Is hunting for fun or trophies a bit cruel?

So, guys? don't call me a hippie ok? I drive a hummer and run over an average of 5 rabbits a year. nah, just kidding.





But isn't killing an animal just for fun, sawing off the horns and leaving the carcass to rot (occasionally. most of the time my friends eat it) a bit cruel and pointless? Unless you really need some food or like the taste, should you be hunting?Is hunting for fun or trophies a bit cruel?
The cruelest thing on this earth is nature itself.Sometimes it starves entire herds of animals because not enough food is produced. Sometimes they perish to death because of lack of rain.And for each animal that exists nature created a predator to kill and feed upon it.At the top of the predator chain is mankind. And to control mankinds population nature created diseases and gave us a warlike nature to help control the popluation.How cruel is that? In the overall scheme of things the killing for sport is among the least important issue of the century.It is not cruel, but simply unethical and stupid to waste an animal that could be converted to food. I dislike the person that would waste good meat as much as you do but for entirely different reasons.Is hunting for fun or trophies a bit cruel?
Every year I hunt for the biggest buck I can find, I hunt for the big racks. Towards the end of the season if I haven't got anything good I will shoot a fat doe. But when I get a big buck,I don't just leave it there and cut off the head, for one its illegal and two its wasteful. I take the good cuts of meat for me and my family to eat and the rest we make into dog food because we have a lot of Border Collies that do a lot of work on our farm, and dog food gets really expensive when you have 6,7, and 8 dogs to feed 365 days a year.
In the eastern US white tale deer population in some areas outnumber human populations and have become a major hazard to drivers. Overpopulation of deer damage the environment and spread diseases and come the winter many starve, the remainder are thinner and weaker than they would be had the population been less. Unless you are willing to see predators (wolves) re-introduced near human populated areas regulated hunting is required for proper forest management. It would be cruel to the deer and damaging to the environment to stop hunting.
Hunting is fun just being out there is what it's all about. It is of course a lot more fun when you harvest one. Cruel..no not cruel considering the way most animals die from predators..eaten alive. Even if you don't like venison you can, in my state, donate it to the poor. I have never left a carcass to rot. And won't. How ever I have seen them laying out after the antlers were removed. I always thought it wasn't ethical and a waste but I guess coyotes bobcats, crows, cougars (no fellas I don't mean the 40 something single women..lol..),bugs and worms need to eat also. It's just not the best practice leaving the carcass. It can draw more predators to where you hunt and cause the deer to move off where you spent so much time and energy trying to find a good spot and setting it up to hunt.
Doing that is illegal.





It's against state law to harvest an animal and just take parts of it. People who do that are NOT and will NEVER be hunters.





I hunt, and only for food. If the animal is a nice animal, that's just icing on the cake so to speak.











Added--


Duct tape fixes everything, humans are NOT the only creatures that kill for the heck of killing. Wolves will and have chased down animals just for the sake of killing it. Orcas (killer whales) do it also. Get your head out of the sand.





Fox M- I'm a girl and I don't have a pair of family jewels. You need to grow up if you think that all hunters are like that. Just because a few are like that doesn't mean that everyone is like that.








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Deer don't have horns, they have antlers... horns and antlers= HUGE difference. Antlers fall off, horns don't.
It's illegal and unethical to chop a deers head off and leave the rest.





That is just PETA crap fed to young kids. Ironically though, you owe the existence of White Tail Deer to hunters. They almost all died out until people like hunters decided to take action! They manage the land and reintroduced White Tail deer to areas that had not seen one in decades. The money used to help manage the land and wild life comes from hunters as well.





If you do not like or approve of hunting you're living on the wrong rock. Hunting has been a part of ever civilization since the dawn of time. Ya, we got McDonalds now days but who really wants to eat that ****? And besides, where do you think that meat comes from? We use a gun to shoot an animal and you hire someone to beat a cow to death with a hammer...what is more human?
I think people over exaggerate this whole trophy hunting thing. Few if any hunters leave a perfectly good carcass to rot just for the head. Ranch trophy hunts where the hunter is looking for the prize buck head mount, etc. are done harvesting all the meat.
Nobody but a slob would cut off the horns and leave the carcass. Yes, hunting is a little cruel, but not so cruel as not hunting. There is no other effective method of game management, so refusing to hunt dooms many more animals to a cruel fate.
';But isn't killing an animal just for fun, sawing off the horns and leaving the carcass to rot';





What you have described is illegal. It is illegal to waste the edible portion of game animals.
It is absolutely cruel. Tradition is fine, but only if the animal is properly used. Hunting for fun is pointless, and right up there with slavery on the cruelty meter.
I think it is messed up, BUT if you have a hunting permit for population control then technically there is nothing wrong with it.


