HUNTING - WHY!?

I am very anti hunting! I don't understand the mentality behind it at all. We have grocery stores and it doesn't matter to me if the meat is being donated to charity. The biggest problem I have is the type of person that enjoys hunting. You have a "human" that enjoys tracking down an animal and killing it, taking it's life.....they actually enjoy this. They justify it by, "the meat goes to charity" or "it helps my grocery bill". BULL...guns, ammo, hunting equipment is expensive.....they hunt because they enjoy killing it. I personally will not and do not knowingly associate myself with anyone that hunts....I have a hard time being around someone that can actually enjoy tracking a frightened animal and then killing for enjoyment. Then you have the yahoos that go hunting a drinking. Every year ranger kill many animals that are suffering because because some idiot is either hunting and drinking and only wounded the animal, or because some idiot is hunting that actually can't shoot...it's disgusting. "Oh look at that buck, he beautiful, and I got a perfect shot" somehow that makes no sense to me at all....yes, it's beautiful...so leave it alive fool! Another one I hear is..."we have a right to hunt cause man has always hunted blaa, blaa, blaa. We are supposed to be human beings, and we are supposed to advance as a society to evolve to more intelligent lever of our understanding. Ok...
Now to the facts

Hunting by humans operates perversely. The kill ratio at a couple hundred feet with a semi-automatic weapon and scope is virtually 100 percent. The animal, no matter how well-adapted to escape natural predation, has virtually no way to escape death once he/she is in the cross hairs of a scope mounted on a rifle. Nature's adaptive structures and behaviors that have evolved during millions of years simply count for naught when a human is the hunter. Most deer, for example, would not perceive anything that is within the effective range of a big game rifle (up to 400 yards) as a predator or a source of danger. A wolf at that distance, even though detected, would be totally ignored. Even the much smaller range of bow-hunter (about 50-75 feet) is barely of concern to deer. Deer may start to keep an eye on a hunter at that distance, but the evasion instinct doesn't kick in until it's too late.

The stress that hunting inflicts on animals--the noise, the fear, and the constant chase--severely restricts their ability to eat adequately and store the fat and energy they need to survive the winter. Hunting also disrupts migration and hibernation, and the campfires, recreational vehicles, trash, and other hunting side effects endanger both wildlife and the environment. For animals like wolves who mate for life and have close-knit family units, hunting can severely harm entire communities.

Hunters and hunting organizations, including state and federally funded sponsors like Fish and Wildlife Services and departments of environmental conservation, promote supposed justifications as to why hunting is necessary. One of these justifications is that if certain animals were not hunted, they would slowly die of starvation and thus the lesser of the two evils is to humanely kill them. There are problems with this logic.

When hunters talk about shooting overpopulated animals, they are usually referring to white-tailed deer, representing only 3 percent of all the animals killed by hunters. Sport hunters shoot millions of mourning doves, squirrels, rabbits, and waterfowl, and thousands of predators, none of whom any wildlife biologist would claim are overpopulated or need to be hunted. Even with deer, hunters do not search for starving animals. They either shoot animals at random, or they seek out the strongest and healthiest animals in order to bring home the biggest trophies or largest antlers. Hunters and wildlife agencies are not concerned about reducing deer herds, but rather with increasing the number of targets for hunters and the number of potential hunting license dollars. Thus, they use deer overpopulation as a smokescreen to justify their sport. The New Jersey Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife states that "the deer resource has been managed primarily for the purpose of sport hunting," (New Jersey Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife, An Assessment of Deer Hunting in New Jersey, 1990).

Hunters also shoot nonnative species such as ring-necked pheasants who are hand-fed and raised in pens and then released into the wild just before hunting season. Even if the pheasants - native to China - survive the hunters' onslaught, they are certain to die of exposure or starvation in the nonnative environment. While hunters claim they save overpopulated animals from starvation, they intentionally breed some species and let them starve to death.

Hunters and hunting organizations also promote the idea that hunting is necessary for "wildlife management" and "conservation." "Wildlife management" and "conservation" are euphemisms used to describe programs that ensure that there are always enough animals for hunters to hunt. Because they make their money primarily from the sale of hunting licenses, the major function of wildlife agencies is not to protect individual animals or biological diversity, but to propagate "game" species for hunters to shoot.

