Hunting?

[3DStudent]

Hello, I wanted to discuss something I have been thinking about. I've done a little research on this but I think I should have networked first. If this belongs better in the Our 2D friends board please move it, but I think that is a more lighthearted board.

So recently I've thought about hunting as a source of meat. I was thinking that a deer or ducks would be pretty grass fed and organic, unless they got into a GMO corn or soy field. I've never shot a real gun before, just BB and paintball guns. But I've played a lot of shooter videogames so I'm thinking this is just a way for an old little "i" to get its thrills.

I've already looked at some guns and bows, and like I said I probably should have made the thread sooner. I'm thinking this is another distraction or time-waster that has come along. When I actually think about it, it would require a lot of time and potentially a few weekends out in the woods to get anything. My dad has some guns so I don't think I'd have to put down a lot of money if I went, but it would still be a time consuming thing.

And of course there's the moral issues. The only justification I really see is that I am STS and eat other beings, if that is even a "justification". But I wonder what's the difference between that and going to the store and buying it. I guess you have to deal with actually having to kill the animal.

I searched the forum for hunting and guns, and it seems that guns are looked at as killing machines. Well, I agree with that, they are very destructive and were created to inflict a lot of damage or kill. But I remember it being said that technology can be used for good or evil, and that there is the third force determining which it is. By the way, I saw a billboard for some new fighter jet and it made me think, I was thinking that that certainly was an instrument of death. I also remember the C's saying, "why would one seek to shoot anything?", and something like "guns are dangerous unless you're very careful".

So, like I've said, I think I've gotten it out of my system. Writing this post seems to have furthered that and I think it's kind of a useless idea to go hunt when I could just buy some meat. But I thought I'd share for learning purposes.

 

[Oxajil]

It wouldn't hurt to practice on materials first, you have to have a good aim. You also somehow need to learn to aim at that part that will kill the animal quick, and not painful imo.. If you are interested, you should atleast gain some knowledge first on hunting (if there is), and then practice... and maybe even do it for real when you're sure you can do it. I'm not sure if arrows or bullets are better for killing an animal quick.. maybe it's better to do it like they did it in the past, with bows and arrows? Or other ways.

Me, personally, I would be unable to kill an animal myself.
Since there might be a time that that might be necessary, and you think you can do it, then you could go for it. But don't think that those animals are any healthier than organic, though.

 

[Mrs.Tigersoap]

According to where you live, there are other considerations to take into account as well: in my country, hunting is very regulated and doing so when the season is not open, when you don't have a permit and when you don't belong (i.e. when you haven't paid your costly fees), you are poaching and it can cost you a lot.
My stepfather is a hunter for 'fun' (a bone of contention between us, as you can imagine) and he is a very wealthy man and basically hunts on his lands and people pay him to participate (500 euros for a few days or you can buy somebody's place (they hunt in groups) for 25 000 euros!).

Everybody is in cahoots to check if someone is hunting outside of these circles and they are denounced right away to the police (i.e. you have been in the woods with your gun for 10 minutes and the cops arrive).

It's probably not as bad in the States, though.

 

[3DStudent]

You also somehow need to learn to aim at that part that will kill the animal quick, and not painful imo..

Yeah, it wouldn't be fun to come up to it after it's been shot and have to shoot it again or something.

I'm not sure if arrows or bullets are better for killing an animal quick.. maybe it's better to do it like they did it in the past, with bows and arrows? Or other ways.

I'd think a bullet would do it quicker just with the velocity factor. But bows don't make much sound and seem a lot safer.

Since there might be a time that that might be necessary, and you think you can do it, then you could go for it.

Yeah I was thinking that this might come in handy in the future too.

But don't think that those animals are any healthier than organic, though.

Yeah, you can't be too sure what they eat. They probably get into unhealthy human food garbage too.

Hi Mrs. Tigersoap. In the States you have to follow all the rules too, or it's illegal poaching. I think they do private land hunts where things are a little less regulated.

 

[Al Today]

3D Student,

If you've never shot a gun before, perhaps you may, for example, call a local gun club and inquire about some classes. There is a lot more to guns than shooting. There is cleaning, maintenance for safety's sake as well as getting familiar with local laws. You wouldn't want a gun to to fail because of a faulty mechanism. That could be dangerous. Especially if you've took a hike way back in the woods, alone...
Hope this helps...

 

[ScottD]

3D,

I grew up in the mountains of VA where hunting was and is a way of life. We were poor and literaly relied on my dad's hunting in order to survive on many occassions. I was never enamored with the idea of killing something but I was taught how to shoot and use a bow effectively. I see guns as tools and not weapons and that's how I was raised.

