Do you really think that this is just a surplus stag no longer required on a venison farm?! I'll bet good money that it isn't! It has been bred behind wire for the specific purpose of being shot by a visiting [sportsman is not the term]. That is why it can be equated with the canned lions in SA.
No argument with the idea that someone has to make a living, but we are each responsible for the morality and ethics of what we do to make that living.
That's the point I'm trying to make though, with regards to rearing animals for profit. I don't know the first thing about canned hunting in Africa, but it sounds like very false replication of true dangerous game hunting. But deer when raised, whether passed their best or not are done so for venison. This stag produces venison and a head as well worth tens of thousands of dollars. The hinds in parks are culled and harvested, just like this stag will be. It's almost of no consequence whether its past its best or not, as hinds are also culled at their prime to give the best return on their yield.
We set up deer on a pedestal and hold them in some kind of reverence, which I feel is where a lot of the emotion in this thread arises from. They are no more a game animal than a rabbit or pheasant. They are a source of food. They also happen to be a quarry species for true hunting, so in effect fulfil two roles.
I find it more immoral to raise an animal like this and then release it to the wild in the hope someone gets a shot at it on the pretext they are hunting a wild trophy beast, than actually being honest and up front and saying what it is, and that's an animal in a pen needing culled for big money.
As I said, it's not hunting, it's not for me and in fact find it a bit sad that the person driven to pay this money has no inherent grasp on what a true wild hunt is probably. They will never experience all that proper deer stalking has to offer because if their mindset. But I honestly think we get too emotive about this sort of thing as its about as far removed from what I do with deer as can be.
I keep harping on about put and take trout fisheries. They are just as bad if being judged morally, yet its
only a trout so it doesn't count?
Hugh Falkus wrote in one of his books that for him fishing can only be justified when we kill everything we catch as its food for the table. To play a fish on a line and then return it we are doing so for our own cheap thrill and gratification at the animals expense. Hence if he caught a couple of salmon and killed them he would stop fishing, no matter how good the prospects were.
If there is a risk all Fieldsports will ultimately suffer because of such practices, then we need to look deeper. Too easy to just single out one example of what may be bad practice.
I'm not in favour of or against this, just looking at it as part of the bigger picture.
