What are your thoughts on hunting?

Question

I think it's a waste of time as we can shop for meat, but some people see it as a recreational activity. I need to know for a project some of the pros and cons of hunting. I'm against it, but what about the rest of you?

I do not hunt. At the same time, I don't have anything against the people that DO. I don't go around saying, "You shouldn't hunt."

I am 16, a Sophomore in High School. I'll be 17 in September and a Junior. I am NOT a little girl. I AM an adolescent, so please don't call me "little" or think of me that way.

I am aware that internet time is a waste of time, but please stick to the question at hand.

I am aware of the living conditions at farms. I know how they are brutally slaughtered. In 8th grade I touched base on that in my animal abuse project.

Some of you said how the way we hunt is more humane than the way wild predators hunt. That is true, but wild predators don't have access to grocery stores, they must hunt to survive.

Please don't chew me out for my opinion. I am against hunting, and please respect that.

Answer 1

Pros and Cons are based on personal opinion. If your for hunting (which I am) then providing meat for the family, food with no chemicals or by products yadda yadda. If your against it like you are then the Con is that I'm wasting my time and could have spent 30 minutes at the grocery store bought something vitamin enriched, this and that You can find arguments for either side and it will get you no were because the scale is biased on both sides. If you want real information look up your local department of game and inland fisheries and look at the statistics of positive game management (hunting) actually improving the population of a particular animal and increasing that animals health by reducing the amount of game feeding on one food source.A con look up (the dgif might have this or you can call them they can tell you) hunting related deaths, it happens to deny it is just ignorant. It does, and it saddens me but I still love to hunt. I respect the fact that you are against hunting it's your choice and from what I've read above your not trying to force your opinion on anyone. Can I just say that it doesn't matter where you get your meat an OPEN mind is healthiest thing you can have. remember the facts in your project and don't manipulate what you learn to get a point accross. You wanted the pros and cons so get them but let others make up their own mind about the information.

Answer 2

I think hunting is great. It gets people outdoors, and it reduces the risk of animal over-population (if the laws are followed).

We cannot go to the store and buy Elk meat or venison. Most of the meat from hunting cannot be purchased in a regular grocery store. Meat from wild game tastes so much better than beef. It's also a lot more fun to know that you killed what you are eating. It's like sleeping under a quilt that you made.

I have many other reasons why I am for hunting. I grew up in a family of hunters and my husbands family is all hunters...No, I'm not a hick or a redneck. I live in a city and I have very nice things. I don't have antlers hanging on my walls and I don't wear flannel. I'm a normal city girl, who happens to know how to shoot a rifle.

Answer 3

Yes I hunt and I do so for a large number of reasons.

I eat only organic meat. How much more organic can you get than a free roaming deer or elk, no hormones, no steroids, no pens no meat factory. All the press about "free range" animals. Yep, they are definitely free range.

I enjoy the meat and you cannot buy it in the store.

Animal control. I don't hunt for this reason, but it is one that is valid. In my town in the Virginia mountains, the police are paid to go out with silenced high powered rifles and shoot deer with night vision scopes to control the deer population. Shoot, we hunters would PAY to be able to hunt these restricted areas saving tax money and even increasing the state's coffers. ALSO, much of the money derived through the sale of hunting licenses is earmarked for environmental preservation and public land management.

Humane. Well I can't see hunting as any less humane than getting your food from the store. Mass produced meats are derived when an animal was kept in a pen, then herded into a chute where they are shot in the head and then butchered.

It's not about proving my manhood. I don't need that.

I love being out doors. Now that my son is getting older, it gives us time to spend together.

And yes, in the end I do hunt for sport. Yes, my family and I eat what I kill. But I would save a lot of time and money if I just went to the store and bought a steak.

Answer 4

There are many pros of hunting but the biggest one is population control. Do you own a home or a car? I assume one of the later is true. How many dead deer do you see on the highway while you are driving? I live in Missouri and I see atleast 2 or 3 dead deer on my way to work daily. After population control we have landscaping control. If you live in an area deer are present you know what I am talking about. Household plants and small trees are no match for deer. Hunting is a useful way of controlling the deer population and using the harvest for the good of your family at the same time. It is also an activity that lets husbands get some much needed quiet time from nagging wives or signifigant others. Ethics are a large part of hunting and there are ethical and unethical hunters(poachers). Ethical hunters take calculated shots and make clean kills so the animals dont have to suffer or even worse live and be mutilated . Unethical hunters are reckless and gun happy guys that just like to kill things and have no regard for nature. You'll find that most ethical hunters are the backbone of the movement to preserve the outdoors and mother nature for our future generations to enjoy.

