killing wildlife

Originally Posted by Native spirit

i have no problem with anyone killing animals for food its when the kill them for the sake of killing i dont think is right.the animals lived freely on the lands that humans decided they wanted for their own, so the animals encroach on peoples gardens eat ther flowers etc,what are they supposed to do, to kill animals for food is one thing killing them because they go into someones garden is not right,

Namaste

Hunting season in my neck of the woods never is at the same time as gardening season, but that doesn't stop me from fishing.

A long time ago here in what is now Virginia there were natural predators such as panthers(puma) and wolves. They kept the whitetail deer population in check. From 1607 and through the colonial era, Virginia governors and those of other English colonies put bounties upon panthers and wolves as they were sometimes a threat to livestock. Their hides also fetched a fair price. These natural predators were hunted and trapped into extinction in this area. There’s been several reports of puma and other unknown large cats in the Appalachians.

Now there are only human predators left and by regulated hunts, deer are bagged as not to overpopulate thus making them subject to disease or other misfortune. With too many deer there’s a better chance of someone hitting one while driving. Antlers, hooves and a large body flipping over the hood and into a windshield at 55MPH or better can be quite fatal for both driver and passenger.

We do have coyote and the hybrid coywolves coming into this area, but their populations are still low. Sometimes they get a taste for people's pets and livestock. Some have been shot.

Originally Posted by LPC

So are you going to cull excess humans, too?

It would certainly help solve a lot of problems. But no, we won't consider that one. Apparently it's okay to murder things in large quantities so long as it isn't a human.

At any rate, for those of you naysaying the use of culls as a form of population control, I'd suggest you take a few courses in ecology and natural resource management. Most of us who have this expertise don't particularly like this tool from an ethical standpoint, but we understand why it can be necessary. Chrysaetos pretty much has it nailed. If you don't cull deer herds, you get even worse cascades throughout local or regional ecosystems. We cull non-native invasive plants for pretty much the same reasons; the costs of inaction are unacceptable. The usual reason invoked for deer culls, however, is road safety. Large deer herds increase the deer-vehicle collision rates, which are expensive and result in injuries/fatalities. Unfortunate that ecological reasons are not the usual, but most humans are nauseatingly anthropocentric, so go figure.

Speaking of anthropocentrism, that we suppose there's some way nature ought to be is the only reason we do anything at all. Humans are part of the planet's ecological systems, and to say our meddling disrupts balances is not true to the science. The notion of balance in general is ecological poppycock. Ecosystems are dynamic systems, not eternally sustaining things. Humans get impatient, though, and claim there's some way things should be. We fell this need to "correct" what we "messed up" even though there's not really anything that needs correcting. To suggest it needs correction claims nature ought to be in some particular state; that's a subjective value judgement. I'm not meaning to suggest we should not impose such value judgements, but we need to recognize that we're doing so.

Originally Posted by sesheta

Thank you :)
I have always been a huge animal lover. Another case in point:

The house I moved out of last year was out in the country...there were all kinds of critters out there all the time. It was on a gravel road - not much traffic. However, one night around dinner time I looked out the kitchen window and saw one of the groundhogs that lived on our property crossing the road. In the time it took me to walk from the kitchen to the dining room - it had been hit by a passing vehicle. I rushed outside to check on it...it did not seem to be breathing, but it also did not seem very injured - no open wounds..the only evidence was one small drop of blood in one corner of its mouth. So I carefully scooped it up in my arms and carried it, like a baby, to the hill on our property where I knew its hole was...I laid it down gently under a tree by the hole, and went back inside....(people at work were almost disgusted that I even touched it with my bare hands..sigh...)
The next day, I went out to check, and the groundhog was no longer there. So I like to think it was merely "knocked out" by being struck, and simply needed time to regain consciousness...
I was also shocked by how soft its fur was...I had assumed that, since they spend a lot of their time underground, their fur would be wiry..but it was very soft!

There's a good chance a scavenger dragged it away. I feel bad every time I see a groundhog dead on the road. They cause no one harm.

I know...but I prefer my theory that it revived.....it is possible. I hit a cat one night on my way home from work, but it had simply been hit by the muffler, and was perfectly fine within half an hour.....So just because an animal has been struck on the road doesn't mean it immediately dies...the same as humans - we can be hit, and still recover, as long as someone gets us off the road first

Originally Posted by sesheta

I know...but I prefer my theory that it revived.....it is possible. I hit a cat one night on my way home from work, but it had simply been hit by the muffler, and was perfectly fine within half an hour.....So just because an animal has been struck on the road doesn't mean it immediately dies...the same as humans - we can be hit, and still recover, as long as someone gets us off the road first

Greetings, sesheta.

I've seen deer grazed or bumped by vehicles and survive.

My hopes are the groundhog crawled into it's hole and mended up. Usually their thick soft fur stays unscathed and does not betray the real injury inside.

Sadly enough sesheta, animals are killed on the road. I like to hold the thought that their spirits journey well and perhaps spark into other lives.

A few weeks ago a farmers sheep were killed not eaten, but it was assumed that cougars were to blame, so they got dogs to track cougars and a few were caught and shot.A lot of us don't understand why cougars would kill and not eat them, the sheep were penned so it may not have been any hungry animals. All of this wild life is mainly in rural areas, but the City is expanding into these same areas. I'm an animal lover and a vegetarian, that's why it saddens me.

[Chrysaetos]

Originally Posted by Native spirit

i have no problem with anyone killing animals for food its when the kill them for the sake of killing i dont think is right.the animals lived freely on the lands that humans decided they wanted for their own, so the animals encroach on peoples gardens eat ther flowers etc,what are they supposed to do, to kill animals for food is one thing killing them because they go into someones garden is not right,

Namaste

You have never killed another creature for other reasons besides food?

Originally Posted by sesheta

I agree that if we had allowed Nature to keep itself in balance by maintaining the natural predators, there would not usually be a need to "cull" anything.
It is human interference that is normally the root cause of the problems. At one point they removed all the wolves from Yellowstone Park, and yes, everything went out of balance. The wolves were re-introduced and...shock...nature re-balanced itself!

The idea of ''balance'' is just a romantic idea though. Even if we remove the large predators things will still play out, some species will start to thrive at the cost of other species. When people mention ''balance'' they really think about their preferred version of a specific ecosystem, in which (mostly popular) species can thrive (balance can be seen as stability, but even without human interference there are many other causes that interrupt this stability which is why I prefer not to use the term, unless we see that as part of balance itself).

[Chrysaetos]

Originally Posted by knightofalbion

Life is progressive. As we climb ever higher through the spheres of Light we come more and more to understand about Love and the unity of life, and we recognise that we must turn away from killing and bloodshed, violence and intolerance.
'Let there be peace on earth - and let it begin with me.'

Are all the vegetables, fruits, and grains you eat are from your own garden?

[Chrysaetos]

Originally Posted by LPC

So are you going to cull excess humans, too?

But that's against the law! Hehehe.

Nah, I won't advocate it. The similarities and our level of empathy and understanding of our own kind is reason enough for me to consider it a taboo.

As for culls of other species.. there's many places in the world that could need a culling. Many invasive species threaten local flora and fauna. We can either decide not to do something and accept a reduction in biodiversity and extinction of species or prevent it. Deer in Hawaii? Rats and cats in New Zealand? There's plenty examples.

[BlueSky]

Fact: If it wasn't for conservation efforts, which include hunting and trapping, there would be no wildlife.
This is easily researchable.