Sad, sad hunting season (buying, living, moving)

[DowntownJerseyCity]

Yikes, I love animals, but this is completely nuts. We've been hunting animals since we were living in caves and grunting at one another.

I'd much rather see hunters controlling the deer population than cars and trucks hitting these deer and there being a chance these creatures would take a life of a motorist or their passenger.

[bedazzled]

Thank you deerlover for that wonderful post!
I also hate hunting, and hunters!
We live in the city, and we can hear the gunshots going off around us.
As we were driving, I almost hoped I would be accidentally shot while in the car, so maybe somehow allowing hunting so close to the city and people could be stopped! Crazy to say? Maybe...but that's how much I love animals, and believe hunting is wrong!
How proud those "men" are when they are able to shoot a defenseless animal with no where to hide!
Erie has destroyed so much of the wildlife's natural habitats that the deer, wild turkeys and other small wildlife can be seen daily in the streets of the city. Then they say "Something has to be done with the deer over population". Ever think that their NOT over populated? But it's just because we can see them all now that they have no more homes to live in?
This is all done out of GREED. How many Country Fairs does one city need?
How many grocery stores? How many buildings, when so many sit empty?
I am tired of seeing birds having to make their nests in neon signs because the trees are disappearing from Erie.
It is a sin what City Council is doing. Build, build, build. Get those tourist to come to Erie! Well I can't wait to leave Erie!
THIS MAY GET LONG...
Is anyone else ashamed that Erie opened a Casino and a horse racing track? I am! I can hear council saying "Let's create gamblers and take the little money the people have by giving them a place to waste it by giving it to the city".
But...the REAL shame is the horse racing track.
In the one month it was opened, 3 horse died from injuries, (One on opening night!) 12 more hurt. In one month!
Most people don't know that vets. told the owners that some of these horses shouldn't even be racing. Then hearing on the news what a success it was proves that Erie city officials are talking "money" and "profit".
They have stopped thinking of their own citizens and animals, and are spending our money on tourists attractions.
Let's talk about the dogs and cats in Erie...
14 dogs shot and killed by Erie police in 2007 (so far!). Most suspicious, and I believe unnecessary.
ONE animal control officer for the entire city of Erie! Yea, that makes a lot of sense! NO reduced fee spay and neuter program (that other smaller cities already have) to help our citizens and the worldwide problem of pet over population. No feral cat spay/neuter release program to help the cats living on the streets, and still populating.
That's why I made this petition that I am going to present to city council.
If you care about Erie's animals, please sign it:

Care2 : The Petition Site : Erie County needs mo
animal-control-officers-and-a-spaynueter-program-stop-shooti
ng-dogs

I am also asking that people send an email to Rubye Jenkins-Husband supporting this petition at:

rjenkinshusband@erie.pa.us to make more of an impact.

If we want changes in Erie for the benefit of our animals, we must act, and speak for them.


Yes, I am an animal activist. I will do all I can to help any animal.
Any readers that don't like my views, too bad.
Please feel free to respond to this, say what you want about me or the topic, as that keeps this post active, and I welcome that.
However, I will not indulge in a war of words.
I am Erie's Representative for "Best Friends". If anyone knows of an animal issue that needs addressed in Erie, please contact me through this post.
I am also welcoming any others who would be interested in going with me to City Council when I present this petition.

Thank you,
Tina Halloran

[SteelCityRising]

I'm mostly a bleeding heart liberal Democrat, but I dissent from the stereotype on two major issues---abortion, which I think is tragic (but that's an issue for another thread), and hunting, which I approve of, believe it or not. I have never hunted nor will I ever hunt; I'm too much of a girly man to want to wake up at 4 AM just to sit on my rear-end freezing in the woods while other guys near me guzzle beer, make racial slurs, and pass gas. However, as predators of deer continue to be eradicated by we humans, deer overpopulation will continue to be an issue. While letting every Bambi out there frolic around freely without human interference might sound like a utopian society, doing so will force them to die much more tragic deaths, either through painful starvation or being splattered by passing tractor-trailers (or worse flying through windshields of sedans and taking out people with them).

