"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, Reply)