if I couldn't handle killing and gutting an animal I shouldn't be eating meat

I had this exact line of thinking. But for me that means I don't eat meat anymore. Killing really turns my stomach, and I don't actually need meat to be healthy.

But I love hiking and camping, I just bring my own food instead of a gun or fishing pole.

Shooting a deer that’s lived wild and free, making every effort to make the kill as quick and painless as possible seems like just about the most ethical way to get meat that I can think of. And especially in areas where the deer population is too high, it’s really important for managing the ecosystem. Plus, ammo and equipment sales get taxed specifically to fund conservation, which is important.

I also feel like if you can’t stomach the process of killing and cleaning an animal, maybe you shouldn’t eat meat at all?

By and large, I think hunting for food is a great way to get more in touch with where your food comes from, one of the most ethical ways to acquire meat, and a nice excuse to sit quietly in the woods without interruption. Trophy hunters can fuck off tho.

Hunting with a valid reason (for food, population control, etc.) is acceptable and/or a necessity.

Hunting for funsies only - including all the BS safari hunting that are essentially glorified high tech fishing trips - is disgusting

As long as it's done responsibly and legally I have no issues with it.

It's cool and good, but where I live it's becoming increasingly expensive. Yes to locals/workers hunting their own food on communal land. No to upper class bastards flying in to hunt, getting themselves and their setters airlifted back to a lodge for lunch, etc. And trophy hunting should not be a thing.

I'm from Finland, which has a 1340km border with Russia.

When my grandad grew up you'd either hunt or fish if you wantes to eat. My dad hunted. I'm the only one of my siblings with a hunting license. I was raised with a lot of "when the Russians come"-mentality.

I've been moving countries, so I've had to give up my rifles and I'm not that passionate about it that I'd figure out where to go do it. But I do think it's a good skill to have, and I keep my license active.

And my two spaniels would love it.

Hunting for food is fine.

Hunting for trophies is not.

Depends on the type. Hunting pests like rabbits possums pigs, inseason game like ducks, pheasant and deer is all great. I dont like hunting rare endangered animals or helicopter hunting with a machine gun except if its a pest culling like feral pigs.

For the activity I really enjoy it. Its a great outdoor activity to do with friends and family. I like getting up early and heading out across the paddocks in the crisp morning and seeing the sun come out. I dont like butchering because im pretty odd about textures and smells but i'll do it when i have to. I dont find it to be inhumane at all.

I don't think the solution to the predators being gone is for humans to fill the gap, rather to let the predators make a return.

Here in Sweden we're looking to shoot most of our wolves for no good reason. That is after a considerable effort to stabilise the population and bring genetic diversity back to it.

It's a tough one, on one hand yes we killed their predators so we have to do it instead; on the other if those predators somehow come back then most often we just kill them again so we can continue hunting. I suppose my biggest issue with hunting is the seemingly inevitable wolf cull.

If there was no farmland, if the majority of this planets surface wasn't being used exclusively for human activities then I would have no problem at all with hunting; however that's not the case. Wild populations likely seem abundant but they are a fraction of what they were before industrialization/colonization (Overton Window) and further pressure on those populations, that are essentially holding on to slivers of the only land left for them, can only do harm (with the caveat of overpopulation).

As well, most hunters use lead bullets because they're cheap, so now all areas where hunting happens regularly are contaminated with lead, especially the predators (including humans) of that area (bioaccumulation).

I guess the least impactful way to hunt is to use copper/non-lead bullets(?) in rehabilitated farmland.

I've worked in wildlife conservation, and I'm all for it. With a few caveats.

• Be a fucking good shot. Practice. Don't slop and wound. Humane kills to the greatest extent possible. Know what the fuck you're doing.
• Eat the meat. Venison is delicious. Harvest, don't just take a trophy.
• No spears. Holy shit, please. See point 1. Why is this still a thing? Even a niche thing, but still.
• Don't scoff at tag prices. Be proud of your contribution. Donate to the crunchy granola hippies that ensure you have game to hunt.

not the answer you're looking for, but: i haven't eaten meat in five years, am the healthiest I've ever been, and no longer feel guilty about eating

I feel bad if I swat a fly or remove ants and other insect or rodents. It's unfortunately necessary.

Population control of deer is also necessary in areas with high density. I don't think I can do it, but I understand why it's necessary.

I also understand that hunting as a hobby is as much about enjoying the nature. I can do this fine without having to kill anything though. I'm not very competitive but if I wanted to use nature in a more challenging way, I'd probably hunt with a camera instead, which would still satisfy the game aspect of it.

My dream would be to own an area large enough to let nature exist alongside the humans, but this is just not possible for everyone to do. There's no wilderness left for nature where I live, so I guess population control is the only compromise for letting wild animals coexist with humans.

