Internet Hunting Banned in California 984
TheSync writes "California has banned Internet hunting. Emergency regulations will be put in place by the California Fish and Game Commission, and legislation (SB 1028) is in the works. West Virginia is considering legislation against it as well. Hunters consider hunting by robot and mouse click 'a digrace to the sport,' whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine."
PETA approved (Score:3, Interesting)
Tracking and Killing Innocent Animals? (Score:1, Interesting)
One state has 1.5 million deer. You have to kill half of those every year or the population will increase. If it increases enough, people won't be able to keep them out of their gardens and disease will spread, tossing the wildlife into a dangerous spot. What the fuck do you propose? Are you honestly suggesting that people stop hunting them? Are you suggesting that taxpayer money be used to kill 750,000 deer per year, then just throw away the meat because ``meat is murder''? You'd probably ban guns, too, so that the only recourse is to poison the animals, which is imprecise and ultimately far more damaging. When all the Earth is soaked in Roundup and animal poison, what do you think you're going to eat?
In short, you are a moron. You don't know enough about the situation to speak intelligently about it, and the ``situation'' here is nature and the food supply. I suggest shutting the hell up unless you want to risk undermining your credibility on every subject.
Can't control offshore shooting (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course most likely you'd not be really killing real animals, any more than you're talking to an innocent teen when you dial 0900-VIRGIINS. Instead you'd pay your $50 or whatever and the whole shooting would be mocked up, probably from Discovery channel footage. That way a few thousand cyberhunters get to "shoot" the same bambi and nobody really gets hurt except a few credit cards.
Was this important to you? (Score:4, Interesting)
This sounds like passing a law for PR, nothing else. We dont need feel good, nanny laws created. This is law is purely about ones feeling about hunting, nothing more.
People need to stop passing more laws for behavior and freedoms of the people, and deal with voilent crimes, polution or robbery. They need to stay out of peoples lives and hobbies.
If they said "No Church Online" you bet there would be more people talking about this law.
Serriously, do you need to be told what you can watch, what you can eat, who you can marry, whats proper in your own home? Damn if you people dont see this is a fluff law you are a sheep.
Re:Wait... Logic Check... (Score:5, Interesting)
In my case, I *have* been deer hunting and goose hunting --- myself armed with a camera, and my companions with guns. I've had a bleeding deer carcase in my lap for 45 miles bouncing along in an open jeep in 25F weather,
I don't think I could pull the trigger, and there is that little issue that I'm a vegetarian. But I don't hate "hunters."
I do, however, hate dickwads with guns. In my day job, I put up scientific apparatus in remote places, and dickwads with guns use my antennas for target practice, chop up my coax, steal the guy lines, and generally remind us that the gene pool has a shallow end.
But if there is one group of people who should *really* loathe dickwads with guns, it is
What is this? (Score:2, Interesting)
A good use for this. (Score:2, Interesting)
No doubt from one that has never been hunting and frozen his balls off or gone one-on-one with a wild pig.
Still, I guess there could be some useful things to do with internet hunting. In many places there are various pest species. iHunters could help shoot 'em up and also help pay for pest elimination. For instance, here in New Zealand we have possums introduced from Australia http://www.invasive-animals.org.nz/possum/ [invasive-animals.org.nz] I kill about 50 of these a year and still they come... I would not mind a couple of ihunters setting up camp at my place so long as they don't shoot the kids and sheep.
Re:Hunting (Score:5, Interesting)
But the public in most areas is largely unaware of what sort of damage the burgeoning deer population can do to the woods. They just graze and graze and cause automobile accidents. And interestingly enough, they are involved by far in more fatal attacks on people than any other North American wild mammal. Yet people fear the quite miniscule numbers of wolves and cougars...
Re:What the F? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hunting (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A good use for this. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Hunting (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:PETA approved (Score:3, Interesting)
Funny, I'm taking a nutrition class (part of a RN nursing program) right now and we just finished covering vegan Vs. vegitarian, Vs. omnivore diet. In a strict vegan diet there is _no_ source of B12. It is an animal derived (or synthetic) material. If you consume enough enriched vegitarian (not vegan) foods you'd be fine as a later post points out you loose very little over time.
My facts are fine, you're just being an ass.
-nB
My family hunts for food (Score:2, Interesting)
It provided my single mother and my sister and I with organic, all-natural meat for a year every time she went elk hunting. Though it was part of the experience, she never hunted purely for sport. When we kids graduated and moved out she stopped hunting because she didn't financially have to.
This is a form of hunting that has ancient traditions. It's respectful to the animals because we hunt with gratitude for the well-being of prey and take measures to make sure they are sustained and protected by legislation. When they are threatened, those who depend on them are threatened.
Internet hunting is a sport for those who have made no investment in the animals they hunt. It sickens me that hunters who do it for the rush of the kill would associate themselves with the human tradition of depending on animals for our food. There's nothing in common between the two.
