Reply #91: Again [View All]

[hyphenate]

the obfuscation of the discussion--there is a great deal different from eating farm-raised meat and killing an endangered animal in the wild.

And again, there is a vast difference between hunting a game animal in season simply because man"kind" has either destroyed its habitat or eliminated the predators to the extent that there is an overpopulation, and killing an animal which is on the verge of extinction.

And again, there is the difference between the hunter having a weapon that requires skill and either hunting with a high-powered rifle or treeing an animal and shooting it at point-blank range.

Those who obey the rules of the game, who allow the animal an equal chance to survive, or those who cull for sustenance and without a sick "pleasure" of killing just for the "fun" of it, are welcomed into the wild. And any hunter who defends these sort of tactics is just as barbaric as those who actually do it. And those who can't see the difference are obviously in the latter category and should be shown to the world as the apathetic, dispassionate animals they really are.

I spoke with a lot of hunters when I was working on Proposition 4 in California. Many of them that I had conversations with condemned the use of leghold traps. They felt that trappers were little more than scavengers in many ways. So yes, there are principled hunters out there, and I have no problems with them.