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Originally Posted by SpiritCarrier
Nature is brutal which is why we as a more advanced species should not be.
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I do agree with you about hunting for sport, but I think it's a mistake to see ourselves as being such an advanced species as that.
Certainly we are advanced from a technological and intellectual standpoint, but we don't exist separately from that brutal nature. We are a part of it, and our existence is at it's mercy. Our prolonged survival relies upon our responsible participation in nature - something we have certainly not been doing. Because we've not been responsible, we're seeing the vanishing fish stocks, the disappearance of species, the depletion of ground waters (and the resulting desertification), etc.
We are just as much a part of nature as the lions, the prey the lions hunt, and the vegetation that feeds that prey.
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Originally Posted by SpiritCarrier
Trophy hunting is nothing more than mankind flexing his muscles. It is cruel and unnecessary. It is bullish behavior from a group who believe killing is the way to show they are superior.
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It is - but that's precisely how nature works. Just as animals will attack one another to display their dominance, humans sometimes attack animals to display theirs. Or sometimes they even attack other humans. The most aggressive people tend to be the most insecure... It's not a feeling of superiority that makes them want to display their dominance, but rather a feeling of
inferiority that they are trying to beat back.
If you look back in human history, you would find a time when we didn't have the technology we do today, and we had to fight and scrape out our existence every single day. It's hard to imagine that nowadays because when we're hungry we just go to the mall and pick up what we need, or grow our own food on land that has been long since cleared of dangerous animals. But back then, large physically superior predators like lions would have posed a serious threat to us. We would have been competing with animals like them for territory, food, or shelter. Even securing water for ourselves would have had it's dangers, whereas now we just turn on a tap at home.
The thing is - as a species we aren't any different today than we were back then. The only differences would be that our technology has grown more advanced, and that due to modern comforts we've lost most of our survival instincts. The latter is similar to what happens to a domesticated animal (which is a strange way of thinking about it). But if you were to strip away today's technology, we would be exactly the same as we would have been back then. Once again at the mercy of the elements and predatory animals.
What I'm getting at is though we may rationally recognize that humans have risen to the top of the food chain, our elevation was merely the result of
our technology becoming better - not us. That means all those primal fears still exist inside us, and some people are going to act against those fears (whether consciously or not) by asserting their dominance through trophy hunting.
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Originally Posted by SpiritCarrier
Angers me beyond belief. Animals do these things out of instinct, cat toying with injured bird is doing something instinctual, possibly even trying to play with it. Man shooting an animal for the joy of having a trophy is nothing more than cruel and indefensible behavior. Again nature is brutal enough we as the human race do not need to add to it.
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It is instinct in us as well though. Not shooting things with guns, but seeking to display our dominance. If you look at children at any school, teens in any high school, or even adults in any work place, you'll find the same type of behaviour in them as you find in animals. The difference in humans is that we have the ability to recognize our behaviour and overcome that instinctual behaviour, but even when we do so those instincts are still there. They're just buried. Being bullies is behaviour that comes naturally to us. It was through being bullies that we were ever able to rise to the top of the food chain, and it is through being bullies now that we remain there.
I'm not defending trophy hunting at all, because like you I think it is wrong to do. But I don't think the intention behind it is purely malicious, or that it's unable to be understood.
That being said, I do think Riboflavin made some very good points in regards to the way we eat. The cruelty found in our meat and farming industries
vastly outweigh a trophy hunter paying to hunt one animal. At least that lion got to live it's life as a lion up to that point. That's a better life than how we shackle calves by the hundreds of thousand (if not millions) so that over the course of their short lives they can never stand up and develop muscle, because doing so would affect the tenderness of the veal. That to me is a far more despicable practice.
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