After reading Lythium's post
about animal rights activists I am all angry now grrrrrrr!

I go game shooting during the season which runs through autumn and winter. Being conscientious, I always take home the fruits of my labour for the pot, and go to great lengths to ensure that all shot game is retrieved, often in very tricky terrain. During the close season, I take part in various conservation activities like coppicing, litter picks on the coast and along rivers, improvement of cover for ground nesting birds. This in turn is beneficial for all manner of other (often endangered)wildlife - butterflies, birds of prey, field mice etc and as such I get to see wildlife in my shooting areas which I would never get to see if I didn't shoot and help to maintain the areas where I do.

It is my opinion that shooting a pheasant which has spent it's life in the woods eating berries and corn is a much more humane than buying a watery chicken from the supermarket which has spent it's life cooped up in a tiny cage being covered in other chicken's shit, pulling out it's own feathers and pecking the flesh from it's own legs because of the infections which it caught through lack of clean living space. Even the free range chickens which are so popular now have a long way to go (if ever)before their quality of life will be anywhere near that of a wild/reared bird. Also game tastes better and is leaner because it eats natural food (not the slurry and medicines fed to supermarket livestock).

So imagine my fury when some greasy hippy badger kisser criticises me for going out and 'callously blasting sentient beings from the sky', before going home and tucking into a foul roast fowl.

Now I don't mind you expressing your disapproval if you don't eat meat (even if you are wet enough to not eat it because you saw bambi when you were six) because you are not then going home and sanctimoniously practising what you preach.

But if you do eat meat, please get your facts in order before calling someone who enjoys fieldsports a 'murderous bastard' or 'evil wanker'. You have no moral high ground, you narrow minded, bigoted hypocrites.

Sorry rant over!

Length? 40yards maximum for consistent humane kills.
(Sir General ***WoW***, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 14:58, 25 replies)

Ummm...
... are you the real Captain Wow?

Obviously, if you aren't you'll say you are anyway.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:03, closed)

Nope,
This is a different one.
"WoW"... Might be Warcraft?
( Cawl, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:10, closed)

Naughty squatter, then.

( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:23, closed)

here, here
Game shooting = ethically sound food acquisition.

Top hole fun to boot.

*raises hip flask*
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:04, closed)

I also shoot
I totally agree, have a clicky!
( Anthropos Was making beer on, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:06, closed)

You've just shot yourself in the foot.
You say you enjoy fieldsports. So you enjoy going out and killing an animal for sport. Doesn't matter what you do with it afterwards to make yourself think you're being all countryfied and conservational. Killing something because your hungry and killing something for sport are two totally different things. I'm a vegetarian but if I was starving and had to kill an animal to feed myself then I would. I wouldn't get any enjoyment from it but I would do it to stay alive.

Your just trying to absolve yourself from the fact that you enjoy killing something.
( girlinthehole, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:07, closed)

Of course I enjoy it
otherwise I would buy my poultry from adsa. But I also enjoy the fact that I don't need to support the battery hen industry.
(Sir General ***WoW***, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:13, closed)

But to call it a sport is somewhat disgusting.
Don't you think?


I don't think anyone should enjoy killing something. Serial killers are the exeption.
( girlinthehole, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:16, closed)

A moot point, for sure
But one unrelated to m'colleague's complaint about hypocrisy.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:21, closed)

Yes but....
I hate seeing people trying to make excuses for something which is intrinsically a shitty thing to get enjoyment from.

I'm very wary of people who get enjoyment from taking somethings life.
( girlinthehole, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:27, closed)

I suppose
It is a 'sport' in the same way that fishing is a sport.

It is not the killing of an animal that I enjoy, it is the fact I am with good friends, in beautiful countryside, having a few drinks looking forward to cooking whatever I shoot.
( Anthropos Was making beer on, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:23, closed)

Why not enjoy it?
After all, any sign of compassion toward your next meal may cause you to go hungry.
Enjoying and making a sport of catching your own food, makes it all the better - in ability/skill and taste.
Plus the young man makes his point in boycotting the mass-processing market, albeit a small dent, benefits from a clear conscience and... tastier food.

Moot point is people cooking their meals - the ones who enjoy it, cook the tastiest!

What's to say the food-to-be doesn't enjoy the thrill of the chase?
(FunOnABun Smears lard on you!, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 16:01, closed)

I shoot as well tbh.
To be honest, the poster is being far more morally honest than someone who buys their meat from the supermarket. At least they're facing up to the fact that for the fact that something dies when they eat meat, rather than complaining about them enjoying 'killing stuff'. Hence the hipocrisy.
(Teiresias, Mon 23 Feb 2009, 21:08, closed)

Hmmmm
I think the chap's point is that eating supermarket meat and then criticising someone for being 'cruel to animals' because they go shooting is ridiculous.

