Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I think they are bad, I see someone drive to a guides, hunting lodge or their favorite spot. They get out of the vehicle,walk a few yards or ride a fourwheeler a few minutes and go set in a blind or tree stand and wait. No stalking or matching wits with the animal and on the ground with them (usually). I see hunting over food plots, corn or other feed on the ground and the animals conditioned to the feeding or times of feeding and someone just sitting there waiting......
Now I do see a small part of the shows on spotting and stalking or calling. But very few.
Now when they do make a "harvest" why do they constantly push for a male of the species and jerk the head around on the animal? Why do they down play the taking of a female as almost bad?
Now I got to spew about the shows mini "infomercials" during the show. I see they have to pay for their shows some way but I hardly watch them anymore due to the constant onslaught of them.
Some smartaleck will say posts just like this dosn't do hunting any good, but I would like any input on both side of this.
I have hunted with bow,crossbow,spear,rifle,pistol,shotgun for over 46 years in the western states going with fair chase, no pen hunting.
Fire away, so to speak ha,ha.
I think it depends upon the show. I've seen some good ones, seen some bad ones.
As a hunter, I've never liked the canned "hunts" anyway in which the "prey" is turned loose from a cage 15 minutes before the hunter shows up to hunt within a fenced contained area. That's not hunting, IMO.
As far as why a male is taken versus the female...it's all about propagation of the species. If you take a female, you remove forever the opportunity for that animal having another. Remove a male, shoot, some other male just steps in and gets the job done. If you hunted for 46 years (about the same length of time I have, too) I would have thought you'd know that.
I'm like you though, in that I learned to hunt out west and now live back east. I'd never seen food plots, tree stands etc. Living back here now I understand the tree stand, but to me, food plots, licks, etc. is just bait and isn't "real" hunting. But that's just me.
As far as the four wheelers go...just an updated version of the pack horse...which we used for years elk, moose and sheep hunting. (I like a horse better...they're usually smarter than the operator...)
I thni taht onje has to have a sense of the changes in modern society when judging. Its just a fact that many states have pretty much shotout the native game by those ging inot the wood on public land and hunting in such numbers they become a danger to each other. I fact the states that actually do such things as have porivte land ;grow crops for the game have saved more habitat for game to survive than any of the other hunters. I fact many have actaully saved alot of species from being killed off in their nativ elands even.Bu8t evenn then if you looked the best areas to hunt have always been where food crops are grown or where huge tracks of land have been avilable to the hunted. The real problems is that in many areas the habitat of teh game hads been taken up tot eh point that such species as der have learn to think of the local gardens as a food source altho they would noramlly not approach such areas ebcause of human s nearby.t is often the case that a trophy bloodline buck only reach maturity in many of these areas and that his off spring are trapped and moved to allow the bloodline to prosper. In many areas the bloodlines were shot out long ago with only a few quailty left that insures that they will not return. Four wheelers in public lands have ruined many a public land hunting area but that is a control problem really.Many areas of the west have actually gone to limiting the numbers of hunters because fo teh destrcution they have doen to once very nice wilderness areas. its like when Hiking became a craze and they had to put patta potties to prevent area form being ruin by human habits.I teh west many of the best and most pristine lands to hunt on are not publ;ic anymore also. Hunting in a area where you don't see tin cans and huamn trash is possible in these areas where you pay to hunt and the areas have not change allowing the game a chance.Without teh modern hunter supplying not only crops repalcing the natural foods but actaully keeping large tracts of land in private hands ro suplying the money thru the high txaes they pay on euipment ;much of out land would be developed or ruined by modern society. In takes money to save it and the normal taxpayer isn't going to set any priortiy on wildlife.I have hunted for 49 years and seen what has happened i many areas to the native game as frsams etc have been eliminated and what hunters spending alot of moeny can save from human destruction. Its apparent in the game numbers when you look at them and even in areas that deer compete in subdivisions for food in flower beds.
When I was a kid I "hunted" rats at a local dump (not landfill but dump) over bait, mostly dead rats, fairly often. I did not consider this hunting but pest control. For some reason I never ran out of rats.
I do not hunt any more but I do not consider canned hunting a sport but as slaughter. They might as well be hunting cattle.