As for animal welfare I think meat production is a much more important part to regulate. It's disgusting how animals are breed only to be slaughtered without even having a chance to enjoy life even a little.

I grew up in a stand hunting family, but I never got the taste for it. I never thought it was very sporting to setup a feeder that runs throughout the year to train deer to have their meals where you can shoot them from your stand. I have killed and cleaned a deer, but if that was the only way I could consume meat I would be a vegetarian. I understand about conservation and controlling populations, deer are pests for farmers, but I can't say I'd go hunting with a rifle again.

I did really love hunting with my grandfather, he taught me about the ecosystem and the food chain in real terms and gave me a lifelong love of nature. Most times we'd go out we'd never even load our rifles. He had one deer he'd been tracking for years, a majestic, one-eyed, 13 point buck and had pictures of the deer across several seasons where you could see his rack grow. My grandfather called him rooster after a one-eyed friend of the family.

I have nothing against hunting, especially deer and wild boar. Wild boar are especially dangerous and aggressive so culling their numbers is a public safety good. And I know many poor rural families feed themselves bagging their limits so I wouldn't begrudge anyone trying to feed their family. Hunting as a sport though is a bit distasteful.

I like death but hate the outdoors

You might be interested in deer management on the Isle of Jura, in Scotland. The human population is a couple of hundred; there are 5,000 red deer. https://www.juradmg.co.uk/

Personally I applaud hunting for food. We are animals too, part of the ecosystem. Hunting just for trophies is disgusting though.

Hunting for food is OK, as long as proper technique is observed (safe, humane, environmentally responsible).

Hunting for fun is a sociopath's pastime.

I don't personally hunt. I never have, I'm a vegan, so I likely never will unless it is a task for genuine survival.

I don't mind hunters. I was raised in a family who hunts, out on the family land in WV they'd often hunt squirrels for making jerky. I think in a lot of areas where natural predation has been curtailed by human activity over the last few hundred to thousand years, it is potentially imperative that hunters do what they do. Near my hometown, there were semi-annual deer culls because the wild population was too high and could eventually cause a local ecological collapse.

I find sport hunting to be an atrocious waste of life. If you hunt an animal, you should make use of every usable part of that animal. Hides should be tanned and made into leather. Fur should be shorn off, and if it's long enough used to make yarns, otherwise used to make tinder. Large deposits of fat or gristle should be rendered to use as fuels, lubricants, or for cooking. Bones should be dried, crushed and burned to use as fertilizer. Sinuous fibers should be kept to make threads. Organs should be used as bait for fishing, or left out for carrion birds, or used to gather flies (and therefore maggots, to use for fishing).

As far as I can tell, every part of every animal can be, and therefore should be used.

I have no issues with hunting or hunters. I hate waste though. Especially wasted life.

I made a post a month or so ago ( https://piefed.blahaj.zone/c/asklemmy@piefed.blahaj.zone/p/982397/have-you-ever-encountered-large-carnivores-in-the-wild ) in which I referenced a book I was reading. It gave me insight. It blew away my prejudice towards hunters. I'm trying to eat as little meat as possible because of how we treat industrially produced animals, but this book taught me, showed me, how much reverence and respect most hunters have towards their pray.

Do you have any epic pictures to share?

Does population control that way actually work?

I'm pretty simple.

Hunting to eat it? Great. I love me some deer sausage.

Hunting to chopoff its head and mount it on your wall like some ghoulish asshole? Go fuck yourself.

I feel like trophy hunters don't show any respect to the animal, while hunters for eating do.

Just like humans have done for millennia and are meant too. Hunt. Cook. Feed. Then shit.

Rinse and repeat.

As a hunter myself, here are a few thoughts that come to mind on the subject:

1. As is almost always the case, “hunters” are not a homogeneous group. There are many reasonable hunters who hunt, among other reasons, because it’s an honest, nature-oriented, and animal-welfare-conscious way to obtain meat for their own consumption. But there are also idiots who are just eager to kill and/or want to bag big trophies (perhaps because they need to compensate for personal shortcomings). In my experience, however, that's only a tiny minority of the hunters I've met so far. Especially because of the pandemic, many people have been thinking about this topic, and I hope that young people will bring a breath of fresh air and sensible ideas to the community in this area as well. In my experience, the stereotype of the psychopathic gun nut is simply not true in the vast majority of cases.

