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From: js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Re: Hunting is *NOT* slaughter
Message-ID: <219@mhuxt.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 26-Jul-84 14:21:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: mhuxt.219
Posted: Thu Jul 26 14:21:33 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Jul-84 20:48:59 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
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	The arguement I'm responding to (from memory) went something like this:

		Hunters claim that hunting actually helps the animal pop-
		ulation by taking the place of (now very rare) natural
		predators by killing off the weakest members of the herd.
		Actually, however, they go for the biggest racks, etc., 
		getting the BEST members of the herd.

	Hopefully that is an accurate enough rendition of the arguement so
that it isn't straw.  
	Anyhow, like the natural predators which hunters replace, (which were
mostly removed by irate farmers and laws made to help the irate farmers) huntersMOSTLY shoot whatever legal game they are able to find, independant of how
good a trophy that particular animal would make.  Sure, (using Pennsylvania
whitetail deer as a concrete example since I have hunted them.), each hunter
would LIKE to come home with a huge 12 point strapped to the trunk, but no one
passes up a spike, if that's what they see, simply because they know that
they are unlikely to get another chance.  In my experience, only about 1 out of
5 hunters get anything in antlered deer season.  So the hunters get what they
can, just as predators used to, and what they get is ON THE AVERAGE the weakest
segment of the deer herd.  
	The idea that a hunter gets to choose which deer to shoot out of more
than one possible cantidates derives from the concept that successful hunting
is simply a matter of tromping out into the woods and finding a buck standing
in a clearing 50' away and blasting it's head off.  This is something which
television and movies have been (apparently successfully) trying to get people
to believe for years.  In actual fact, most hunters return cold, wet, exhausted,
and without having seen a legal game animal.  However, nearly every time that
Hollywood portrays their concept of a hunter, they make it seem incredibly 
easy.
	I'm not saying that most hunters are out there to benefit the deer
herd.  I'm sure most of them are out there for food or other less noble reasons.
The effect they have on the deer population, however, is undeniably beneficial.

			Jeff Sonntag