Pagan views on hunting

[thalassa]

Re: Pagan views on hunting

I wonder to what degree hunters are stereotyped by animal-rights activists (who I generally support, btw) as being "backwoods yahoos doing it for a lark, or just the animal's head as a trophy, and the beer and carousing afterwards".

I think...a lot. For example:

peta.jpg

I think too, that part of the problem (and I see this as a problem in a wide swathe of Pagan and non-Pagan environmentalist types), that they see some mythical golden age of man living so lightly upon nature that he's almost not even there at all. If it was *ever* like that, it was so long ago (like, before the advent of humanity, long ago), that we would be better served with dropping the myth all together. One of the greatest disservices with regards to this myth (to ourselves and them), is that we have extended a form of it to the Native populations of the Americas, in how we view them and their cultures. When realistically, it is likely (and archaeologically supported, though the extent is disputed) that a good chunk of what we think of as the natural (as in non-human) landscape in this hemisphere was the abandoned long term construction of Native peoples that were depopulated due to diseases inadvertently brought to the Americas (just look at how the perfect storm of conditions led to the recent outbreak of cholera in Haiti).

Believing in that myth makes it easier to buy into the stereotype that is its opposite (we humans tend to buy into dualities), particularly if someone is already predisposed to want to dislike the idea of hunting. By demonizing hunters, its easier to condemn hunting (or vice versa, in a sort of feedback loop)...sort of what some evangelical Christians do towards homosexuals (among others). Don't get me wrong, there are redneck, drunk-ass, butchers waiting in the woods to poach some effin deer from someone else's property too......but legitimate hunters don't care for these folks anymore than animal rights folks.

(a brief aside) The ecological reality is that there are no top predators left in many ecological communities (and it is not always realistic to introduce them). And that means that if we don't hunt, a good portion of those animals are going to die slow, painful deaths from starvation and disease. Which is sort of crappy. Hunters pay a ton of money for hunting licenses, tags, etc...permits are set to maintain a healthy population...and that money largely goes back into conservation programs. Personally, I don't care why someone is legally hunting, be it for food (my preference) or for trophy or for the fun of shooting shit (all of those things still have importance for the person doing them, or they wouldn't go to all the trouble of doing them). For me, the end result--the commitment to the living population--is more important than the motives behind the individual kill, or what is done with the body afterwards.

[volcaniclastic]

Re: Pagan views on hunting

I have never hunted, but I would love to go bow hunting (yes I am an archer). Even before I knew I was pagan I would plan on honoring the animal that I hunted. I would put everything to use. I believe that meat farms are terrible, I believe that every animal should know the grass beneath its feet, breath fresh air and get a real since of life before its death. Being kept indoors in tiny cages is cruel.

So hunting in my book is fine, as long as you use everything you can from the animal, as a pagan you would be nuts not to thank it, right?

You're an archer too?! What do you shoot?

[Pallas]

Re: Pagan views on hunting

Like someone said way back in the thread, I'd love to live off of my own animals but at the moment it's not possible. My husband and I will be building our little custom oasis here soon and I can't wait to have the animals. Even then I don't think I could kill it or witness it myself. I'm very sensitive to animals, I think I'm an empath with them. I accidentally killed a lizard once with my bike and cried all day. I'd love to be close to nature in that way but my own feelings are preventing me. I buy from Asian markets which will keep the heads on your meat and everything, that doesn't bother me. But like I said, actually looking at the animal alive would just send me into a crying storm.

Anybody else have that issue?

[Morrigan]

Re: Pagan views on hunting

Its like it was stated before, I am ok with hunting for food, however for sports, no. I disagree with you Thalassa in one point:

I think...a lot. For example:

(a brief aside) The ecological reality is that there are no top predators left in many ecological communities (and it is not always realistic to introduce them). And that means that if we don't hunt, a good portion of those animals are going to die slow, painful deaths from starvation and disease.

I am a biologist and I can say that this is somewhat false. An ecological community per definition as a trophic chain where there is always some organism in the top (or several) and then the others down in the food chain, see it like sort of a pyramid. So, when one is hunting for sports (it is a special case when the population size has increased due to different environmental conditions) is always interfering with the community. When an animal is sick there are 3 options: it gets eaten if its not in the top of the trophic chain ,it overcomes the disease or it dies. The problem is when we interfere with the stability in the populations and we loose control, having then hunting for sports justified in many cases.