2. We live in a cultural landscape. We must live in a cultural landscape because our survival (yes, even after we’re gone if we're vegan) depends on our ability to grow enough crops to feed ourselves. In a cultural landscape heavily shaped by human activity, natural regulatory mechanisms (more on this below) do not function, or function only to a very limited extent, because, for example, wild boars find much more food than they would in a natural (forest) ecosystem, which results in correspondingly high reproduction rates (up to 200% for wild boars). So I don’t think we can manage in the long term without some form of regulation. (It should be noted here that I am a big fan of predators like wolves and bears, and that we should reintroduce them wherever possible if we can manage to coexist with them.... Wolves and lynx, for example, are much better at regulating roe deer populations (or preventing overgrazing of young trees) than human hunters.) Furthermore, wildlife populations are only partially regulated by predators. For many species, disease and weather conditions play a more decisive role. These are, in and of themselves, natural processes that ensure populations do not get out of control and/or cannot permanently overuse local resources. In both cases, however, “natural regulation” is accompanied by an agonizing death for the individual, and it is this death itself that seems to be the main point of contention for some opponents of hunting, more on this below.

3. Ethical Considerations. Assuming I do my job as a hunter correctly, the animal (let’s say a deer) dies on the spot within seconds without suffering for long. If I don’t shoot the animal (and, as is currently the case in many countries, there are no large predators because they have been exterminated), it dies after about 15 years “of old age,” as the saying goes. What does that mean for the individual in practice? Eventually, its teeth become so worn down that it can no longer feed itself properly; it grows weaker, will likely fall ill at some point because its immune system weakens, and will either be strangled by a red fox, starve to death, freeze to death, or succumb to disease. In any case, the agony is significantly longer than if it were killed by a clean shot. So no matter how you look at it: There is no chance that the roe deer will not die, and (at least from my perspective) death by a well-placed bullet is the quickest, least stressful, and most painless death a roe deer can expect in the wild.

/edit: removed some dashed because I'm not a native english speaker and use an AI translator for more elaborate answers.

I agree on hunting, but only if it is for food (or regulation), and done with respect. I am pescarian, but if someone chased and killed a wild ram who lived an honourable life, I'd gladly eat a part.

My dad has been bow hunting and black powder rifle hunting for my entire life. he only uses primitive arms because he says "it's called hunting, not killing" and advanced weapons make it unfair. Most years he gets one or two deer. Some years he gets none. Sometimes he just sits in his tree and watches nature and doesn't even pick up his bow. Sometimes he gets incredibly emotional when he gets a kill.

A few years ago I learned how to tan the hides because I've always wanted to, and because he was becoming more and more passionate about not wasting any part of the animal. You can do it with simple chemicals or you can use the animal's brain!! (Unrelated fun fact, every mammal except the squirrel and the bison have exactly the right amount of brain matter to tan their own hides!)

I think it's great if you're doing it respectfully and consciously, and abiding by local conservation guidelines.

I won't take any life unless it's unavoidable. If I had to kill my own food, I'd rather be vegetarian.

Instead of killing, try a trip just to photograph the animals. Then compare your experiences. The killing may not be what you enjoy about your hunting trips.

hunting for food is ethical, over killing, killing for profit, killing for sport are not.

Do it responsibly and eat what you hunt?

Go to town.

I agree that nobody should be eating anything they would not prepare - I don't hunt because I don't like camping and am a terrible shot, would be a menace with a gun. But I have gently raised chickens, and am at ease with eating meat, and DO want to know what I am eating. So hunted fowl and grass fed ranch animals are great, , I try to eat less meat humanely raised. We are animals and omnivores and we belong to this cycle of life.

People who want meat as a sanitized experience, who don't want to think about what they are eating, that does bother me. Vegans don't bother me, that makes sense. Hunters (for food) don't bother me. Fishing kinda does, because the oceans are so overfished, we need to lay off awhile.

Anyway - I do think it's ethical, a deer is going to be somebody's food and a quick death is gentler than what a different predator would do.

I really like birding. IMO it's all the fun parts of hunting without any of the killing.

We fucked up the wolf populations so its our moral imperative to control deer populations.

I've never wanted to do it myself, but am very appreciative when hunter buddies share the carcasses of their victims. :)

Hunting is fine. All that thinking will get you into trouble though. /s

There are mostly two:

• hunting is good
• hunting is bad

I have deer in my yard every day and I don't think I could. I loves them. The other thing is, because of parasite risk, you have to cook the shit out of the meat, I feel like it probably wouldn't be that good. If I had to feed my kids I absolutely would, but I wouldn't enjoy it. I can see how going out in nature to hunt by yourself could be enjoyable though.

I grew up in a tiny village where "everyone" had at least one hunting rifle, so I may be biased but I think it's fine as long as it's done in a sustainable way.

The main game was moose, and there was a strict quota every year about how many of them could be killed. And I can confirm that it was sustainable as it was still moose everywhere (to the point where I remember sitting by my PC one day, playing Quake, noticing there was a moose outside of my windows, eating apples on the lawn.

I wouldn't be interested in going hunting myself.

I would disapprove of hunting for sport.

If someone does hunt and it's actually for food or whatever, I don't like it but it's not such a priority that I'm going to die on that hill.

the impact of hunting for food is so far below the impact of industrial agriculture and other things, it's fine