Wednesday October 14, 2009, 7:47 pm
Sport is played between consenting participants, not this cruel, one-sided affair.

Thursday October 15, 2009, 1:40 am
As Nora quite rightly says sport is played between consenting participants so I had better refrain from mentioning the only bloodsport I would support and that is Rugby football. Some of these so called sportsmen would not last five minutes in a Rugby game! The concept of pitting one wits against a worthy opponent is one that strangely invaded many of the theatres of WW2 when the opposing commanders in a particular battle had the utmost respect for their opponent and this of course was war to the death and destruction of ones opponent with an equality of armament! What then is sporting about creeping up on an unsuspecting animal and surprising it with a bullet or arrow? Clearly such sport would stop overnight if the opponent animal was armed with a rifle etc. The "sport" is for cowards and lowlifes who get their kicks from abusing the weak, innocent and bloodletting. There activities by comparison make the UK's foxhunters appear respectable human beings! One wonders what these people do in their out of animal killing times season, beat their wives, commit rape or perhaps molest children to maintain their desire for perverse and deviant pleasure!

Thursday October 15, 2009, 1:17 pm
I live in an area of the country where hunting is not only accepted, but championed. There are lifeless deer-heads on both of my bosses' walls, and it sickens me to look at them and think of their senseless deaths. It is the culture here, passed from generation to generation. Workers are allowed to take days at a time off of work during hunting season.
The other day an employee and his young son (9 years old) came in to show off their kill after a day of hunting. The boy's hands were covered in dried blood, and he showed them proudly to everyone, bragging of his first kill, a doe. The father's pants were covered in blood. I was horrified. It seemed so surreal that no one else found this as offensive as I did.
Whenever I try and argue the senselessness of hunting, the argument always comes up that deer are overpopulated. I argue back the very things noted in this article, WE are overpopulating on THEIR territory. Unfortunately in parts of the country like where I live, it is hard to get through to generations of people who are taught to think a certain way, especially when they are not exposed (correctly) to other ways of thinking.

Thursday October 15, 2009, 2:44 pm
The whole point of this group that put the story up is to turn everyone into a vegan. Now i'm no hunter and I don't care for it personally but my neighbors are hunters and they are not perverts or deviants.They hunt,they take the meat and they cut it into various cuts and steaks and share with neighbors and put it in the freezer.They are not wife beaters,rapist or child molesters. The whole problem here,after reading over the website ,is not that people are hunting its that people eat meat in general. This is another place about like PETA,that can't stay out of everyone elses plate and thinks that harrassing people who eat meat is going to make them stop.I dont care what people eat,but stay out of my plate.

Thursday October 15, 2009, 10:12 pm
Definitely not my definition of SPORT. Just out & out KILLING for self GRATIFICATION & KUDOS

Friday October 16, 2009, 5:17 am
i don't think it is anyone's goal here to turn everyone vegan. that is an unrealistic goal. i think the purpose here is to make people aware of where their food comes from, instead of just unconsciously doing what they always do without thinkning about it. awareness leads us to make more informed choices, perhaps better choices, whether that be going vegan, vegetarian, or purchasing the meat you do eat from farms that practice responsible animal treatment.

Friday October 16, 2009, 6:46 am
hunting fulfills a sick need for sick people. not sport not games not fun not male bonding no excuses not animal population control. just good old plain and simple sick

Friday October 16, 2009, 8:08 am
Wendy: For me, hunting is very much a part of making more responsible choices. I hunt for meat that is free of hormones and antibiotics, and that comes from animals that lived free and natural lives. If you eat meat, you have three choices: factory-farmed meat (bad - bad for the animals, bad for the environment, bad for the meat eater), properly farmed meat (sustainable/pastured/free-range - better lives for animals, better meat for humans) or wild game (free an natural up until the moment of its death - which could be inflicted by any number of predators, including me).

There are very few meat eaters who are as aware as hunters are of the implications of having meat in your diet. Pulling the trigger yourself takes a lot more guts (and thought and effort) than delegating the dirty work to some third party. So does field dressing a still-warm animal. We are pretty tuned into the hard reality of the natural cycle of life and death.

For the vegetarians and vegans here, I don't expect any of this to resonate with you. But if you're a meat eater who's bashing hunting, please take a minute to understand that the motivation for many of us hunters may be very different than you believe it to be. And you can't tell what each of us thinks just by looking at us - we all look pretty much the same in camo.

Friday October 16, 2009, 8:38 am
Holly, I appreciate your thoughtful post! However, I have had numerous discussions with local hunters about this and other subjects, and I can assure you that they are not concerned about hormones in their meat or whether or not their main course was free-range. They are simply in it for the sport, and justify it by eating the results. This is the hunter's mindset that I am vehemently against, which is how the majority of them feel in my opinion. If this was their only form of meat consumption, they would be eating alot less meat, which is in my opinion the way it should be.
The hunters I have spoken with have not put as much thought as you have into what they are doing. It's just a game for them, which is proven by the heads of their kills that hang on their walls. I don't see anyone making trophies out of that huge broccoli they grew last year or the hanging pictures of the amount of carrots they harvested in summer.

Friday October 16, 2009, 8:44 am
Hunting you guys is not hunting...Now you wanna talk about real hunting if the true hunters were still alive today they could tell you...You dont sit in trees or blinds make fake calls from a whistle or even bait. A true hunter actually stalks it victim...so any hunter that calls himself a hunter is just a liar..They need to go back to the Native American way to know a true hunter....

Big gorilly Hugs

Friday October 16, 2009, 9:16 am
Wendy, I absolutely love the idea of a broccoli trophy. That's hilarious!

I honestly don't know how our motives break down, how many of us care deeply about the meat. I associate with a pretty thoughtful crowd of hunters, so I'm surrounded by a lot of people who think like I do. But even with us, our meat motivations and "sport" - a word I hate in this context - aren't mutually exclusive. I love the hunt because it is a deeply instinctive act for me. If I didn't love hunting, I'd raise animals in my backyard like my parents did and get high-quality meat that way. And we have some "trophies" in our house - we love skulls, and once you've killed the animal, there's no sense throwing away the head.

And Gorilly, "true" hunting involves a wide variety of methods. Native Americans used to hunt ducks by hollowing out pumpkins, putting them over their heads and getting in the water to pose as a floating pumpkin until they could literally grab a duck with their hands and kill it. Humans have a long history of hunting by driving herds of animals off cliffs. And building a blind is about the most natural thing a hunter can do - use natural materials to create a place to hide. This is pretty tried-and-true.

Yes, hunting has more high-tech help now. But that's a counterbalance to the incredible restrictions that are placed on hunting - dates, times, methods, etc. - which is how modern humans regulate hunting to ensure that game species are not wiped out. (If you think hunting is easy, check out this chart of fall hunting regulations in California: http://media.sacbee.com/smedia/2009/09/02/18/HUNTGRID.source.prod_affiliate.4.pdf. It doesn't even show all the restrictions, because they wouldn't all fit ona single newspaper page.)