"...It is the hunting seasons on predators that I have the problen with..."

OK, thanks. I thought you were talking about two different things there, which is why I was confused...

If I want to shoot something, paper is a lot easier to sneak up on,
let alone clean and butcher.

A friend who is a commercial deep sea fisherman calls catch and
release "fish torture".

It is a sad indictment that Art reminds us about. For too many years our concerns about conservation and wildlife management were essentially non-existent, and it is true that even still we encroach where the land was open and animals went about their business. Fortunately, minds and ways of doing things are changing. The neighborhood development I moved into outside of Denver two years ago was constructed in such a way as to be more favorable to wildlife. In fact, the resident deer and antelope herds there have done well enough that they now exceed the numbers present before development of the area was planned. The reason being more forage was made available to them, no hunting pressure at all, and better cover, as transition zones were included in the development plan with trees and shrubs and gulleys. It was not uncommon to sit in the kitchen some days and watch a herd of 20 or more Mule deer walk by through the yard, browsing the brush and drinking from the birdbath. Yes, it is more artificial than the natural environment. The point is I think it is an improvement.

So even though things are bad in places, and you will find examples of unethical activity anywhere you care to look, you can also find where men have made the effort to improve the chances for wildlife to thrive. With every box of ammo I buy, every pair of socks with the Browning logo on the side, I am doing much the same thing, maybe not on such a grand scale personally, but along with millions of other hunters and fishermen across this land, we are making a tremendous difference. It won't fix everything, but it has made it better in some places than it ever was before. That's one reason why there are more whitetail deer in North America now than there were when Columbus landed in 1492. It may not be ideal for all, but it is better by a darn sight than to just leave it as it is, or was, in many cases.

Art does balance our argument out. He points out that we still have a long way to go, but I think participating in hunting and fishing can still be a big part of that effort when done for more than just the sport of killing that he refers to. That is never acceptable behavior, I don't care what jurisdiction you find yourself in. It certainly is not what is taught by any state agency, and is not part of the hunter's code of ethics anywhere I've hunted yet.

I am overweight, and I do hunt and eat venison and other wild game in addition to eating beef and chicken etc. Not only do I like the taste of wild game better in most cases (except the Armadillo I've eaten, blecch!!!), but I also eat it because it is usually better for me than the domesticated stuff. If I had a choice between eating beef or elk, I will always go for elk, even if I have a thousand pounds of beef in the freezer. Is killing an elk any different to me than killing a beef cow? Only in method and the amount of respect I have for the animal (beef cows being less desirable a food source and lacking in the fair chase process and the collateral experience of the hunt).

As a general statement, not directed at anyone here....

All I know is that every time I eat (with a few exceptions) something has to die. Be it meat or vegetable it dies so it can live, and whether I am the one who kills it or the one who buys what someone else has killed that is simply the way life is. Living in Alberta I have a few friends who have worked in slaughter houses and from what they tell me a lot of questionable ethics are in place in that industry as well. In fact, a bullet is way more humane than some of the ways cattle are killed. I think hunting is an excellent thing for those who like it. A hunter has a big responsibility to keep their actions in check so hunting may be enjoyed by all those who like it. If you hunt and play by the rules, Great! If you prefer not to hunt, also great! There are bad hunters and good ones. If I happened across someone who left an animal in the woods to suffer or who has left a carcass to waste only to collect a trophy then I may grab that person by the hair and march his ass, willing or not to the nearest warden. People who do these things ruin it for people like me, who have much respect for hunting. For those who take it all to the other extreme(tree hugger types)Before a person gets too judgmental about how I am taking the life of something they must realize that each time they buy meat from the store that something still had to die, probably in far worst a way than the Deer I have taken. For those who think hunting is still not necessary, stop by my place next time I have some fat, juicy Moose burgers on the grill and I will prove just how wrong you are(LOL !!)

Yes, to live is to consume. After spending half a year toiling day and night in my garden, come harvest time there is a pinge of reluctance at having to remove all those lovely plants I worked so hard to care for. I could even go so far as to say that it inspires the same sort of reverence as what I have for harvesting wild game, or going to my cousin's house to help kill the steer I helped feed and care for.

Those who respect life have the sort of ethics that preclude them from wasting such a commodity, be it the zucchini they just picked, or the duck they just blasted outta the sky. Taking that prize pumpkin to the fair for that blue ribbon is akin to taking that cape and head to the taxidermist for me. That pumpkin may win the prize, but at the end of the day, it will get eaten, same as the deer I shot and the cow I thumped.

I am going to classify myself as "true trophy hunter" because I have yet to fill a deer tag. Not because I haven't gone afield in search of critters but because the darn things always are in a different part of the world than I am. The running joke is that I go "camping with guns" not hunting.

You sound JUST like me! My wife, while babysitting the kids of other hunters, shot a deer. I, on the other hand, tramped all over the hills of central CA and never got a shot!!!

i did the same thing a couple years ago. I hadn't made it deer hunting in years and WV had a few days overlap between buck and doe season because the doe population was overpopulated that year so we went down then. Others in the family there had seem some deer but everyone was waiting for the big buck so no on had shot any in days. I never cared about horns, I just want the meat. Parents house in in a valley and there is a dirt trail up the side of the mountain to the rest of their farm. hopped in the truck and started to drive up on the farm and saw a doe about 1/2 way up, hopped out of the truck and laid the gun across the hood, shot it and loaded it up and went back down. My wife and mother were going to go shopping and hadn't even left the house yet and I was done. So I let my wife shoot my gun some before we took the deer up to check it in. Some of my cousins living there live for deer season, count down the days until the next one, save up their vacation for it, have automated feeders with motion activated digital cameras (one managed to find the memory card from one with pictures of a bear destroying it), have super expensive guns in fancy cases that you hear the air seal pop when they unlatch them and went away empty handed while I hunted for a whole five minutes with an old youth rifle dad bought my from Kmart when I turned 13.

I don't like the idea of sport hunting myself. To me that is just wasteful, I don't fish because of this either because fish seems to upset my stomach so I don't want to do the sport catch and release. I never squirrel hunted after disliking the taste of my first squirrel (greasy mess). The little 20 gauge barrel for that youth gun sat on the rack for around 20 years until I bought a clay thrower and use it for that now. But when I was growing up on the farm those deer would come in and eat our garden and crops so when we hunted it was getting back what they took from us, just in a different form

Lately my "hunting efforts" have been more like mooching wild game meat from my friends that can go and hunt. I finally scored a standing invite and may go sometime this month or next.

It seems hypocritical to me to criticize hunting unless you're a vegetarian. What's your alternative? Some chicken who's been raised in a pen the size of a milk crate with two other chickens and never sees the sky except on its way to the slaughterhouse?

If you didn't hunt and kill the animal it would live longer, granted, but what would be its fate? Get old and injured and die of starvation or be brought down by wolves?