I do not understand big game hunting

[hornblower]

Birders and wildlife photographers also get up at ungodly hours and trek through all sorts of weather.

 

You can do all this without having to kill a creature.

[umsami]

I think the Trump boys do it for assumed prestige. 

 

Here's an article from Psychology Today on it.  https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201510/the-psychology-and-thrill-trophy-hunting-is-it-criminal

 

"As for trophy hunting, I think it is probably the kind of animal killing that most resembles murder - murder in the first degree. It is done with planning (premeditation) and without provocation or biological justification. The animals are entirely innocent creatures killed only for ego-gratification and fun. It's time we began to see this practice as akin to murder." Kirk Robinson (executive director of the Western Wildlife Conservancy, comment on this essay)

 

Dr. Mallett also writes, "Another paper has linked personality traits of some people who hunt for sport to a different 'triad' of behaviours, known ominously as the ‘dark triad’. This includes narcissism (egotistical admiration of one’s own attributes, and a lack of compassion), Machiavellianism (being deceitful, cunning and manipulative) and psychopathy (lack of remorse or empathy, and prone to impulsive behaviour).â€

[heartlikealion]

I don't understand it personally, but that makes sense as I am female and lack some of the kill big scary things instinct (instead I have the run away from big scary things instinct).

 

I don't understand people who are opposed to killing an elephant or lion or whatever but eat (ever) factory farmed meat.  The lion had a great life until the end.  The pig that made your bacon, or cow that made your milk, was miserable, either intermittently or constantly, for its whole life.

 

Because no one is eating the lion or elephant I imagine.

 

Also, many people may still be unaware of what goes on with many animals. Plus, eating food doesn't necessarily mean you are okay with how it got to your plate. I may say I'm not ok with how some clothing is made, but I can't say I have investigated every garment or that I've boycotted all the stores that have lower prices. Basically, a lot of us are guilty of doing things indirectly because it's hard for us to stop shopping/eating what we're accustomed to.

[heartlikealion]

Sorta on topic here...

 

There are some alternatives to real meat that are fairly new I heard about recently. I don't know if "Beyond Meat" succeeded or not.

 

There's also this other thing. Kinda weirds me out.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSD0_I1MwqU

[IfIOnly]

Why not eat the dogs?

This is going to maybe be too much for some of you (sorry), but you can feed the dogs to your pigs. The pigs got the legs, head, innards, and everything else edible that we didn't. One could raise swine very inexpensively with a free meat souce.

[DawnM]

Sorta on topic here...

 

There are some alternatives to real meat that are fairly new I heard about recently. I don't know if "Beyond Meat" succeeded or not.

 

There's also this other thing. Kinda weirds me out.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSD0_I1MwqU

 

 

Wait?  What?  

[poppy]

Sorta on topic here...

 

There are some alternatives to real meat that are fairly new I heard about recently. I don't know if "Beyond Meat" succeeded or not.

 

There's also this other thing. Kinda weirds me out.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSD0_I1MwqU

 

I am not remotely interested in trying this but my goodness could it be amazing in places where food is scarce. 

I read that 40% of children in India grow up stunted due to poor nutrition. 

In situations like that, I don't give a flying fig where food comes from.  Hunger is a violation of a pretty fundamental human right.

 

 

Being poor in the US is not comparable. It's just not. No one with access to WIC and food support needs to cook with factory farmed meat.

Edited August 7, 2016 by poppy

[hornblower]

Some of the brightest minds & biggest investors on the planet are going big into plant based protein food & various faux meats. It's a logic thing for them, not even always an ethics thing. There's a need for this because meat production is unsustainable, and it is very much unsustainable if you want to have anything remotely resembling ethically sourced meat (i refuse to use the word humane as I think it's a lie but that's a separate  issue.)

It's also interesting how people are repelled by test tube meat (which I think will become a commercial reality soon) but apparently not repelled by what happens in slaughter houses daily. Most people cannot watch the undercover slaughter house videos but they shudder when you mention test tube meat (and some run from the room if you mention a tofu hot dog...)  

 

[heartlikealion]

I am not remotely interested in trying this but my goodness could it be amazing in places where food is scarce. 