[thalassa]

Re: Pagan views on hunting

I am a biologist and I can say that this is somewhat false. An ecological community per definition as a trophic chain where there is always some organism in the top (or several) and then the others down in the food chain, see it like sort of a pyramid. So, when one is hunting for sports (it is a special case when the population size has increased due to different environmental conditions) is always interfering with the community. When an animal is sick there are 3 options: it gets eaten if its not in the top of the trophic chain ,it overcomes the disease or it dies. The problem is when we interfere with the stability in the populations and we loose control, having then hunting for sports justified in many cases.

The definition that I use in my job is that an ecological community is an area in which multiple species are interacting, period. Ecological communities do have food webs, but they don't all depend on a top predator...the removal of top predators is a pretty well studied and documented phenomenon, that has been shown to have a number of effects on both prey populations and landscape. In the US, we have lots of ecological communities without a top predator...because those predators were removed decades ago, and reintroducing predators such as wolves or mountain lion has not been considered the best idea, particularly in rural areas close to urban and suburban environments. Habitat in the Eastern and in parts of the Midwestern US is incredibly fragmented and degraded.

Deer, in particular, are both a real danger (from auto accidents, increase in Lyme disease and other tick borne diseases, etc) and a nuisance (doing tons of damage to private property and overbrowsing, which does damage to plant communities, particularly native plant populations). Chronic wasting disease, in particular, is a problem due to its potential to be transmitted to humans, and is thought to be more easily contracted in overpopulated herds. Epizootic hemmoragic disease is another problem, because spreads rapidly and it causes deer to loose their fear of humans, and makes them more likely to kill someone in a car accident or bring tick borne diseases into the population.

[Morrigan]

Re: Pagan views on hunting

When a predator its removed, other organisms will occupy its trophic level even if we are considering a food web, although I admit this is less likely to specialized predators. And even if a predator is removed, the remaining ones may re-direct the connections int the food chain or food-web. I am not really familiarized with the fauna or flora in the US, just in Europe, but the over-population of dears was not associated with the reducing of the population in the lynx, or other big felines? In the Iberian Peninsula we also have a extremely endangered lynx species, the Iberian lynx which is being bred in captivity and special areas are being created for them. But then again, dome questions arise. They are predators especiallyzed regarding their feeding ( I'm sorry if I cannot explain myself better because of my english) and they baasically fed on hairs and wild boars. Without a big hare or even rabbit population they did not thrive and now are almost extinct. What the portuguese and spanish governments are doing is artificially increase the hare and rabbit population, which I think is wrong to try to maintain a flag species alive just because, but that is another issue. What I mean is all the diseases and increase in the population size of deer was not created, directly or indirectly, by human expansion and deforestation?

[thalassa]

Re: Pagan views on hunting

First off, your English is fine, I think I know what you are saying here...I apologize if I'm too wordy, its a bad habit of mine! I think we are sort of talking at cross-purposes because of the differences in where we are talking about...

What I mean is all the diseases and increase in the population size of deer was not created, directly or indirectly, by human expansion and deforestation?

Yes, and no. There is an idea that the US was some huge untouched wilderness where the Native American population lived in such harmony with the land that they might as well have not been there. Archaeology is starting to tell us that idea is probably very wrong and that Native Americans, particularly in the Easter US and the Midwest actively managed the ecosystem, and that much of what we think of as "wilderness" is what happened when those land managers disappeared due to early European colonization and diseases.

By the 1800's the Eastern US had lost most of its forest and deer and all of its major predators, like wolves, bears, etc. Large herbivores were lost maily to to overhunting, or hunting purposely to make way for farms. The environments that we have set aside today (in the East) are mostly second growth forests and still lack a healthy enough predator population (if any) to keep a good predator-prey relationship for a number of species. The most common predators we have are small and don't take down large animals (like the coyote--it will eat young fawns, rather than adult deer). Habitat fragmentation and degradation are a huge problem--not always deforestation, they also ruined most of the prairie in the 1800's as well, because it makes reintroduction of predators requiring a good deal of range difficult.

Humans have effectively been this continent's top top predator for a couple millennium, with the exception of about the two hundred years between Columbus and the settlement of the 13 colonies.