It surely is, no?
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:15, closed)

"I get to see wildlife in my shooting areas which I would never get to see if I didn't shoot and help to maintain the areas where I do."

You know, no matter what the personal ethics you or anyone else has about the shooting, what you do for the environment there isn't BECAUSE of the shooting; you could still go out there do all those things without the shooting if you wanted to, so you can't really use it as a justification for the sport.

You can use other arguments to justify it, but using that one is a little weak. Here's a better argument for you: If you're going to eat meat, surely it's better to do it the "natural" way and hunt animals in their own environment, where the animal's chances of survival are a contest between their skills and the hunter's skills, just like it is between them and any other natural predator, than to capture, enslave, and slaughter the animals?
I've no harsh criticism against shooting (as you rightly state, we do a lot worse to animals), and I don't eat any of the cruelty-soaked industrially-farmed meat either (I'm vegetarian). So that's where my position is.
(Musuko, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:21, closed)

Interesting debate
I sometimes do work for a company that rears game fowl then takes them out for rich americans to shoot. (Which makes me a hypocrite, before anyone points it out. Look, work is too scarce at the moment to look at the ethics of everyone we do business with.)

This company rears the birds in sheds. The only freedom they get is the last few moments of their life before they're blown to bits by some posh toff with a gun. After the shoot the birds are shovelled into a pit in the ground. This is obviously unacceptable behaviour. And if you were to say to me that you enjoy pheasant shooting then (without knowing any more) I would unfairly pidgeon-hole you into this group of cunts.

Killing for food? Absolutely fine. People have been doing it for millenia and I will harshly criticise anyone who complains about it before tucking in to their sunday joint. But those who just kill animals for the senseless pleasure of it deserve a good shoeing.

The same goes for fishermen who throw back their catches. Besides the ethical concern it's just wasteful. But that opens another can of (ha, ha) worms.
(MrC. Having the most boring username on b3ta since 2004, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:25, closed)

Sorry looks like I've started something here lol
I am aware about this sort of behaviour and it is totally wrong. Mass murder. All it does is give those who would like to see our sport banned. Please know that the vast majority of fieldsports folk are not like this - a real sportsman will be more than happy with a brace or two for family and friends.
(Sir General ***WoW***, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:32, closed)

That's good to hear
I've been unfairly lumping innocent shooters in with the "toffs with guns" crowd. However, if you do happen to see a fellow sportsman killing for fun instead of food, give 'em a good shoeing from me, will you?
(MrC. Having the most boring username on b3ta since 2004, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:40, closed)

There's a several times world champ at clay shooting
whose name rhymes with 'Gorge Dickweed' who is (or so I've heard) one of the guilty ones.
(Sir General ***WoW***, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:51, closed)

Toffs with guns
Are a delicacy. Naturally because they can shoot back and work as teams.

However, their ability to keep a pure blood line makes them rare, so hunting is kept to a minimum.
Most are owned by the queen.
(FunOnABun Smears lard on you!, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 16:06, closed)

Hehehe.
Nice on the name-change.

Having had my name nicked in the past, I can testify to it not being nice.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 15:58, closed)

Big-Girl's-Blouse
How is Cromwell anyway? Didn't realise he was up and about these days.
(Falco, Thu 19 Feb 2009, 18:31, closed)

more like 1984
and the Thought Police?
(whiskas loved by 8 out of 10 cats, Sun 22 Feb 2009, 12:13, closed)

my 2 cents
I don't think enough people realise how bad the conditions are for most poultry and livestock (including dairy) actually are. As long as you are actively conserving future stock, I see nothing wrong with "blasting them out of the sky". They're not going to land in your casserole pot, pre-plucked and gutted. I worked in an abattoir before, that was hell. I spent 5 years working as a chef, and the difference in the quality of meat that comes from the wild as opposed to the supermarket is amazing.
I have 4 good reasons for eating meat, 2 canine teeth on top and 2 on the bottom.
(knackerz is skinning up, Fri 20 Feb 2009, 3:34, closed)

My 2p
Game Shooting and Sport Shooting are clearly two different things.

Game Shooting involves killing and eating your quarry - fair comment, I say. The creature lived 'free-range' as the act of hunting, killing and eating is as old as mankind.

Sport Shooting (including such pastimes as fox-hunting) is entirely different. It's blood-sport with no purpose and is a symbol of both greed and lust.

Also, if you think to defend sport shooting, then I would ask that you question why it is acceptable to fox hunt, but not to badger-bait, cock-fight (stop it!) or own a dancing bear. The only answer to this is one of class - Fox-hunting is traditionally an upper-class pastime and the others are "lower-class" entertainments long since banned by the upper-class!

Clearly this is wrong-minded.
(EffinDoubt is breaking glass on, Thu 26 Feb 2009, 9:50, closed)