I use everything I can when I hunt.


Answer mine?


http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090821164156AAM1nQN
like i was always told, you hunt to put food on the table or to keep the fields safe,, is it. hunting for sport.. those ppl need kicked in the head
I do not believe in wasting an animal but hunting is a very effective game management tool. Hunting %26amp; fishing licenses and tags finance many wildlife programs as well.
It's unnatural to hunt for trophy. If you don't eat it, don't shoot it. The same goes for humans, too.
Just leaving it is dumb deer venison is delicious.
Killing it for fun and leaving it there can be considered cruel.
yes, very cruel. don't kill animals if you don't need them
So I guess all the brown bear, polar bear and big cat hunters need to come up with some funky meat loaf recipes huh? Give me a break. We are killers. Get over it. Many animals kill for fun, including cats (big and small), dogs, and killer whales. So long as it's legal, then shoot straight and have fun. And if some tree hugger is pissed with my attitude, then they can bring it. I got no problems with my natural instincts.
Where the hell did you get your shitty information???? Almost all of us here eat our kills, we don't ';saw off the antlers and leave the carcass'; hunting isn't about the harvest but about meeting good folks and having a good time, if you get an animal big whoopity doo, food for your family, not dinner for the vultures.Get a clue about what we hunters do and come back with a good question, or don't ever show your face on the hunting section again!!!


ADD- What the hell are all you peta people doing here????? Just cause i bugged you for 2 DAYS doesn't mean you need to flip a lid, chill out! Go back to ingrid and burn in hell, i love animals, they are cool, but they are also tastey and can be destructive without proper management.


ADD- If you guys are so obsessed with ethical treatment of animals then go out in the woods and teach THEM TO GET ALONG FIRST before you come whining over here. We shoot a deer and it is dead, a mountain lion rips out a deer's neck for god's sake and lets it drown in it's own blood!!!!!!!!!!


I've always laughed at the PETA folks who yell at me for owning a gun but when i get it they shut up. Fox m? seriously, You yell cowards, but run when i put my cross hairs over your forehead, grow a backbone!!


HeHe i am 13 and can still chew out PETA supporters like no other! i am so proud!!!


Let me show you what you people are like. ahem hem........ AHHHHH!!!! Don't shoot the animals it might get its feelings hurt!!! Don't shoot the deer, invite them to dinner (where they will gore you) No other species kills for fun!(except those thousands we see every day)And worst of all the animal suffers when it is shot!(huh, funny, looked pretty dead to me!)
* '; Society will forever judge Hunters by their Compassion for the Animals that they Hunt for and Harvest.';... Very few if any True Hunters, Sportsman, Shooters, or Conservationist take any pleasure or satisfaction from just the killing of any animal that they Harvest for Food and Sport.*.. '; Hunting is Fun and Enjoyable ; Killing is never Fun or Enjoyable.';...All Life is precious to us True Hunters, even a Rabbits to us Hunters who Hunt them for Food and Sport for ourselves, family, friends, and fellow Hunters.* No Sir you are badly and sadly mistaken in your beliefs regarding Hunting and Hunters.*
Yes it is and so is fishing that way,I would question the psychology behind it,do we do it to prove ourselves? I have done it but not any more and I only fish and catch enough for one meal not to fill a freezer and shooting a defenseless animal is viewed as gutless as well as cruel by most although they won't say it to your face ,I'm glad I grew up.
Hunting is for cowards who haven't got the balls to go into the armed forces and shoot at something that will shoot back.


If a person lived in a very rural area where there is no markets and shops selling meat, then fair enough, but to kill an animal for the sake of killing is pure evil.
I don't think people should hunt for sport.


We are the only species that does that.





Yes, a vulture will grab your puppy but only if it's babies are starving.


Yes, a tiger will follow a dog around and eat it but only when it's hungry.





Perhaps we wouldn't be in this economic mess if Bush %26amp; Friends had treated our money like that, but we're too greedy.





It's sad when a starving lion has better ethics and conservatism then our top conservatives.
no, people do it because it unleashes their primal instincts to kill.





ever wonder why teenage children like to play violent games? why there is so many action movies? becuz violence is addictive and republicans like it.
I think it's ridiculously cruel.








Some day, when I become overlord of the planet, I will send the deer out on a hunting trip.


And they'll come home with human skulls as trophies.





Then we'll see how CRUEL it is?
i totally agree you should not hunt unless u are goin eat it...hunting for fun or trophies is wrong! God put animals on the earth for us to eat and enjoy but that means kill it if u really need it not for fun.....
hunting is awesome. its not cruel unless its a long painful death.
Nope.





Killing things that can feel pain for no obvious purpose is not cruel.
yes. i see NO point in it.