I'm sorry, but I'll side with WeLuvPA on this one. What did you honestly expect from a state where 1/12 of the residents have hunting licenses? There's not a whole lot to do around rural PA in the winter in case you haven't noticed, and I don't own a pair of rose-colored glasses thick enough to blind me to all of the good that comes from hunting. Think of those who have their kills butchered and then donate the meat to soup kitchens so that folks in need can have a different meal for a change. Think of those who have killed deer near to highways, thereby perhaps pre-emptively averting a deer-vehicle collision. As long as folks aren't just killing for "fun" (it's pretty sad that I KNOW people who think it IS "fun" just to kill things---Omaha, anyone?), then I'm all for hunting. I'm a proud carnivore, and I can't tell you how tasty I find venison and deer jerky to be. Then again, I also have vegetarian friends, and I don't eat meat in front of them out of common courtesy.

Hunting animals may not be pretty or high-class, but would you prefer that the deer population grew so much that you'd have to put a cow catcher on the front of your SUV to push them out of your way on the highways?

[samvit]

I'm not a hunter and while I can appreciate why many folks are not fans of hunting I would never make any sweeping generalizations of hunters as described in the original post. Hunting attracts people from many different backgrounds. And like it or not, it is in fact necessary to cull the deer population since many natural predators of deer have been killed off, such as wolves.

Now, the whole idea of killing animals for food being equivalent to mass murder is nonsensical. What then about the predator prey relationship? Are lions criminals and wildebeast murder victims? Were people living in prehistoric times who relied heavily on hunting for survival essentially serial killers? Why is it ok to eat meat you purchased from the supermarket but not ok to eat venison from a deer hunt? In fact, I would argue that at least the deer had the opportunity to live freely in its natural environment while the steer was raised in an unnatural, factory farm setting from day one. So on balance, the commercial meat industry is far more inhumane than hunting, and on a much grander scale. So, you might say that no human being should consume meat. It's unethical, unnatural and we should all be vegetarians. If that were the case, we would simply not have the ability to digest meat. But, we are not herbivores but omnivores, and by nature can digest both meat and plant matter.

[mathjak107]

i loooove all animals, especially with mash potatoes.

let me tell you if those deer dont stop eating all my shrubbery they are going to have more than hunters to worry about.

[mathjak107]

you got to love the advertising google attached to the origional post ha ha ha , i love it!

[weluvpa]

Hey deerlover who the hell do you think that you are comparing the Holocaust to deer hunting? I lived in Israel for a while and I'm more insulted and offended by that comment then I could ever be about anything else. Honestly maybe you should have researched where you were moving because if you thought that you were going to come here and live with nature your a fool. Hunting is a HUGE money machine for the state(i.e. licenses) and the local economies. The deer populations are out of control because of tree hugging animal rights fools like you. After the holocaust comment I think that you should probably drop this thread and quietly go away before you make a even bigger fool of yourself.

[MermanMike]

If everyone took the time to really feel what Deerlover is saying, you would see she is not villainizing the hunting of animals for food. She is just remarking that the spirit with which hunting season is undertaken is offensive to her sense that all life has value.

It is unfair to compare hunting now to hunting during primitive times. We obviously have many more opportunities to eat a diet that does not come from animals sources. (And the science is such that carnivores have an intestinal length 3x their body length, whereas herbivores have an intestinal length 6x their body length. This is because meat decays rapidly and the shorter intestinal length allows for carnivores to avoid living with rotting flesh in their bodies. Human intestines are about 6-8x their body length.)

I'm not against hunting either, but it is pretty clear that the blood lust with which many men and women go out with their guns is rather inhumane. Disgusting even.

I'm impressed by hunting with a bow and arrow. That takes sportsmanship. I don't know why so many feel a sense of sportsman-like accomplishment after murdering something with a rifle.

[Yac]

5 posts removed, please calm down everybody.
Yac.

[mathjak107]

Personally i think they should have had open season on the guy that wrote that silly book bambi in the first place.