State agencies build roads through our wild lands to facilitate hunter access, they pour millions of tax dollars into law enforcement of hunting regulations and hunter education, and into manipulating habitat by burning and clear-cutting forests to increase the food supply for "game" species such as deer. More food means a larger herd and more animals available as targets. Hunting programs also cause wildlife overpopulation by stimulating breeding by conducting "buck only" hunts, which can leave as many as six does per buck; pen-raising quail, grouse, and pheasants for use as hunters' targets; transporting raccoons, antelopes, martens, wild turkeys, and other animals from one state to another to bolster populations for hunters; and exterminating predators like wolves and mountain lions in order to throw prey populations off balance, thereby "justifying" the killing of both "dangerous" and "surplus" animals.

Hunters claim that they pay for "conservation" by buying hunting licenses, duck stamps, etc. But the relatively small amount each hunter pays does not cover the cost of hunting programs or game warden salaries. The public lands many hunters use are supported by taxpayers. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service programs, which benefit hunters, get most of their funds from general tax revenues, not hunting fees. Funds benefiting "non-game" species are scarce. Hunters kill more animals than recorded tallies indicate. It is estimated that, for every animal a hunter kills and recovers, at least two wounded but unrecovered animals die slowly and painfully of blood loss, infection, or starvation. Those who don't die often suffer from disabling injuries. Because of carelessness or the effects of alcohol, scores of horses, cows, dogs, cats, hikers, and others are wounded or killed each year by hunters. In 1988, 177 people were killed and 1,719 injured by hunters while walking through the woods or on their own property.

Hunters say that they are "ethical" and follow the concept of "fair chase." What is fair about a chase in which the hunter uses a powerful weapon from ambush and the victim has no defense except luck? Furthermore, despite the hunting community's repeated rhetoric of "hunting ethics," many hunting groups have refused to end repugnant practices that go above and beyond the cruelty inherent in all sport hunting. There is clearly no "fair chase" in many of the activities sanctioned by the hunting community, such as: "canned hunts," in which tame, exotic animals - from African lions to European boars - are unfair game for fee-paying hunters at private fenced-in shooting preserves; "contest kills," in which shooters use live animals as targets while competing for money and prizes in front of a cheering crowd; "wing shooting," in which hunters lure gentle mourning doves to sunflower fields and blast the birds into pieces for nothing more than target practice, leaving more than 20 percent of the birds they shoot crippled and un-retrieved; "baiting," in which trophy hunters litter public lands with piles of rotten food so they can attract unwitting bears or deer and shoot the feeding animals at point-blank range; 'hounding," in which trophy hunters unleash packs of radio-collared dogs to chase and tree bears, cougars, raccoons, foxes, bobcats, lynx, and other animals in a high-tech search and destroy mission, and then follow the radio signal on a handheld receptor and shoot the trapped animal off the tree branch.

Some hunters say hunting with a bow and arrow avoids using high tech equipment that might make it an unfair chase. Bow hunting is one of the cruelest forms of hunting because primitive archery equipment wounds more animals than it kills. Dozens of scientific studies indicate that bow hunting yields more than a 50 percent crippling rate. For every animal dragged from the woods, at least one animal is left wounded to suffer - either to bleed to death or to become infested with parasites and diseases.

Hunting is not the cure but the cause of overpopulation and starvation. Luke Dommer, the founder of the Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting, had proposed to several state wildlife agencies that if they are serious about using hunting as a population control tool in areas where the sex ratio is already badly distorted, they should institute a doe season (taking no bucks but only does until the ratio is again stabilized at 50:50). All agencies have rejected that proposal thereby giving up any pretense of ecologically motivated sound wildlife management. They quite consciously and openly state that they are in business to provide the maximum number of live targets to hunters each year.

Powerful hunting lobbies in 35 states have persuaded lawmakers to enact "hunter harassment" laws that make it illegal for non-hunters to interfere in behalf of animals targeted by hunters, but these laws are being challenged on constitutional grounds.
Connecticut's law was found to impact on freedom of speech without a compelling state interest and was struck down by a U.S. appeals court.

WHAT CAN BE DONE:
Before you support a "wildlife" or "conservation" group, ask if it supports hunting. Such groups as the National Wildlife Federation, the National Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, the Izaak Walton League, the Wilderness Society, World Wildlife Fund, and many others are pro-hunting.

To combat hunting in your area:
Post "No Hunting" signs on your land
Join or form a local anti-hunting organization
protest organized hunts
Play loud radios and spread deer repellent or human hair (from barber shops) near hunting areas.
Report poachers in national parks to the National Parks and Conservation Association at 1-800-448-NPCA.
Tell others the facts about hunting.
Encourage your legislators to enact or enforce wildlife protection laws, and insist that non-hunters be equally represented on wildlife agency staffs.

The above taken from
http://www.idausa.org/facts/hunting.html