's wider context that the hunting communities would do well to address. But whilst such people as this continue to solely emphasis any negatives at the expense of anything else, it's easy for people to see that they are biased and will give it the attention it deserves. It will be applauded by the converted and viewed as skewed by neutrals.

As I said in my context bit, it is explicitly and openly a partisan anti-hunting piece. That's why it's useful to us.

 

[VSS]

A conglomeration of facts, assumptions and opinions morphed into points that add up to an obviously slanted view of hunting. None of the positive points are made mention of. So, really a pretty unbalanced view of things.

You are right that there are negative issues associated with "hunting" in it's wider context that the hunting communities would do well to address. But whilst such people as this continue to solely emphasis any negatives at the expense of anything else, it's easy for people to see that they are biased and will give it the attention it deserves. It will be applauded by the converted and viewed as skewed by neutrals.

It is no more unbalanced or biased than a similarly written pro-hunting piece would be. It just leans the other way, that's all.

 

[geoffw]

Except to the extent that society accepts far higher rates of accident in other pursuits. Arguments based on accidents are valid, but only when they are within the context of society's tolerance for risk in other areas. Are more people killed in France skiing? Driving? Swimming? We can ban shooting on the basis of deaths and injuries at exactly the same time that it is decided to ban everything else with equal or greater risk. So it actually turned out to be very easy to disagree with that, given three seconds thought.

That is not an argument for or against the legitimacy of anything. In fact, hunting is a sport. Football is a game. Sports are field sports plus boxing etc - an active pursuit with the likelihood of blood being shed. What are commonly referred to as "sports" are "games".

This argument is effective when animals are not used for food or any other purpose. In a vegan world, that is valid. However 30 million animals is no more than 3% of the animals killed per year. Attack the 97% first and then come back. If one does not attack the greatest harm first, then one cannot claim the argument is one based on welfare or ethics.

This, again, is the consequence of operating from a flawed premise - that human behaviour and regulation is capable of being perfect. Because something individually wrong has been done, the entirety must be damned, is a false argument seldom opposed. The same argument could be used to result in banning animal welfare activism. In neither case is it appropriate or sensible. Killing of non-target species like an eagle is already illegal, so what conceivable benefit can there be to making something illegal illegal? It is symptomatic of the brain-dead functioning of most of our liberal establishment over past decades - the conceit that a problem is solved merely by condemning it.

Like most of the arguments here, this needs to be put into context, and restrictions made in context. The amount of plastic waste from ammunition is insignificant (although I think should be eliminated altogether as far as possible) and is not persuasive as an argument for banning hunting, not least because we don't need to use plastic bits at all. The pollution from lead: This is highly contentious and the data set and science behind this is very low quality and insubstantial. It is not likely to be material outside wetlands where it is already banned, and apparently we'll all be pretending other projectiles are as effective soon enough anyway. Doesn't lead to conclusion that a hunting ban is necessary.

The economic arguments in favour of the majority of human endeavour are weak. So what? The money allocated to football/ conservation/the textile industry/ electronics etc is hardly efficiently allocated. Ultimately, this is another "hair-shirt, go back to living up trees" argument.

All our concepts of acceptable and desirable human behaviour are traditions. The fact that a tradition exists now is, in itself, a strong argument in favour of it. Tradition, being the accumulation of multiple informed opinions developed over a long period of time, is a far more valid argument than the opinions of a small group of snotty morons suffering from the conceit that poor education + minimal intellect + sanctimony = correct opinions.
You'll probably dispute this, but consider that slavery is only considered an evil because of Anglo-Saxon cultural tradition. The recent Covid outbreak has shown that a "modern" perspective is that virtually all fundamental human rights are "undesirable". You really cannot accept that part of their argument.

The same issue affects all of these spurious campaigns to ban hunting, shooting, fishing, private ownership of land, etc. etc. and that is that they are inherently opposed to the basic building blocks of civilisation (not just Western), and that nobody is willing to oppose these people on the basis that their activism is fundamentally wrong. The details of each campaign are hardly relevant, the key points are that a small but very vocal bunch of hard left-wing morons seeks to co-opt the idle consent of a mass of idiots opining on things that are none of their business or beyond their comprehension, in order to ban things that they don't comprehend as a form of warfare on society.

Yes, a few birds of prey get wrongly killed, yet at the same time vastly more birds of prey exist because of the same activity. The excessive focus on the individual and specific, in ignorance of the general is harmful - even to the animals concerned.

Well said @Apthorpe

 

[John Gryphon]

Hunting isn’t a sport.?
i reckon if thats the case then synchronised swimming isnt either,but you get a gold Oly medal if you win so it must be.

 

[TomDeer]

To my mind @Pine Marten points 2 and 3 in your list are the most challenging and possibly also the most connected.

To most of the general public, a sport is probably not perceived as having as its purpose the application of deadly force to an unwilling 'competitor'. Yes, getting to the point of applying that deadly force may involve serious expenditure of effort on the person pulling the trigger and may also require skill and expertise. It is is also the case that the intended target may make good its escape unharmed, despite out best endeavours. It is however possibly the (literal) inequality of arms and outcome between pursuer and the pursued that may make the general public not consider shooting to be a sport. And no, that is not me suggesting that our various target species should be armed! To describe shooting at animals as sport might possibly be perceived by much of the general public as a bit to "Squadron Commander Lord Flashheart".

The number of birds released annually is also an issue from the perspective of public perception. Whilst most members of the general public who are neutral may accept a carnivore may like to go out and shoot the food they eat, they are likely to become markedly less neutral if they learn about birds going to landfill or guns not taking a brace or the surplus not making it into the food chain. The "Cracking day. What sport. I shot 20 birds, didnt take any home to eat and don't have a clue what happened with the birds" approach is likely to be considered by many members of the general public as very much in the "Squadron Commander Lord Flashheart" mould.

At the end of the day, it isn't the antis that one has to engage and convince. It is everyone else - they are our bulwark against the efforts of the antis.

 

[VSS]

At the end of the day, it isn't the antis that one has to engage and convince. It is everyone else - they are our bulwark against the efforts of the antis.