Regardless, I'm not trying to sway you on the idea because it could be a useful skill to have but, if you've never killed anything it is very hard to stomach. I would suggest that you visit a farm that raises and slaughters animals and take part in it. If you still have the desire to hunt after that then I think you could handle it. It's easy to pull a trigger but difficult to (at least for me) contend with killing and gutting an animal. In a food shortage setting I would rather be on the end of prep and cook while others gather.

 

[Brewer]

G'day 3D!

I used to hunt, haven't done so for a while, never hunted deer but have taken wild pigs, ducks and rabbits.

Ducks, rabbits and other small game, use a 12 bore shotgun with size 4 or 6 pellets on moving targets. You want to aim well in front of the target so the animal's head meets the cloud of pellets for a clean kill that won't fill the rest of it with dozens of pellets.

You can use steel instead lead shot over waterways as these won't pollute lakes and streams.

Stationary rabbits can be taken with a small calibre, preferably rifle, aim for head, neck or chest. The best meat on a rabbit is from the lowest rib back, or the hindquarters and the back meat, so go for a chest shot.

Larger game such as deer and pigs. I would use either a high velocity small calibre or a lower velocity large calibre rifle. Aim for head, chest or shoulder, Always use expanding bullets for a cleaner kill.

Hunting with arrows takes more skill, I'd use guns, before using bow and arrow, it takes much practice.

Before you go hunting make sure to practice on targets and know how to handle the weapon safely.

Take care

 

[go2]

Hunting is more than the gun or the bow. It requires knowledge of the animal or birds life and habits. I remember getting a Sears bolt action .22 caliber single shot rifle for Christmas when I was nine years old. There had been a light snowfall the night before and I went out in a large alfalfa field with clumps of dead alfalfa sticking up through the snow. I tracked cottontail rabbits until the tracks led to a clump of alfalfa and did not emerge. I would look carefully for the rabbits eye and shoot it in the head. It took four cottontail rabbits home and my father taught me how to skin and gut the rabbits. Mother fried them in cornmeal and butter for supper that day. I have killed rabbits, squirrel, quail, pheasant, ducks, geese and whitetail deer for the table. As Scott said, it is a way of life for country people.

So recently I've thought about hunting as a source of meat. I was thinking that a deer or ducks would be pretty grass fed and organic, unless they got into a GMO corn or soy field.

Yes, game animals and birds are free of antibiotics and growth hormones, but they also concentrate pesticides and herbicides which have poisoned the environment in much of rural America. Domesticated animals are bred for tender and rapid growth. Game animals have wild genetics and the meat has a tougher and tastey quality which concentrates energy in muscle, rather than fat meat.

When I actually think about it, it would require a lot of time and potentially a few weekends out in the woods to get anything.

It will take years in the woods before you know where the game animals or birds eat and bed down so that you can kill them for the table. This is hunting.
It requires study, patience, and a love of nature and the outdoors to become an accomplished hunter.

And of course there's the moral issues. The only justification I really see is that I am STS and eat other beings, if that is even a "justification".

The universe is reciprocal feeding at many levels. I know and revere the animals and birds who give their lives so that we may live, in a way that those who buy meat already dead may find difficult to understand. Life and death take a deeper meaning when one participates in taking life so that we may live.

I searched the forum for hunting and guns, and it seems that guns are looked at as killing machines.

Yes, guns and bows are tools designed to kill.

 

[Meager1]

If your thinking this way 3D Student then your neighbors probably will be too, sooner or later, if things get really bad.
When people are hungry, especially if they have kids to feed there will be a lot of competition for the meat.

A gun shot attracts a lot of attention and you don`t want to end up in a fight over the meat you just killed.
Two shots and they can get a direction on you pretty well and will know right where you are, your advertising your kill.

I suggest a bow. You`ll want to be as quiet as possible!

Stay low tech too..nothing fancy, or that has many moving parts that are liable to break on you and though you may never need to, learn how to make your own arrows.

Don`t park or leave a vehicle where you are going to hunt.

Get dropped off and picked up, if possible. Don`t even think about dragging a whole deer out of the woods but learn how to remove and bury the waste right there, that is all the parts you don`t want to have to carry.
You`ll only need a small hand saw and a good knife.

Then you`ll put what your taking home in a good size ruck sack and carry it out on your back.
All the bones, hide, head and legs etc, stay in the woods. Same with fish.

Fillet them as you catch them, and you carry much more home.

Learn to hunt from up in a tree. No tree stands, just sit up on the branches, most game animals and other hunters will walk right under you and never look up!

You can survive and even have a little to share, if you think it through and keep it easy on yourself.

 

[3DStudent]

Thanks for the replies all.

It's easy to pull a trigger but difficult to (at least for me) contend with killing and gutting an animal.

