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im not going to be so nice next year.........

  • #21
[b said:
Quote[/b] (nepenthes gracilis @ Nov. 24 2006,3:28)]Here we go again....hunters are the bad guys. That's right Sheridan, make sure you shoot it and make it bleed, really good, make sure you shoot it so you don't kill it, let it suffer, let it die a slow death....
Got no problem with hunting deer, etc. for eating, or even culling over-populated areas, but killing leopards for the thrill of it is another matter.

When topics such as these are posted I believe I have the right to voice my opinion if I wish. Whether or not anybody agrees with me, that's their business. Whether or not it upsets anybody, ditto.
 
  • #22
I'm with you Sean.

Shooting leopards and hippos for fun is ***ing twisted. Why not go to Asia and finish off the Tigers whilst you're at it?
 
  • #23
I'm not upset but the anti-hunters anti-gun people are always out to get hunters. Alexis was crying over seeing a deer killed. Do you realize how many CARS kill not only deer but all sorts of animals every year? Would you rather see a deer shot killed and eaten or hit by a car, had all it bones smashed and still be alive trying to run away?

Cmon......
 
  • #24
I care more about the raccoons and turtles than dear... I'm speciesist...
tounge.gif


I'm against hunting big cats an elephants and zebra and all those other animals like giraffe. Those exotic dear an antelope are OK because they are like everywhere.

I just can't condone killing "upper" animals like big cats and giraffe and elephants. No one is talking about giraffe and elephants but it's a good example. I'm not going to protest it or anything but I really really REALLY disagree with it.
 
  • #25
actually elephants are a poor example.......there is not enough habitat tolet nature take its course. an adult elephant has no natural preditors other than man(yes man is a natural preditor, we have been hunting them since we were still wearing skins). Kenya does not allow the hunting of elephants, Kenya has the absolute worst problem with their populations, no hunting means the animals are worth nothing except to ivory poachers. other African countries allow the limited and controlled hunting of elephants. a good portion of these trophy fees go to anti poaching and habitat procurement. the absolute best anti poaching programs in existance in Africa are not run by the governments, infact most of the government programs are quite underfunded, the safari outfitters are the ones making a difference in the poaching. do you have any clue what an elephant is worth? the trophy fee alone is around $17,000 for an elephant carrying ivory. add on to this the daily rates(usually $300ish per day), you have to pay for 20 days worth of hunting elephant reguardless of weither you shoot one on the first day or the last or even shoot one at all. you can hunt elephants not carrying ivory aswell, IIRC those cost $7,000 to pull the trigger as well as the daily rates. when all is added up thats alot of incentive to protect and manage herds of elephants as each and every elephant is worth the equivilent of a nice car here in the states, let alone what they are worth over in the poorer regions in Africa, its an incredible incentive to keep herds alive and happily producing young.

but Kenya took the other route, banning hunting, and their elephant herds out side of the few national parks are being wiped out. hunters are a part of the solution, anti-hunters(as in activists, not those who dont hunt because they choose not to) are a part of the problem because unlike hunters they most often refuse to put their money where their mouth is.......

as for me eating leopard, sure i will, no problem what so ever. i have eaten mountain lion, why should leopard be any different? BTW leopard numbers are and have always been increasing, they are like the coyote in the USA, they are highly adaptable and do not fear man. infact there is a decent population living in Nairobi, not the outskirts of the city but right in the middle of the metropolitan area living on rats, pigeons, dogs and the occational person.
 
  • #26
Yeah.. I know what you'r saying but to me that's like killing a dolphin... they are cute... lol

I don't have moral problems with it, it's a personal thing. I just can't comprehend shooting an elephant.. cute..
 
  • #27
i have no real interest in shooting an elephant either. the cost has nothing to do with it, just have no interest and im not really sure why. though challenge wise hunting elephants on foot, up close is one of the top adrenalin rushes there is cause there is a very real chance of you becoming a lil red spot on the savanah. have no real interest in shooting rhino or lions either though a chance at a female lion might be interesting..........males though i dont find that interesting(hunting wise) and i have no real desire to hunt them.
 
  • #28
[b said:
Quote[/b] (nepenthes_ak @ Nov. 23 2006,7:50)]Was that Sarcasm or what? Also I never said Hunters where the bad guys, Ive killed quite a few squirles rabbits and birds, for the heck of it.
I think most serial killers do that, too.