I read that 40% of children in India grow up stunted due to poor nutrition. 

In situations like that, I don't give a flying fig where food comes from.  Hunger is a violation of a pretty fundamental human right.

 

 

Being poor in the US is not comparable. It's just not. No one with access to WIC and food support needs to cook with factory farmed meat.

 

I don't know how I feel because of the weird moral/ethic questions it gives me. But the "Beyond meat" product didn't wig me out and isn't made from actual animals so I would think that maybe it could be preserved and handled without as much caution as real meat. But the way the video plays out I definitely could see how various places, especially those you described, would want it/use it.

 

[heartlikealion]

Some of the brightest minds & biggest investors on the planet are going big into plant based protein food & various faux meats. It's a logic thing for them, not even always an ethics thing. There's a need for this because meat production is unsustainable, and it is very much unsustainable if you want to have anything remotely resembling ethically sourced meat (i refuse to use the word humane as I think it's a lie but that's a separate  issue.)

 

It's also interesting how people are repelled by test tube meat (which I think will become a commercial reality soon) but apparently not repelled by what happens in slaughter houses daily. Most people cannot watch the undercover slaughter house videos but they shudder when you mention test tube meat (and some run from the room if you mention a tofu hot dog...)  

 

 

 

The first two do bother me. Actually, don't think I like tofu either but I've had faux meat in other forms. Sadly it seems like it's overwhelmingly soy and I don't want a lot of soy in my diet.

 

[hornblower]

The first two do bother me. Actually, don't think I like tofu either but I've had faux meat in other forms. Sadly it seems like it's overwhelmingly soy and I don't want a lot of soy in my diet.

 

I disagree about the villification of soy but anyone looking for soy free analogues has options: 

 

Quorn  - though it is not yet avail in the US afaik but I'm sure it will be soon. 

 

Field Roast is avail throughout North America right now 

[heartlikealion]

I disagree about the villification of soy but anyone looking for soy free analogues has options: 

 

Quorn  - though it is not yet avail in the US afaik but I'm sure it will be soon. 

 

Field Roast is avail throughout North America right now 

 

It's not soy itself, but the whole fermented vs unfermented soy thing as well as estrogen that gives me pause.

 

I live in the US. I have not heard of Field Roast but I did the search and it is not sold within 50 miles of the major city where we do our grocery shopping. I know you can buy online, but as far as something I would find in the stores it sounds about right that I usually just see soy as the base for faux meat.

[Bluegoat]

I think a good place to start for understanding the perspective might be Teddy Roosevelt's thoughts on it. He's sort of an odd figure to understand today, as he was both an avid hunter and avid environmentalist, and saw the two as fundamentally connected in a way that they are not seen today.

 

I think big game hunting was seen as a morally uplifting test of courage, along the lines of the Labors of Hercules, or the versions of running the gauntlet where if you made it to the other end alive, they forgave whatever you were being punished for.

 

Big game provided the illusion that it was more of an equal fight -- a person on their own might be trampled by an elephant or mauled by a lion in a way that a deer or a duck could never hurt them.

 

The connection with environmentalism, for the curious, was one of mercy -- in the same way that it was considered honorable to spare a person who was defeated after a hard fight in respect for the lessons that the fight taught the victor, sparing an animal's home was seen as the equivalent courtesy from hunters.

 

I don't think it is actually odd to find people who are serious hunters and serious environmentalists - I think that a lot of people just aren't aware of them, particularly if they are city people.  But if you think about an organization like Ducks Unlimited, that has a very strong connection to hunting and so do many similar types of conservation organizations, quite a lot of park wardens and people in land protection are themselves hunters, in First Nations communities there is a pretty significant link between the two concerns, just to give a few examples.

[Saddlemomma]

I thought big game was edible too?

 

It is.  Many of the people who go big game hunting also arrange for their meat to be butchered, packaged, and sent home.

[hornblower]

It's not soy itself, but the whole fermented vs unfermented soy thing as well as estrogen that gives me pause.

 

I live in the US. I have not heard of Field Roast but I did the search and it is not sold within 50 miles of the major city where we do our grocery shopping. I know you can buy online, but as far as something I would find in the stores it sounds about right that I usually just see soy as the base for faux meat.

