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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxl!houxm!ihnp4!ihuxm!cwa
From: cwa@ihuxm.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Defenseless Animals?
Message-ID: <740@ihuxm.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 6-Dec-83 14:14:42 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxm.740
Posted: Tue Dec  6 14:14:42 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 9-Dec-83 02:35:16 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, Il
Lines: 45

>  most of my playmates were hunting by age twelve, and none of them ever
>  shot any of their friends or enemies.  (other than defenseless animals)

Now you did it!!    It looked like your intentions were harmless and it
seemed that at least you are trying to be objective towards gun ownership,
but you let that little anti-hunting remark slip and here it goes.

Defenseless should not apply to animal species which are hunted within
the laws and rules of sportsmanship and fair chase.

Just to comment as an anti-hunter without being a vegetarian is so much
hypocrisy that no one will hear you over all the laughter.  What makes the
killing of a deer worse than the slaughtering of cattle?

If you want to give animals human qualities such as the right to live
full lives, then you must give them the right to freedom.  Domestic animals
are raised in pens, are force fed, are extremely crowded, and have very
short life spans.   Wild animals are at least, free to roam - within
the constraints of 'civilization'.

Why not let nature take its course?  Let the wolves eat the surplus deer?
Man has encroached on or eliminated much of the habitat for wild animals.
Seen any new subdivisions, highways, fences, or shopping centers lately?
Many of the predators do not live well with man or man does not allow them
to: wolves, lions, wolverines, bobcats for examples.  This creates a large
surplus of animals that do get along well in man's environment: deer is
the best example, or rabbits etc.  Hunting is the way to insure a proper
healthy population - it is NOT killing defenseless animals.

Nature is much crueler than most people know.  Shooting a deer is more
`humane' than starvation or being a prey animal's meal and what about
one of the biggest killers of wild animals?  The automobile.

Man is a higher animal and an omnivore.  This requires the killing of
lower animals.  At one time, man lived with nature and killed to survive.
Now, man lives, in many ways, around nature and now must kill to manage
nature.  If you think ALL killing of animals is wrong, then you live with
a view of nature that is not supported by history, or by your local McDonalds.
If you think that it is no longer necessary for man to kill WILD animals,
then your view is not supported by most people who have done game management
research nor the historical examples in the US where hunting has been banned.

	Carl W. Amport		Naperville, IL. 	ihuxm!cwa

ps.  Thanks to Jeff who unknowingly gave me the inspiration for this article.