Yeah I think so too. I dissected a pig in high school and it wasn't too bad, but I think it would be different looking at something you just killed. Once when I was younger and playing with a BB gun I shot a little bird and felt really bad after it. For many weeks I felt like I was going to go to hell until I told my parents about it. But that's mostly Christian programming.

Life and death take a deeper meaning when one participates in taking life so that we may live.

Yeah, it seems like this would give more meaning to the food that we eat.

A gun shot attracts a lot of attention and you don`t want to end up in a fight over the meat you just killed.
Two shots and they can get a direction on you pretty well and will know right where you are, your advertising your kill.

I suggest a bow. You`ll want to be as quiet as possible!

I didn't think about that. While it hasn't gotten to that point, I don't know if I'd like to be in the woods with a lot of hungry people with guns .

Learn to hunt from up in a tree. No tree stands, just sit up on the branches, most game animals and other hunters will walk right under you and never look up!

That's interesting, I guess you'd need a tree with branches low enough to climb.

 

[Meager1]

No, you don`t need low branches. I`ve seen trees out there that have small blocks of wood nailed into them about a foot or so apart on up to the branches and figured that someone had used this as a kind of primitive ladder to get up there.

But now you can buy small metal screw in type thingies to climb any tree.

You just screw them into the tree and use them like those old blocks of wood.

I don`t know what their called but most sporting good stores carry them.

You just unscrew them and take them with you, when you leave.

Again nothing fancy, just something that works.

 

[3DStudent]

I'm wondering if this is a distraction for me and an "A" influence. I've been doing research and looking at hunting gear and guns a lot. Like I mentioned in my original post, I'm identified with guns because of my former shooter videogame days. Over the weekend I was asked to put something in the oven and forgot about it because I was looking at guns online .

You are required to pass an online test that requires some studying before you can get a license. Then I think you need to meet with an instructor and maybe have a live firing demonstrating you know how to use a gun. There is actually a workshop in my town this weekend, but I would need to complete the online test first. The study material had a lot of pictures so it doesn't look so bad, it's just very comprehensive it seems.

There's some other workshops in October as well, but if I want to get it done quickly I could try for this weekend. But I think there was a minimum of 10 people and if they don't show then it will be canceled. So I don't know if I really want to do this, I'd certainly learn something and wouldn't have to actually go hunting, but just have the license under my belt if I needed to. I'm wondering if I should stop putting energy into providing food for myself and maybe help others or work on myself instead.

 

[truth seeker]

I'm wondering if this is a distraction for me and an "A" influence. I've been doing research and looking at hunting gear and guns a lot. Like I mentioned in my original post, I'm identified with guns because of my former shooter videogame days. Over the weekend I was asked to put something in the oven and forgot about it because I was looking at guns online .

You are required to pass an online test that requires some studying before you can get a license. Then I think you need to meet with an instructor and maybe have a live firing demonstrating you know how to use a gun. There is actually a workshop in my town this weekend, but I would need to complete the online test first. The study material had a lot of pictures so it doesn't look so bad, it's just very comprehensive it seems.

There's some other workshops in October as well, but if I want to get it done quickly I could try for this weekend. But I think there was a minimum of 10 people and if they don't show then it will be canceled. So I don't know if I really want to do this, I'd certainly learn something and wouldn't have to actually go hunting, but just have the license under my belt if I needed to. I'm wondering if I should stop putting energy into providing food for myself and maybe help others or work on myself instead.

From what I "think" I see, you seem to not be sure you want to do this. Much of what you've written sounds as if you are looking for excuses why you shouldn't do it. This is just my take though. Do you feel pressured to make a decision before you change your mind?

I think if you're not sure, you can always wait (unless you feel this is your last chance before the season is over). Perhaps one idea would be to start small, like fishing. If you feel okay with that, then work your way up to hunting. You can also take ScottD's advice and visit an organic farm and perhaps gain some understanding of what they do. Take your time and see how you feel. :)

 

[Mrs. Peel]

From what I "think" I see, you seem to not be sure you want to do this. Much of what you've written sounds as if you are looking for excuses why you shouldn't do it. This is just my take though. Do you feel pressured to make a decision before you change your mind?

I think if you're not sure, you can always wait (unless you feel this is your last chance before the season is over). Perhaps one idea would be to start small, like fishing. If you feel okay with that, then work your way up to hunting. You can also take ScottD's advice and visit an organic farm and perhaps gain some understanding of what they do. Take your time and see how you feel. :)

It sounds to me like you could be bored with the video game thing and want to kick it up to real life playing with guns, maybe using the excuse of "providing food" to rationalize it? Are you going to lug an animal out of the woods or be able to hack it up into bits if not? You'll have to have the meat processed, and that costs money also. Do your folks have a freezer big enough to store a lot of meat in? Are you a person who can eat a lot of red meat without digestive problems?