 

oh bummer but maybe just ask your store to order it in. They do say on their website: 

Not having any luck? We have made Field Roast products available for any store. Ask your local store to order from their distributor. 

 

 

[Bluegoat]

I can't understand how people that live off of plastic packed fake meat and tofu products, that were shipped halfway around the world using petroleum products and produced in smog-producing factories, can call themselves environmentalists. ;) (I'm not assuming you do this! Just my thoughts when I hear this argument. :) )  For me, locally grown food that is produced ethically and with as few fossil fuels as possible is the most environmental choice. I am not ethically nor environmentally opposed to meat eating when it is hunted from overpopulated species or raised ethically, since I do not see myself above other animals and consider all of us as part of the food chain. I cannot see a way for there to be ethically raised beef, for example, on the environmental side, so I will not eat it. This is only my opinion of course, and I do want to emphasize that I am not judging vegans, etc. I just hope we are all doing out best to preserve the planet for future animals and plant species for as long as possible.

 

I tend to agree, though not necessarily about the beef.  One of the bigger issues with beef is they consume a lot of water, but that is only a factor when water is a limiting issue.  And it is almost always likely to be an expensive meat.  But on some kinds of land they make sense, they are a good addition to a rotational land use system, they provide a lot of manure, and they also can provide significant non-oil dependent power.  Also in many cases they can be combined with dairy use which has its own advantages.

[Bluegoat]

A big reason for avoiding things like dog is that there can be larger issues with parasites and disease with eating carnivores.  Totally apart from the social conditioning, many people have a kind of natural hesitance about eating other meat-eaters.  Eveeating animals like pigs that have been raised on meat isn't necessarily considered a great idea.

 

I can't really get into the fake meat thing, for much the same reason I avoid lab and factory produced food.  Adding layers between ourselves and the source of our food doesn't seem to me like it generally makes us more connected to our environment - rather the opposite.

[hornblower]

Nature is really quite horrible. Nature kills babies with plagues and parasites and worms that eat your brain. I don't have a lot of romantic fondness for nature.  I'm an environmentalist but there are many things about nature that I have no desire to connect with. 

Interesting issue you raise with objections to eating carnivores - I haven't heard that before that people have a hesitance about this.   Parasites are found everywhere though. Venison  for ex is known to have parasites incl tapeworm & it's not recommended to eat fresh because of that. I saw recommendations that it be frozen before processing. 

Our relative inability to deal with parasites is actually because we're omnivores and not carnivores. Dogs and lions can eat these things because they have stronger stomach acids and shorter digestive tracts. We're more fragile... 

Of course the modern meat production system is entirely cannibalistic. That's pretty much how we ended up with mad cow.... 

[HS Mom in NC]

Human are omnivores, as pointed out upthread.  They're designed to eat meat and plants.  They can opt out, but it isn't natural to do so. The vast majority of humanity has eaten both in various proportions.

I'm one of those people who has no problem with people eating any animal that's edible and I roll my eyes at cultural prejudices against some edible meats: horses, dogs, etc. I've never eaten dog or horse and of course, they're not on the menu or in the grocery store here so odds are I never will, but I don't bat an eye at the fact that other people do.  Eating those animals is no different than the snakes, pigs, goats, squid, sheep, cows, chickens, quail, crawdads, deer, jellyfish, tuna, rabbits, elk, javalina, ducks, turkeys, octopus and hares I've eaten. (Around here rabbits are white meat and hares are red meat if you were wondering why I listed them separately.)

When it comes to hunting I have no problem with it as long as it's eaten and not an endangered species.  I don't approve of true trophy hunting (meaning the animal isn't eaten) unless it's necessary to keep a population down in one species because they're affecting the survivability of another species.  You shot an aggressive edible animal from far away with a rifle with a scope?  Pppfftt!  So what? That only takes marksmanship.  Try doing it the way my uncle hunts bear, moose,deer and elk and some fish, with a bow and arrow at close range.  Then I'll be impressed. Yep.  He eats some of it and shares the rest of it with other people.