Re:A good use for this. (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah, but our big brains and opposable thumbs make us very good hunters (us very good tool builders/users can use tools to overcome our lack of running speed, sharp claws and sharp teeth). The calorie density of meat is the only reason your distant (and your fairly recent) ancestors flourished and resulted in a population that included you.
Among primitive man, nobody who lived very long was a vegetarian, and nobody had the luxury of buying their meat already killed and cleanly presented in the supermarket. If they didn't kill the animal themselves, they knew who did.
If you're a strict vegetarian, congrats, I haven't got much criticism for you (though I do dislike a lot of the self-deceptive propaganda you read). If you're not a vegetarian and you buy meat from a supermarket, there's only one response you deserve:
Sit down and shut the fuck up.
Having someone else kill your meat for you doesn't put you in any better ethical position than a hunter who kills his own meat. If anything, the hunter has some control over how much pain the animal feels as it dies. You'll need to be keeping a close watch on the slaughterhouse that supplies your butcher to claim the same ability. As someone who had an informal tour of an operating slaughterhouse, I know I can do better with a rifle. And after taking that tour, which showed me just how horrible the process is that puts cleanly wrapped cuts of meat on the supermarket shelf, I took up hunting again.
Regards,
Ross
Re:You're violating my rights! (Score:5, Interesting)
Except, you call it a "sport" and I call it "putting lean, healthy meat in my freezer, and helping to manage wildly out of balance deer populations."
I know a lot of hunters, and I don't know a single one - at all - that takes pleasure, per se, in the act of killing the animal they're taking. The nearest thing to it would be the pride they take in being good at it - which results (by way of a well placed shot) in a humane kill, and less wasted meat.
Now, I do know people that take great joy in swatting mosquitos, or killing rats in their house, etc. Those are people that kill a creature just for their own convenience/happiness. But those are as likely to be non-hunters as hunters.
Re:A good use for this. (Score:4, Interesting)
Indian culture is vegetarian (India indians, not native americans). As they are the second most populated country with around 800 million habitants (or almost a billion as americans call them) I would say that you can be vegetarian, live long and procriate.
On top of that mankind has another source of proteins that doesnt involve hunting. Man started domesticating animals thousands of years ago.
ethics of hunting (Score:3, Interesting)
Although I agree with you on the role of evolution, I disagree with using it as justification. Primitive man also killed his competition for a better chance of propagation. As for our biological requirements, you are completely right.
As for having someone else (butcher) kill an animal vs killing it yourself, I believe that killing the animal yourself is more ethical. Look at how much meat is thrown away in this country. People who kill their own animals tend to have much more respect for the creature and do not waste them. Where I disagree with you is in the making a sport out of killing the creature. I have butcherd a few animals (goats, sheep, and pig) for BBQ's. However, I try to make it quick, simple, and as painless as possible.
Now, I do understand the desire for the sport, hell, we've got millions of years of evolution that make it desireable. There's the inrush of all kinds of hormones and nuerochemicals to make it a desireable activity. But, as a thinking being I find it distasteful to make sport out of killing.
Just my $0.02
Calling bluff. (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't you see some error in your way of thinking? How is KILLING more deer to allow RECOVER the original population? Or you mean the population is STILL TOO HIGH (despite the mass dying because of the harsh winter) and you intend to help recover its original, lower number?
Truth is, the population WOULD have regulated itself. 75% of the population - the weakest would die. Next year the "boom" would be smaller. Then possibly there would be more food over winter, and so, in some time the population would ballance itself, equal number dying over winter as being born as "surplus" over normal population.
But no, hunters couldn't stand seeing so much good meat, so much game going to waste. Feed them now, shot them later, the preferred way. Of course let the weak survive so we could shot the best ones and still have the numbers matching.
The problem with hunters is that they justify their actions by short-term problems ("if we don't kill enough deers, they will destroy trees this winter") while their long-term tactics is directed at maximizing their own interest - first kill off all the predators (remove the competition) then maximize the population, while maximizing hunting - more born, more killed, more meat. The ballance could be kept - some predators, some herbivores and just several shots a year to keep the ballance wherever it gets out of hand. But no, you prefer to turn forests into game factory, where you MUST kill A LOT of wild animals to keep the area from ecological disaster. It's not "population control". It's "meat harvest."
Re:A good use for this. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a vegetarian by default, as my wife's a vegan. Critical thought. If you use it then you are going to be fine. Consider your source, find corroboration, etc... You know, the stuff that no one does anymore...
The far bigger problem, as you pointed out, is the sanitized version of eating meat that most enjoy, and take for granted on levels not seen in many other arenas (in other words, self-deceptive propaganda). Coupled with the fact that we do not need to eat meat to survive (our "big brains" have taught us how to eat healthier on a no meat diet) and the "propaganda" swell shifts. While waiting for the next Outback Steakhouse commercial, my wife has stacks of University studies to read showing the health benefits of going veggie.