I'm basing the above on your post wondering if this is just a distraction or not and your identification with guns from video games.

 

[Ca.]

I think if you're not sure, you can always wait (unless you feel this is your last chance before the season is over). Perhaps one idea would be to start small, like fishing. If you feel okay with that, then work your way up to hunting. You can also take ScottD's advice and visit an organic farm and perhaps gain some understanding of what they do. Take your time and see how you feel. :)

Hunting wild for game for either deer, or elk, has over the years been subject to regulation's to monitoring of "Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance (www.cwd-info.org)" within dear and elk population's of the United States, by Department of Fish and Game. Truthseekers input to going to a organic farm might give some tips of how healthy herding is applied as well as of how to spot non infected animals. The spread and realization and detection of CWD came about in the mid 60's. One way it stated was when rendering plants would render just about anything in the mixing vats including road kill into a meal. They then sold it to animal feed producer's that made deer food, that was used during hard times in the winter month's, as there food source was under snow and limited seasonal transition.

I know one man, that ate a lot of elk, that he took from Wyoming, and is battling the classic signs of the syndrome of CDW. Caution is needed that the meat is checked before consumed.

Also if one has never dressed down the animal after the taking, it requires the talent of a butcher, as well as the science of bleeding and gutting (dressing the the deer). Also of having to do so at the site of taking the deer, as gutting and bleeding the animal (excuse me for having to be so graphic) as these element's have to be done very soon, as not to spoil the meat. And pack it a long ways out of the wild, depending where one drops the deer and how far it runs after the first shot. It's lot of work and something i have never done, (nor interested), but hear of hunters that have talked the walk.

]Introduction
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a fatal, contagious neurological disease that infects the brains of Rocky Mountain elk and North American deer. CWD has been diagnosed in wild deer and elk herds in portions of Colorado, Illinois, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. CWD was first recognized by biologists in the 1960s as a disease syndrome of captive deer held in wildlife research facilities in Ft. Collins, CO, but was not recognized as a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) until 1978. CWD was subsequently recognized in captive deer, and later in captive elk, at other wildlife research facilities in Colorado (Ft. Collins, Kremmling, and Meeker) and Wyoming (Wheatland), as well as in at least two zoological collections. More recently, CWD has been diagnosed in privately-owned elk residing in game ranches in seven states (Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and South Dakota) and two provinces (Saskatchewan and Alberta, Canada). In August 2002, CWD was diagnosed in a captive white-tailed deer on a hunting preserve in Wisconsin. Although CWD was first diagnosed in captive research cervids, the original source of CWD in either captive cervids or free-ranging cervids is unknown. There is no known relationship between CWD and any other TSE.


Hunting Out-Of-State
On June 16, 2003, the Fish and Game Commission adopted regulations restricting the importation of hunter-harvested deer and elk into California to replace the emergency regulations enacted in 2002. These emergency regulations were in effect immediately and lasted 120 days, allowing DFG time to develop permanent regulations. The emergency regulations allowed deer/elk carcasses to be transported into the State only if they were submitted to a certified meat processor within 72 hours of entry. Heads for taxidermy were allowed into the State if the heads were submitted to a taxidermist within 72 hours of entry. The meat processor and the taxidermist processing hunter-harvested deer and elk from out-of-state had to dispose of unused tissues, brain and spinal column in a landfill approved for carcass or undergo incineration.

The new regulations eliminated the 72 hour grace period and do not allow the importation of any brain or spinal column tissue. Other body parts allowed by the proposed regulations include: Quarters and other portions of meat with no spinal column (backbone, spinal cord, etc.) or head attached; hides with no heads attached; clean skull plates with antlers attached; antlers only; finished taxidermy heads; and upper canine teeth.

This regulation is necessary to minimize the risk of transport of the CWD prion into California. There is a theoretical risk that CWD could be transported into California in a CWD-infected carcass, and due to improper disposal of infected body parts (brain, spinal cord and lymph nodes), could potentially expose our native free-ranging deer/elk to the disease. No infectivity has been detected in skeletal muscle tissue, therefore, removal of nervous and lymphatic tissue from meat should remove the prion from an infected carcass.

Clinical Signs
Deer and elk affected with CWD show progressive loss of body condition accompanied by behavioral changes. In the later stages of disease, emaciation, excessive salivation, increased drinking and urination, stumbling, trembling, grinding of teeth, drooping of head and ears, and depression may be observed prior to death. As with other TSEs, the clinical course of CWD appears to be progressive and irreversible, ultimately leading to the death of affected animals. Because the clinical signs of CWD disease are relatively nonspecific, laboratory examination of clinical suspects is essential for confirming this diagnosis.