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QUOTE, arealhuman:
I've never understood the U.S. fascination with going out into the wilds and murdering animals.
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Umm - guessing this refers to the whitetail buck?... What's that old saying, about glass houses & flinging stones?
A, he died over 30-years B4 this photo was 1st published, by a Utah game-warden, as a curiosity.
[Remember, he was hunted & killed in N.C.] So this didn't happen last fall, in the most-recent hunting season.
It happened a long, long time ago, in terms of deer-generations. We're talking at least 14 'greats' in front of 'grandad'.
B, i seem to recall an incredible number of wealthy Brits had enormous collections of dead animals, often mounted on walls, stuffed & under glass domes [mostly birds], or simply as antlers, skins turned into rugs, furs, & throws, carriage robes, etc.
There are still various stately homes in Britain decorated by big-game trophies collected around the world - tigers, antelope, zebra rugs, elephant-foot stools, polar-bear skins, antler chandeliers... Then there were the egg-collecting & butterfly-collecting manias that decimated entire species. No human that i know of, eats butterflies - they were just pinned on boards. Eggs went into boxes. :shrug:
The USA has no monopoly on wasteful taking of nonhuman lives, at all stages.
C, native wild game in the UK was 1st a royal privilege & landed-gentry privilege, & hunting was only permitted to landless commoners relatively recently. Fishing for salmon is still a pricey proposition, in the UK.
In strong contrast, hunting & fishing to feed one's family were never feudal privileges in the USA; historically, they've been open to anyone. Hunting & fishing licenses didn't even exist until approx WW-2, & to this day, any resident over-18 in most states can get a fishing-license or hunting-license; some species require a lottery [bison] or have an extremely-low annual quota, but to this day, any VA resident can legally catch 5 blue-claw crab on trotlines or in crab-traps per day.
Poor folks can usually afford some cotton twine & chicken-necks, which is all it takes to catch crabs from a creek bank or dock. Living on crab can get just as boring as any other forced diet, in poverty. I knew ppl in Norfolk who'd catch their legal limit of live crabs, & swap 'em to a restaurant for a mac-n'-cheese meal.
D, it was relatively recently that fox-hunting as a mounted sport was banned in Britain & the UK.
At least U can eat a deer - I haven't met anyone, yet, who made a meal of a fox.
E, as a kid & thru my 20s, I hunted & fished.
I only bitterly regret one animal that i shot, a bird overhead that i mistook for a squirrel against the the bright sky.
I ATE the animals that i killed; i didn't hang them on the wall.
.
& finally, long-before i became a fish-eating vegetarian, I met many meat-eaters who were absolutely horrified that i had slaughtered & dressed animals for eating. Hypocrisy hasn't ended; if U eat meat but "could NEVER kill an animal!", then U're trying to push what U see as bad karma onto some other person, who will slaughter the animals that U eat for U, & take on the guilt of their deaths.
If U eat meat, but could never kill an animal in order to eat her or him, U are a coward, IMO, & break Ur own supposed "moral code" on a daily basis. That, also IMO, is much-worse than killing a domestic animal reared for meat, or even killing a wild animal for meat, so long as it's done quickly & accurately.
I'm a vegetarian; i have leather leashes [veg-tanned], leather belts [bought in GoodWill & other 2nd-hand stores], & even furs [sheepskins]. I see no point whatsoever in throwing away the leather wrapper from a 1400# steer; rather, i think we should use every possible part of every animal we kill, fur, feathers, skin, horn, hoof, sinews, guts, ALL. As the old saying goes, we should use every part of every pig but the squeal.
Waste is criminal. Every oyster-shell, clam-shell, mussel-shell, & conch-shell should go back to the ocean, to rear more shellfish - not just to harvest for human appetites, but to keep the ocean healthy.
Off my soapbox, now.
- terry
.
I've never understood the U.S. fascination with going out into the wilds and murdering animals.
_______________________________________
.
Umm - guessing this refers to the whitetail buck?... What's that old saying, about glass houses & flinging stones?
A, he died over 30-years B4 this photo was 1st published, by a Utah game-warden, as a curiosity.
[Remember, he was hunted & killed in N.C.] So this didn't happen last fall, in the most-recent hunting season.
It happened a long, long time ago, in terms of deer-generations. We're talking at least 14 'greats' in front of 'grandad'.
B, i seem to recall an incredible number of wealthy Brits had enormous collections of dead animals, often mounted on walls, stuffed & under glass domes [mostly birds], or simply as antlers, skins turned into rugs, furs, & throws, carriage robes, etc.
There are still various stately homes in Britain decorated by big-game trophies collected around the world - tigers, antelope, zebra rugs, elephant-foot stools, polar-bear skins, antler chandeliers... Then there were the egg-collecting & butterfly-collecting manias that decimated entire species. No human that i know of, eats butterflies - they were just pinned on boards. Eggs went into boxes. :shrug:
The USA has no monopoly on wasteful taking of nonhuman lives, at all stages.
C, native wild game in the UK was 1st a royal privilege & landed-gentry privilege, & hunting was only permitted to landless commoners relatively recently. Fishing for salmon is still a pricey proposition, in the UK.
In strong contrast, hunting & fishing to feed one's family were never feudal privileges in the USA; historically, they've been open to anyone. Hunting & fishing licenses didn't even exist until approx WW-2, & to this day, any resident over-18 in most states can get a fishing-license or hunting-license; some species require a lottery [bison] or have an extremely-low annual quota, but to this day, any VA resident can legally catch 5 blue-claw crab on trotlines or in crab-traps per day.
Poor folks can usually afford some cotton twine & chicken-necks, which is all it takes to catch crabs from a creek bank or dock. Living on crab can get just as boring as any other forced diet, in poverty. I knew ppl in Norfolk who'd catch their legal limit of live crabs, & swap 'em to a restaurant for a mac-n'-cheese meal.
D, it was relatively recently that fox-hunting as a mounted sport was banned in Britain & the UK.
At least U can eat a deer - I haven't met anyone, yet, who made a meal of a fox.
E, as a kid & thru my 20s, I hunted & fished.
I only bitterly regret one animal that i shot, a bird overhead that i mistook for a squirrel against the the bright sky.
I ATE the animals that i killed; i didn't hang them on the wall.
.
& finally, long-before i became a fish-eating vegetarian, I met many meat-eaters who were absolutely horrified that i had slaughtered & dressed animals for eating. Hypocrisy hasn't ended; if U eat meat but "could NEVER kill an animal!", then U're trying to push what U see as bad karma onto some other person, who will slaughter the animals that U eat for U, & take on the guilt of their deaths.
If U eat meat, but could never kill an animal in order to eat her or him, U are a coward, IMO, & break Ur own supposed "moral code" on a daily basis. That, also IMO, is much-worse than killing a domestic animal reared for meat, or even killing a wild animal for meat, so long as it's done quickly & accurately.
I'm a vegetarian; i have leather leashes [veg-tanned], leather belts [bought in GoodWill & other 2nd-hand stores], & even furs [sheepskins]. I see no point whatsoever in throwing away the leather wrapper from a 1400# steer; rather, i think we should use every possible part of every animal we kill, fur, feathers, skin, horn, hoof, sinews, guts, ALL. As the old saying goes, we should use every part of every pig but the squeal.
Waste is criminal. Every oyster-shell, clam-shell, mussel-shell, & conch-shell should go back to the ocean, to rear more shellfish - not just to harvest for human appetites, but to keep the ocean healthy.
Off my soapbox, now.
- terry
.