Does anyone else think it should be a crime to shoot animals for sport?

Question

I think it is wrong if you're not planning on eating the animal. Just using it for target practice should be a crime. Anyone agree?

Answer 1

I think it would be more sporting if the hunter had to hunt down and kill the animal with their bare hands. Make it more equal. LOL Let me see a hunter fight a bear, or catch a deer without a gun. I hate it when an animal is hunted just for the kill or for a trophy head on the wall. Hunters these days could learn from the native American Indians, they wasted nothing and had ceremonies thanking the animals for giving their lives.
EDIT: Thumbs down? LOL I see the "sportspeople" don't like my idea, don't want to have to work to get their kill. Much easier to blast an unsuspecting animal from a distance I guess.

Answer 2

I am a fisherman, hunter and animal lover. Definitly a confused person.

Hunting and shooting just for target practice is cruelty and should be a crime. If you are not going to eat what you kill do not pull the trigger, use a camera instead.

There are exceptions to any situation, Coyotes and gophers are poen season to me. I have had to put down cattle due to broken legs because of cattle stepping in the hole left by a gopher. I have also had to put down cattle because of coyotes attacking a cow while she was giving birth to a calf, she was weak and had a hole around here anus large enough to put a bowling ball into.

Answer 3

Well considering you can usually kill so many of one kind of animal (deer, pheasant, etc) during the season, and most of the hunters I know that just hunt for sport usually gives the kill to someone else. But hunting for sport no. It help keeps the population down. We have a major problem with deer being over populated here. They end up tearing up the fields (which feed a mass majority of the US and many other countries), they also cause a lot of car wreaks and tons of property damage.

Now if they are using say domestic cats or dogs (someone's pet), yes. If they go out and just shoot to injure not kill,yes. That is wrong.

Answer 4

Whoa, ladies. Its not target practice! And its not always just sport. How about the bears running people off property near Yellowstone? With the kind of money people pay to hunt, whole cities make a huge profit from it. The basic idea may be something to agree with, the real causes and effects may not be.

Answer 5

There are other good resons to shoot animals besides to eat them. If coyotes populations are not controlled by hunters, coyotes will overpopulate areas and kill off several other kinds of animals including rabbits, deer, turkeys, and even armadillos.
If ground hogs are not controlled they also overpopulate and do a lot of damage to the fields where they live, resulting in broken legs for deer, cows, horses, and even people. My sister broke her leg when she stepped where groundhogs had dug a tunnel close to the surface of the ground. She couldn't see the tunnel, and the ground collapsed and because of the way the tunnel was shaped it broke both of the bones in the bottom part of her leg.
As hard as it may be to accept, hunters who shoot some animals they don't eat are often saving more animals than they kill.

Answer 6

I would love to shoot prairie dogs. I would never eat one. The reason I would do it is for pure fun. The fact that it keeps down diseases and helps with the environment are at best rationalizations. Regardless of my intention it makes the world a better place. Why don't you just leave people alone. We should not pass laws based on your or even the majority's whims. Freedom is going to make you uncomfortable but it is still better than the alternatives.

You know I've noticed many people here have said this is o.k. and this is not. What gives you the right to decide what is right for other people.

Answer 7

Though it is not and crime and maybe should be. It is more of a morality question. If you pick up a weapon and decide to take the life of another living creature there must be a good reason. If you kill just to kill, you have some serious issues. Seek counseling.

Answer 8

Some people grew up hunting and love the hunt. but many just like to kill for prestige. those kind stink. but regardless the harvest of animals is a must to control population...legally. and those who dont eat the animals often do give the harvest away to those wanting it or to needy. so all in all i have nothing against killing the animals for the love of the hunt if they use it properly afterwards.

Answer 9

Sorry for disagreeing with you Barb, but man has killed for sport since before we as a speices even climbed down from the branches. Nature is full of animals that kill....for food, for territory, for dominance and yes, even for the thrill of it.

Look no furthur than you neighborhood pet cat. Chances are, he kills for the sport of it often.

I am a big proponent of Conservation and protecting our wild lands and plants and animals. Most 'outdoors' people are. Teddy Roosevelt and his generation of big game safari hunters are the very people that created our national parks and forests and brought the protection of endangered species to the consciouness of the world.

I believe that we should expend every effort possible to protect our planet and all it's inhabitants....that we have a sacred duty to provide for and be "good stewards" of the land and animals.

As much as I work to protect our valuable natural places and animals, I still feel, as man has felt throughout the ages, that animals are just that....animals.

There exist in our modern culture a dangerous new and, dare I say, a "Perverted" view of animals and of nature.

It is perverted in the sense that some people seem to view animals, particularly furry woodland species so often seen in animated cartoons, as being sapient beings like man...that they have a consciouness and a 'soul' if you will.

Technically, this is called "Anthropomorhism" and I honestly feel that it has become a modern mental disorder of sorts....that many people are conditioned by literature and by media (yes, particualry by the pervasive Disney Company!) to view cute furry animals as JUST LIKE PEOPLE and that men who go out and kill these animals and even people who eat their flesh are somehow evil and even MURDERERS.

As an American of mixed heritage who proudly has some Native American blood and married to an Apache woman, we are often disturbed by modern Americans view of the Native peoples. There is a grossly misguided view of pre-Columbian peoples as being peaceful, mystical, spiritual people who lived in peace and harmony with nature----- NOTHING could be farthur from the truth.

Native tribal peoples were always in violent conflict....with each other and with nature. Killing for "sport" was a rite of passage to manhood as was war and trust me, if the Native Americans had access to Winchester rifles, they would have wiped the wolf out of existance a thousand years ago. Oh, they respected the wolf all right, but that respect was out of fear of a deadly and dangerous predator and killer, one that humans as a species are better off not having around where we live.

I'd like to suggest that before you shed one more tear on the animal world that you look around you own community and see the suffering of humans....and then spend your energies doing something to fix that problem.

Answer 10

As an avid Texas Hunter I would have to say that it could be slightly excusable for a kid-Don't really know any better.

Justifiable for eliminating Varmints and Predators.

But, the sicko sport of shooting Groundhogs just for the "Red Mist" aspect is just that-Sick!

I also despise Hunters who are all out for bagging a Ranch Raised "Pet" for a Trophy to hang on a wall!

Venison is 30% leaner than Chicken, and can be safely eaten Raw!-It really is "Human" food! Try eating Beef, Pork or Chicken raw and I'll just meet you in the afterlife! LOL!

BTW-I do not even know of a Soup recipe for the dumb Horns!

Answer 11

There is some animals like coyotes or stray dogs that are no good to eat but a nusience that you have to get ride of to keep the other animals that you hunt. And other animals like a 300lbs. hog anit no good to eat at all, but you have to kill it because it will root up the rie grass field that dairy farms need to feed their cows.