Since hunting is more humane than winter kill, shouldn't PETA support licensed hunting?

Question

It's more cruel to let Deer die from over-population and winter kill than it is to allow hunting and license fee's and thereby provide for better conservation. Are they missing the logic?

Answer 1

PETA is against any cruelty to animals caused by humans.  They believe humans should live apart from animals and leave them to their own affairs.  Deer dieing of natural causes is okay.

Answer 2

'Natural' predators are not kinder, do not use more humane methods of killing, so we should not suggest natural predation to Peta, at least not if humans are to be involved in reintroducing it.

Our Delaware (Native) congress long ago came to the conclusion that the community must evaluate the amount of food left on pasture as the trees start to drop leaves. If there is not enough pasture, then we must harvest enough herbivores to ensure not only that the herbivores will not starve, but also that there will be left-over food come spring.

If there are too few deer, so that there is a major abundance of pasture, it was agreed that the nation should harvest some wolves and panther, not to ensure that wolves will not starve but to ensure that the herbivores can recover their numbers.

The numbers of herbivores or carnivores to be harvested could never be estimated with great precision. What would be done for herbivores was not to rush about harvesting some perfect number in fall, but rather plan to wait until there was snow on the land, so that meat would keep better.

With today's weapons and organized drives we can cull herds far too heavily, so we can try harder to avoid cutting down the population as far. But in absence of natural predators the risk of gross over-kill is much less significant.

Answer 3

LOGIC isn't allowed in conversations about PETA...

I would guess that their stance is that hunting isn't natural - but starving to death during the winter is...

The fact of the matter is that because HUMANS have removed predators from areas, the former prey of those removed predators has been able to increase population to levels that exceed the carrying capacity of the range.  That sets up a huge die-off should a severe winter strike.  To combat the loss of "natural" predators, predation by humans in the form of hunting becomes the tool used to regulate herd size.  It's either allow hunting as a management tool, or allow the herd sizes to increase to unnatural levels which strip the range of available sustenance and set up the herd for a catastrophic fall.  

Me?

I'll stick with allowing hunting, combined with (if possible or practical) reintroduction of natural predators to certain areas as a viable management tool.

Answer 4

You are assuming PETA is a rational organization.