What you DONT see in the hunting shows are the failed hunts so it gives the illusion that they just walk out & whack a 160+ class deer. Its true to an extent that some are penned hunts ect but by no means are they all like that. Who would watch a show consisting of a guy sitting in the woods doing nothing for hour after hour? I'm not sure about why they focus on big bucks so much but it might just be what sells. By far I kill more does than bucks but a nice buck sure gets the adrenaline flowing and thats what people want to see.
JMHO but those offended & bothered by hunting shows are largely already against hunting. Why worry about what others think when they are so uninformed or misinformed?
If someone mentions something bad about hunting as a result of a show its a great time to inform them of all the good that modern regulated hunting does for wildlife in general & how it benefits EVERYONE who enjoys nature.
There are a multitude of folks that love hiking thru the forrest & gazing at the wildlife who think hunting is bad for all that. Yet most of them never contribute one red cent towards conservation, they think that what they see was always there and always will be.
Explain to them how hunting benefits them by keeping game numbers in a sustainable range so they dont eat everything in sight until they start to starve. Explain that without human hunters the only way to keep things in ballance is to reintroduce natural predators like wolves, big cats & to a lesser extent bears who would just as soon eat a weekend hiker as a deer. Explain to them the cruel nature in which natural predators kill their prey. It might not be pleasant for a deer to get a bullet or arrow thru its vitals but its much more humane than getting eatten alive or having your neck ripped out by a cougar.
Explain to them the billions of dollars that go directly to conservation & come directly from taxes & license fees from hunters. Explain that without hunting they might have to buy a hiking license to make up the difference.
Explain that most of the things they see are benefitted by regulated hunting, in many cases the land itself was purchased & set aside with money derived from Pittman Robertson and that hunting & fishing produce more money for conservation than any other group by a long shot, perhaps more than all other sources combined.
Regulated hunting is the best thing that ever happened to wildlife in America. We went from most game being shot out and needing to ban hunting in many places to over population and then to what we have today, a system that regulates the numbers of animals taken & puts money back to help maintain game populations. I live in CT, when my father was a boy there were virtually no deer or turkeys and hunting was very limited or against the law. Now there are deer & turkey across the state & it generates millions in revenue for conservation. Personally I'm quite proud to be a part of that & know that my children and theirs as well will have ample hunting opportunities into the forseable future.
Anybody who claims to love nature but hate hunting is at the very least confused & ill informed.
“When a man wantonly destroys one of the works of man we call him a vandal. When he destroys one of the works of God we call him a sportsman.”—Joseph Wood Krutch
I don't know, I did catch the Benoits once on one of those channels, tracking deer in Maine, quite good. Personally I don't care much for most of those shows, they're all aimed at selling something: a brand new gun, a hunting lease, a guide, a game feeder, some new camo, etc. Way too commercial for my tastes. I'm more into meat than trophies too. That said, if someone enjoys that, so be it, as long as it's sustainable and doesn't pose a threat to the wildlife population and hunters actually out for the meat.
Hunting and trapping (in the past century) has indeed raised a considerable amount of money for conservation. The wildlife in Vermont was nearly wiped out in the 1800's by clearing nearly all the land for farming, unregulated shooting (almost everything was considered a pest to be wiped out), bounties, etc. Currently only elk, wolves, marten, wolverines, lynx and (officially) catamounts, haven't made a full recovery (unofficially, from my observations: we have occasional wolves, we have catamounts, we definately have martens, no wolverines to my knowledge though, though none of these are in high numbers right now). Deer, fishercats, turkeys, etc., were reintroduced, moose and bears recovered too. Beavers have fully recovered and are overpopulated in some parts. Nearly all the money to do this, and buy and protect important habitat, has come from funds raised through hunting/trapping/fishing. Furthermore, the land here can only support so much game (particularly as forests mature and open fields disappear for certain species), any more and there's massive die-offs from starvation, disease, etc. (raccoons are particularly prone to disease issues from rabies). Hunting and trapping in fact helps the populations on a whole.
“When a man wantonly destroys one of the works of man we call him a vandal. When he destroys one of the works of God we call him a sportsman.”—Joseph Wood Krutch
Hunting is not a sport. Sport implies some equality of competition. At least, hunter vs. game is not a sport, it is a senseless slaughter in which one side has an incalculable advantage in wit and firepower. It may be a sport in the hunter vs. hunter sense, to see which ridiculous narcissistic human being in a 4x4 can kill the most animals with cheap but awesome firepower and display their heads. "Hunting" for food is no more a sport than picking mushrooms, and is not distinct from "gathering" except that it done by "real" men.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