Answer 5

First "T.Long" is plain wrong to site "many people get hurt by careless hunters." While every injury/death is tragic, more people get hurt and die on GOLF COURSES than in the course of a hunting season.

While hunting may be a "waste of time" in your opinion, why should you care if a hunter/conservationist chooses to spend time in the woods, not bothering anyone except perhaps the tasty animal they are pursuing? Surely the hunter doesn't care about you or me wasting our "valuable" time playing on the internet or mindlessly watching another episode of Grey's Anatomy...

If you eat meat from a store, why would you "be against hunting?" As indicated by some of the other respondents, cows, pigs and chickens raised to die on a commercial farm lead a miserable life only to end it on your table. A hunter's quarry leads a far more "natural" life until the moment the hunter pulls the trigger or releases his/her arrow.

And please don't argue that hunting is "cruel." Watch any Nat'l Geographic/Animal Planet/Discovery Channel wildlife documentary showing how a pack of wolves or pride of lions will bring down an elk or cape buffalo and eat it's entrails while the animal is still alive and fighting for its life. When a hunter takes an animal the death is usually in a matter of seconds. Let alone the horrific death brought about by disease, overpopulation-induced starvation or loss of habitat.

Eat what you kill and respect the animal you kill.

Answer 6

Hunting is more than a sport, it is a way of life for most people who hunt. I love it and I will never stop hunting. Some pros of it is that it keeps animal population down where it should be. The only bad thing is that a lot of people in the U.S get hurt or killed every year because of the lousy decisions some hunters make.

Answer 7

I am a hunter and have been for as long as I can remember. The populations of animals were fine until humans started messing with them and taking all the land that they used for food and shelter. The populations of animals can no longer control themselves and hunting is necessary to keep a strong population around. Hunting needs to be controlled and that is why only a certain number of permits are given out every year. Whenever my family hunts all the meat is used and so is the hide.

Answer 8

I'm a little troubled by the underlying assumption of some that believe that we human beings have somehow progressed to a state where hunting is obselete. Most people in America live in places where they are removed from death and the real pangs of nature. Every winter, wildlife populations dwindle because of the lack of food and the increased severity of life. Hunting actually helps to lower the natural winter mortality and allows the animals to be used wisely whether for their meat, fur, etc. Mother Nature is not a nice soft comfortable place to live. As human beings, it appears that we have a responsibility to wisely manage the wildlife resources that we have.

Answer 9

Here are the pros to hunting: Hunting keeps animal population under control...if we did not have hunting the population would spiral out of control on things like deer and geese... this also control disease in animals b/c if there werent hunting then the population would spiral and then disease would spread! Hunting also teaches a person patients..you have to be very patient and quiet to kill. Hunting is good for those of us that like to have meat that is not processed on a farm and not pumped full of stuff they dont need, but rather the animal grows naturally so it taste better! Hunting also teaches a person about gun safty seeing as though most states if not all require hunter safty courses.
Hunting also allows for hunters to help w/ conservation, personally my husband and i support duck unlimited b/c my husband is a duck hunter he wants the wetland to be preserved and not turned into housing divisions...Hunting brings a person closer to nature and it teaches one to respect that nature. You learn that animals need a home on this earth and need to protect them...that being said all the hunters i know respect the laws of hunting such as only hunting when the season is open and hunting on land you have permission to hunt and and only killing the correct limit of the animal you are hunting.

Answer 10

a good tenderloin from a deer is nothing like buying ground beef at the supermarket. there's nothing like fried wild turkey meat. hunting is fun for the interested and is somewhat a sport to some also. pro---- if the wild animals weren't killed and hunted, there would be way to many animals and then there would be disease among them. i don't know why you're against it. it's no different than all the beef cattle that die so we can have steak.