Hunting for sport.

IanExMachina

I feel it is cruel and pointless.

If the hunting was because you needed food and you did it in a humane way, fine.

Mainly making this thread as a lot of fuss over fox hunting on the news today, as whilst it has been banned in the UK a lot of the rural/rich toffs are arguing for it to be unbanned. The conservatives being the party they are have a agreed to vote on repealing the ban.

(Also lots of hypocrisy from the pro-hunt MPs saying that as people are still breaking the hunting law it is unworkable and so should be repealed, you know in the same way people still break murder laws and we repealed them. Not to mention the widespread condemnation of the London rioters for breaking the law but not for the huntsmen for breaking it etc etc.)

MadassAlex

Hunting for "sport" generally strikes me as untruthy terminology, given that sport hunting generally involves using firearms at least, if not hunting dogs and the like for tracking down defenseless prey.

Quite apart from being cruel, it lacks any sort of testicular value; if one is to make a point of hunting, it would probably be more palatable if they were to even the odds by using less advanced technology and choosing game that may well choose to hunt back.

It's still pointless, needless violence, but at least it would express some degree of fitness, skill and mental strength.

With that in mind, I suggest hunting bears with spear or sword.

Icalasari

^ A real man kills a grizzly with their bare hands

Octo

Since when does sport need to have any "testicular value"?

I don't think animals should be hunted purely for sport, but basically saying "it's not manly enough" is a quite, quite silly argument, IMO.

Now, if animals need to be hunted anyway (since their high numbers begin to get damaging to forrest ecology, the primary reason of shooting animals here - and boars especially have become a pest the last twenty years or so), well, then might as well make a sport out of it.

Crimson

>Now, if animals need to be hunted anyway (since their high numbers begin
to get damaging to forrest ecology, the primary reason of shooting
animals here - and boars especially have become a pest the last twenty
years or so), well, then might as well make a sport out of it.

This. With a lot of natural predators gone (our fault admittedly), hunting certain animals is actually a viable way of preservation. With regulations of course. In case of deer you can only shoot bucks, and only while in season etc.

Illegal hunting, poaching, and "Big Game" hunting disgust me though.

Firebert

I like venison...

InsanityAddict

Meh, population control can be done with hired hunters who know how to kill in a effecient and as painless as possible manner, not eejits who do it for sport.

Octo

^^I like wild boar poark. It's very good, practically naturally spicy. That's the positive side of the boar pest - wild boar pork is still way more expensive than normal meat, but actually affordable these days.

Icalasari

^^ At the very least they could require hunters to give up the body (let them keep the head if they REALLY want it) so the body could be sold for cheap and feed a few people (as far as I can tell, for sport hunting usually means that they waste the body as all they want is a trophy)