Your views on hunting vegetarians/vegans

Question

my dad said that if people didnt hunt, overpopulation would occur and then the deer would starve, not just deer but whatever you hunt.

i dont know. is there any evidence to support this?

i am a vegetarian and hate the thought of killing anything!

Answer 1

Keep in mind that while you are defending your vegan diet, does your dad defend his diet, high in saturated fat, cholesterol, and sugar?  Stop engaging in such debates with unenlightened people.

Answer 2

Yes, it's true. Wild animal control officers need to ensure that the number of animals, say deer, can be sustained by the habitat in which they live. Unfortunately, because of human activity (including decreasing number of predator species because humans usually kill dangerous animnals such as wolves, bears and mountain lions for safety purposes), the size of this habitat, has decreased dramatically. One solution,among many others, was to allow a certain amount of hunting in specific places to help control population. Only about one third of all hunting tags (last time I checked in California) are filled meaning an animal was actually killed by the hunter.

Hunters use guns, rifle, pistol, modern and/or  "black powder" or bows.  Non commercial fishing is also a form of hunting

Answer 3

It makes me sad =\

And I don't *think* we kill enough to effect the population of wildlife.

Answer 4

I often ask myself how people could just go out and kill an innocent animal.  The common excuse is overpopulation which is simply untrue.  Mother nature has a way of taking care of itself (if you didn't kill the fox the rabbits wouldn't become overpopulated etc.)  This is a fact.

Answer 5

i am a vegetarian. however, i believe that if someone is going to eat an animal, he or she better go out and hunt it his/herself. one shot to the head and the animal is dead; painless. I know many hunters who would never let an animal suffer. I do think it is disgusting to see animal heads/bodies hanging in someone's home. what factory farms do is inexcusable and THAT is why i am a vegetarian

Answer 6

Human is invading the animal kingdom. What is justice? This earth is belongs to everyone. I confront that land was owned by deer before your father born. I think to this point everyone should agree to this.

Man argues about animal over-population without understanding how the ecology and biodiversity works NATURALLY. Human would definitely reach a stage to cull human overpopulation in the same way, when all other resources degraded. It just a matter of “Code of Ethics” for different epoch of civilization.

Answer 7

State fish and game departments usually determine the number of permits they will issue each season on the basis of counts that have been taken.

I live in the woods on a mountainside, and we have lots of deer. Hunting is forbidden here, and the predators that regulate the numbers of deer are mostly coyotes, which we also have.

Unfortunately, the populations of both fluctuate out of phase: When deer are plentiful the coyotes have lots of puppies, and then a couple of years later they reduce the deer population to the point where the coyotes begin to suffer. The number of coyotes goes down and then, after a delay of a year or two, the deer population rises again.

It's a good thing I'm not a gardening fan, because the deer eat just about anything you want to grow, unless you are willing to fence your garden both sides and top (deer can jump pretty high.)

Answer 8

Actually, I think hunting for game is one of the best way to get meat. I am not against the death of animals, I'm against how typical meat companies treat their animals before their end. Hunting is allows the animal to get away - like animals should naturally do!

But to answer your question, the state typically evaluates how over populated the game is. Then it will issue that number of licenses to hunters. Typically, hunters can only shoot 1 deer per year, for example. Or that is what I have been told.  

Answer 9

I am vegetarian, and do not exactly agree with hunting, but when it comes to population control, that's another story. I live in an area where the deer are so terribly overpopulated, they are running out in traffic across the highway all of the time causing accidents, and one of these days someone's going to get killed! There's two reasons that jump out at me on this: the first reason, is that the hillbillys around here decided they had to kill the coyotes, wolves and mountain lions becasue they attack their livestock (which people shouldn't eat cows, pigs, chickens anyway), but everyone's entitled to their choice of food. I personally don't eat meat or hunt. The second reason for this is the deer are by a Nuclear Power Plant, therefore, there is a radius around it to where you cannot cross or the police will be called on you. You cannot hunt on their property (firearms and Nuclear Power Plants don't mix). Yes, the deer were there before the power plant, and yes, I'm sure plenty were killed to build the Plant. But in my opinion, when they get to be a danger to people, like running out in the road causing accidents, suffering when they get run over and not killed immediately and getting diseases from inbreeding with each other, then I think hunting is ok.

Answer 10

Your father is exactly right.  

Answer 11

well, i don't hunt vegetarians or vegans.  hunting people is wrong.  lol, look at your punctuation next time.  your initial question worried me.  

anyway, i hate hunting.  what the heck did Bambi ever do to you?  i'm not a vegetarian, i just hate hunting.

Answer 12

Only in certain cases. There are many animal species being hunted (e.g. birds) that are also controlled by other predators. It also depends on the state/region.

Deer is a special case. Deer populations have exploded because humans culled their natural predators (wolves, big cats). So in this case your dad is right, but I also dislike the thought of humans playing God, even to redress past wrongs.

Answer 13

Nature is in a constant state of fluctuating equilibrium. Yes the population would grow to the point of over saturation at which point the competition for resources would make some, but not all or most, starve. Also too much hunting reduces available prey for wild predators whose cubs would then starve. Life, whether in the animal kingdom or the realm human endeavors has no easy answers. Best of luck stick to your own convictions. :)

Answer 14

You're dad is not really right. Populations of wild animals cycle naturally based on things like the availability of food (less food = fewer babies produced that year). In some cases however, humans have killed or destroyed the habitat for predators can cause some imbalances in their populations, though the deer are also known to move to other areas when food gets low (including to all the lovely grass and shrubs we have in the parks, yards, etc. we have in our cities). Also, I tend to be in favour of correcting the problem which causes the absence of predators, over culling the prey, though this is usually more difficult to achieve.

However, you shouldn't condemn your father for hunting. Although I too am a vegetarian, I recognize and respect people's wish/need to eat meat (humans are omnivores after all).  

Also, my diet choice is based more on the wish to reduce my ecological footprint than anything else, and at the end of the day, getting meat through hunting is often more environmentally sustainable than buying your meat from the grocery store. Much of commercially produced meat is factory-farmed (hugely bad for the environment), and the animals in those farms are treated dreadfully. (exceptions being free-range, organic, and the quickly disappearing 'mom-and-pop farms', etc. types of products which are often difficult to find and quite expense).

Also, I work in the environmental field and have found that many hunters are also very strenuous conservationists - you can't be a good hunter without gaining an intimate knowledge of the animals and their habitats.  

Maybe your dad would be willing to volunteer a few hours here and there helping an environmental group improve the natural areas in your community? You could go with, and doing some family bonding along the way.

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