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Originally Posted by JimW
On hunting. Personally, I don't hunt, but it's not because I feel bad when an animal gets killed. I just flat don't like to hunt. What I have to say might rile some of you, but I have my reasons. First off, if you take guns away from hunters you'll see alot more inhumane treatment of animals if that really bothers you. Try clubing a deer to death and see how pretty it is. I've had people tell me about running them down in thier trucks and beating them to death with bricks and other things. Take guns away and there's a good chance more of that will happen. I don't condone that kind of treatment of living things, I'm just explaining my point. In my part of the country, without hunters the wildlife population would get so far out of hand that a man couldn't raise a crop. As a matter of fact I've had plenty of problems with it myself. In the past 10 years, there have been several crops lost to the increase in wildlife amounting from 10,000 to 20,000 dollars a year. I don't think you would stand for that very long. Now, I don't rely fully on farming for a living anymore but I'm not going to allow the wildlife to take money out of my pocket either. The state gives me deer tags every fall to give away to hunters to try to get them under control, but they don't reimburse me the lost dollars, if they did, maybe my feelings toward the deer would change. It's gotten to the point seeing one pisses me off anymore. I could take it in my own hands and just start killing them just to watch them fall and at times the thought has occured to me, but the human side of me stops me from doing it. Put yourself in my shoes for a while and think it over.
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You raise another good point on the animal population control.
On Vancouver island the cougar population was left unchecked for a long time and deer were plentiful so the cougar population exploded. Now there are very few deer on the island and most of the ones that are left have moved into the city limits to try and get away from the cougars. The fish and wildlife branch realised the problem (although very late) and they increased the number of cougars allowed to be killed and extended the open seasons, while at the same time putting limits on the deer hunting."
The deer population on the island is starting to recover but it's a long road ahead.