[Louisvillian]

Re: Pagan views on hunting

I think too, that part of the problem (and I see this as a problem in a wide swathe of Pagan and non-Pagan environmentalist types), that they see some mythical golden age of man living so lightly upon nature that he's almost not even there at all. If it was *ever* like that, it was so long ago (like, before the advent of humanity, long ago), that we would be better served with dropping the myth all together.

People glorifying the ancients seem to forget that one of the many causes of the Pleistocene extinction event was human hunter-gatherers doing the whole "hunting" bit a little too well. And this was long before civilisation developed, when we purportedly still lived in this mythical "harmony" with nature.
They like to act like modern civilisation and industry and modernity are the cause of all the world's ills.

[Minion]

Re: Pagan views on hunting

I'm curious as to how others view the practice of hunting while being a practicing pagan, specifically the ethics behind it and if the two match up at all.

We get about 80% of our meat from game animals. We hunt a lot, and we also get our meat as gifts from friends who are hunters and have too much for them.
I think hunting if perfectly fine if you actually use the animal you kill.

[GhostofGaia]

Re: Pagan views on hunting

Hunting animals doesn't seem like something a Pagan should be doing . In the circumstance that you must kill for food , take only what is needed and no more. But that begs the question , if you can afford to buy a gun and ammunition , why not just buy food? And as for people calling it "sport"... well if you were hunting bears with swords / spears then it might be . But shooting a helpless creature with no method to defend itself is no more sport than professional NFL players having a match against 4th graders.

[volcaniclastic]

Re: Pagan views on hunting

Hunting animals doesn't seem like something a Pagan should be doing . In the circumstance that you must kill for food , take only what is needed and no more. But that begs the question , if you can afford to buy a gun and ammunition , why not just buy food? And as for people calling it "sport"... well if you were hunting bears with swords / spears then it might be . But shooting a helpless creature with no method to defend itself is no more sport than professional NFL players having a match against 4th graders.

Where do you think store bought food comes from? Somebody killed it so you can eat it.

[Vicariousparabol]

Re: Pagan views on hunting

I believe hunting is much needed population control. Without it, animals would over breed and start going into towns and cities. It's happened many places before, so it's possible. I've seen deer in town, before. I used to live in a very redneck town, though. I guess that's just kinda normal. haha.

[ThorsSon]

Re: Pagan views on hunting

Hunting animals doesn't seem like something a Pagan should be doing . In the circumstance that you must kill for food , take only what is needed and no more. But that begs the question , if you can afford to buy a gun and ammunition , why not just buy food? And as for people calling it "sport"... well if you were hunting bears with swords / spears then it might be . But shooting a helpless creature with no method to defend itself is no more sport than professional NFL players having a match against 4th graders.

A) as volcanclastic said, where do you think store-bought meat came from?
B) I can buy ammo for my 8mm Mauser rifle (which is a particularly expensive ammo on the market, right now), for $33.99 for a box of 20. Or, $1.6995 per bullet. That $1.70 (rounded) bullet, will easily take down a 200lb mule deer. About half of that deer is edible meat. So, that comes to $0.016995 (less than 2 cents) per lb of meat... Not counting the leather, fur, intestines, etc... Can you find meat at the grocery store for that kind of price?
C)How "sporting" would you call herding livestock into a chute, single file, and driving a spike into their heads from a protected platform? That's how your store-bought beef is slaughtered. Hogs are even more brutal. If hunting is like an NFL player against a 4th grader, slaughterhouses are like a mass murderer against infants.

If you care about fairness toward animals, and you've ever seen a slaughterhouse operate, you'll become a hunting advocate, or a vegetarian.

[volcaniclastic]

Re: Pagan views on hunting

If you care about fairness toward animals, and you've ever seen a slaughterhouse operate, you'll become a hunting advocate, or a vegetarian.

Or in my case, both. I have hunted in the past, though I do have a hard time killing animals, but I just gave the meat and stuff to friends, and then get the skins treated for myself. I eat no meat.

[ThorsSon]

Re: Pagan views on hunting

Or in my case, both. I have hunted in the past, though I do have a hard time killing animals, but I just gave the meat and stuff to friends, and then get the skins treated for myself. I eat no meat.

Ok, so "AND," not "OR," I'm your case.

Guess there's a third option of "both." ;-)