*NOTE: Don't make comments about Koreans eating dogs because many consider it an insult to them as immoral people.  As a whole, most don't eat dog because they object to the process of torturing the animal slowly before finally killing and eating it as it's been traditionally done. It's believed by those who do partake that the stress caused by the torture makes the meat better.  At least that's what a Korean friend, born and raised in Korea, told me. I don't have a problem with the fact it's a dog.  I have a huge problem with torturing an animal-even one you're going to eat.

[Bluegoat]

Yes, parasites aren't confined to carnivores, but they, and disease as well, can become more of a problem when we eat carnivores or other omnivores.  For much the same reason as we had the mad cow issue - they can accumulate as they go up the food chain.  In some cases too I think we can share different parasites - people in places where they eat things like monkey for example can pick up disease from them.

 

The other issue is that it isn't all that efficient to eat carnivores compared to herbivores, and there are often fewer of them, as well.  We don't actually have many domesticated carnivores other than dogs and cats, and so they don't tend to have other roles in food production systems that make them worthwhile to keep that way.

 

The omnivores we eat regularly tend to be pigs and chickens and some other birds, but in that case they are typically eating a lot of our waste products or are able to feed themselves, which makes them efficient consumers in the system.  And they may do other work as well.

 

A far a nature - the issue with becoming very separated from the origins of food is really that we lose touch with the source of our food and life.  It becomes harder for many people to value it, or even those who do don't really have a clear picture of it.  It makes it very hard to live in a way that respects it.

[hornblower]

Bluegoat, you're not really describing reality tho. Factory farming dominates meat, milk and cheese production in NA. The alternatives are rare, inaccessible and expensive. What the vast vast majority of people are eating is produced in animal factories, where the animals are fed back to themselves.  There was a big outbreak of a pig virus traced back to ground up pork by products and blood being fed back to piglets. 

And the soy that people worry about it is in your food chain in the meat - almost all the soy grown in the US is fed to animals destined for your table. 

And it HAS to be this way because if you want to feed meat to a large number of people at a reasonable price, that's how it has to be made : with every byproduct scraped up off the slaughterhouse floor, ground up, dried, and shipped back to the factory that's growing the animals.  

So I just don't know. It seems that talking about whether chickens fit some ecological niche in a system is just moot. Maybe in some pastoral self contained  "I live on an exotic island like LOST" context, it makes some sense but in modern life, where you need to think about all the people and not just some affluent family who can make different choices, that's just not the reality and will  not be.  The restaurants and the grocery stores of our continent are filled with factory produced animal products which are completely divorced from nature. 

[Bluegoat]

Bluegoat, you're not really describing reality tho. Factory farming dominates meat, milk and cheese production in NA. The alternatives are rare, inaccessible and expensive. What the vast vast majority of people are eating is produced in animal factories, where the animals are fed back to themselves.  There was a big outbreak of a pig virus traced back to ground up pork by products and blood being fed back to piglets. 

 

And the soy that people worry about it is in your food chain in the meat - almost all the soy grown in the US is fed to animals destined for your table. 

 

And it HAS to be this way because if you want to feed meat to a large number of people at a reasonable price, that's how it has to be made : with every byproduct scraped up off the slaughterhouse floor, ground up, dried, and shipped back to the factory that's growing the animals.  

 

So I just don't know. It seems that talking about whether chickens fit some ecological niche in a system is just moot. Maybe in some pastoral self contained  "I live on an exotic island like LOST" context, it makes some sense but in modern life, where you need to think about all the people and not just some affluent family who can make different choices, that's just not the reality and will  not be.  The restaurants and the grocery stores of our continent are filled with factory produced animal products which are completely divorced from nature. 

 

You're right, most of our food system doesn't operate ethically or sustainably, and the amount of animal based foods that we typically eat is not appropriate.

 

That isn't just animal farming though, it's the whole of the food system.  If I go to the grocery store now, the vast majority of products are from farming methods that harmful to the environment, aren't environmentally sustainable, and aren't sustainable in terms of food security either.  They aren't ethical in terms of the environment or social justice.  That goes for the organic food found in most supermarkets as well.  But it is not just animal products, its also pretty much everything else.

