Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mhuxt.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!mhuxt!js2j 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 Lines: 35 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