 

And the animal food production system and the plant system are not really separate. It wasn't simply demand for more meat products that caused the increase in environmentally degrading soy and corn production - increased availability of cheap meat was also a way to use surpluses of grain products.  We've developed a large taste for meat products compared even to our grandparents, but that is a phenomena that comes out of the whole of the industrialized food system.  It's internal logic, which is money, works, if you accept it's premises and ignore the externalities, and that is why we see things like degraded soil, monocultures, rivers destroyed with animal excrement, aquifers emptied for vegetable production, as part of that system.

 

There is no real division between animal and plant in this system, it's all about treating nature as a machine, or like a money system. 

 

Creating a sustainable, environmentally responsible agriculture, one that leaves behind a healthy ecosystem for people and animals and plants, means leaving that whole model behind.  So - supporting farms that do practice that kind of agriculture for all of the things they produce. 

 

Realistically, many people are not in a position to do this perfectly all the time.  Limits in availability, distortions in costs created by the system, even time and lifestyle constraints that have come from a sick system, all get in the way.  So - we compromise, just like we do with other capitalist and industrialized systems that have become distorted, hoping to do the best we can in a holistic way with the resources we have.  That will vary a lot from person to person.

 

What that will look like will also tend to be highly localized, because local production tends to be central to solving all of these issues, and we all live in the space we happen to find ourselves in.  It's pretty hard for me to justify getting my fats from avocados or coconuts from industrial plantations far away, when I can easily get it from animal products from really sustainably run farms in my province, or punching up my winter diet with veg imported from California from a real environmental disaster, rather than with cheese products made here from cows that eat the grass that grows well here, even if dairy production isn't all it could be.  Simply clearing out animal products and thinking I am somehow subverting the industrial food system by doing so wouldn't be much more than an illusion.

[Ausmumof3]

Can you eat an elephant or a leopard??

Elephant meat is edible and even high demand. I think leopards it would be more the fur

But obviously prestige is the biggest thing.

[MercyA]

I disagree about the villification of soy but anyone looking for soy free analogues has options: 

 

Quorn  - though it is not yet avail in the US afaik but I'm sure it will be soon. 

 

Field Roast is avail throughout North America right now 

 

Quorn has been available in my rural Midwestern area for at least a few years now. 

[Denisemomof4]

I disagree about the villification of soy but anyone looking for soy free analogues has options:

 

Quorn - though it is not yet avail in the US afaik but I'm sure it will be soon.

 

Field Roast is avail throughout North America right now

Some of the Firld Roast stuff is amazing!

[IfIOnly]

Re parasites: I have frozen our meat from the store or homegrown before eating it for years now. No matter what, I almost never eat it fresh unless we're at a potluck or eating out. 

Edited August 8, 2016 by ifIonlyhadabrain

[eternalsummer]

My dd just did her rodeo queen gig at the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation dinner last night. There she was, in an entire room of hunters who were raising money for elk habitat. There's a large overlap with the folks who support Ducks Unlimited. She helped with the Farmer's Market this year, along with the auction for 4-H. Another big overlap between those groups--ranchers support (and pay a lot of land taxes to do it) wildlife. Those 4-H kids are raising those animals humanely. Those farmers at the market are supporting agriculture AND sustainable practices. Half my ranch only raises wildlife. I can't raise crops here--there are years my entire growing season is 20 days! But, I can raise grass to feed those cattle and sheep. I take good care of my animals, running dogs to keep the lions from eating them. We're out there in all weathers, feeding, lambing, calving. Not all meat production is an evil conspiracy. We have a lot of friends who hunt, and the meat is all used. 

 

Definitely there are more humane ways to raise animals, and people both producing and purchasing meat (and hunting it) who value the quality of life of the animals they raise or hunt.  

 

But a quick google says that the vast vast majority of meat in the US is not raised like that.

 

https://www.google.com/#q=percentage+of+us+meat+that+is+factory+farmed

[ktgrok]

And it isn't like the giant, single crop fields we have to grow grains are much better for the environment. Less water, yes, but they soil erosion is pretty scary, loss of the natural animals and plants, etc. 

 

That said, I'd sign up for test tube grown meat in a heartbeat. Meat with no guilt? Sign me up. 

 

 

[eternalsummer]

I think a large percentage of single crop fields are grown to feed livestock