Seriously that's messed up. You'r a christian but you have a TOTAL disregard for life?
 
  • #29
BTW Sean, i have no problem with you voicing your opinion. i, personally, have nothing against going over to Africa and shooting more critters than im going to eat. however the meat is not wasted. all the meat from the animals i shoot goes to local families. you should see what happens after an elephant is shot. ive seen film of it several times. ppl come from miles around to help butcher and take home their share. an animal weighting several tons is reduced to nothing but bones in 12 hours. so while i may not be eating more than a couple steaks from the animals i shoot the meat will not go to waste.

hell most of my hunting here is done for my enjoyment, though i generally take lil enjoyment out of the actual act of killing. its just part of hunting. i eat the big game i shoot here. i butcher it in my own kitchen, process it in to hamburger or sausage or jerky. my wifes kids have no illusions about where their meat comes from and they ful realize the act of buying meat at a store is no different from killing the animal themselves.

so far this hunting season, the only animal killed by someone from our house was my wifes meat doe i posted a pic of. i have not shot anything and with a storm moving in and the season closing on Sunday i wont be shooting anything. all in all i had a great season as far as im concerned weither i killed something or not.
 
  • #30
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]shooting rhino

i thought rhinos were imperied. Its not like elephents are actually needing to be shot because, like it was stated, they hae no natural animies anyways. They may be dangerous and damaging, but it shoule be noted that elephants are dissapeiring from many areas very quickly, plus its not exactly that the populations hae a high capacity to recover from exploitation with their very low birthrate.

African elephant population went from 1.3 million in 1970 to roughly 600,000 in 1989, to 272,000 in 2000 and then to between 400,000 and 660,000 in 2003. If you call that an increasing pest population... no. In some places, yes indeed, because there the large predators of calfs are overhunted.
 
  • #31
More animal and plant species are threatened by habitat loss than by people hunting or collecting them.

I think Rattler & his family are nuts for wanting to spend that kind of money for a trip, but I think they're nuts for a lot of other reasons too.  I don't see how they'll cause any more damage to "nature" than any other tourists.  As he pointed out, hunters can help people who don't own a piece of the tourism industry.  That's pretty rare for tourists.
 
  • #32
Finch the issue is elephants and rhinos are making the best come backs in areas that allow and carefully monitor hunting. it comes down to which is actually better for the species............allow them to be hunted where they are doing good and hopefully with the increased revenue from the hunts purchase more hunting blocks which are inturn looked over by antipoaching patrols or transport the animals and turn them loose where they are likely to be shot by poachers? atleast in hunting areas they are able to contribute to the gene pool for several years before hunting is done(with rhinos only older males are taken) the hunting of rhino is quite limited. IIRC black rhino have only been in huntable numbers in a couple of areas in the last couple of years, cost i think is around $100,000 when all is said and done. white rhino have always existed in huntable numbers in some regions and are cheaper though still cost more than trophy elephant IIRC though the actual hunt is easier.

Bruce................basically the options are get a new car in a year or just deal with what we have(a 2002 Impala) and put a good 200,000 some odd thousand on it, save up and take a trip we will remember as long as we are alive.....being that we get a new shop truck every few years to use aswell we are saying to heck with a new car lets take a trip of a life time......its only money, not like i can take it with me
 
  • #33
one of the rhino subspecies has recently died out, and, well, read for yourself
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]For most of the 20th century the continental black rhino was the most numerous of all rhino species. Around 1900 there were probably several hundred thousand[3] living in Africa. During the latter half of the 20th century their number severely reduced from an estimated 70,000[4] in the late 1960s to only 10,000 to 15,000 in 1981. In the early 1990s the number dipped below 2500, and in 1995 it was reported that only 2,410 black rhinos remained. According to the International Rhino Foundation, the total African population has since then slightly recovered to 3,610 by 2003.[5] According to a July 2006 report by the World Conservation Union, a recent survey of the West African Black Rhino, which once ranged across the savannahs of western Africa but had dropped to just 10, concluded the subspecies to be extinct. [6] The northern white is soon to join the western black rhino on the extinction list as its last noted numbers were as few as 4. The only rhino that has recovered somewhat from the brink of extinction is the southern white whose numbers now are estimated around 14,500, up from only 50 a century ago.[7]

Do those numbers, 3,610 for just black rhino, signify a large-scale recovery? The best is indeed the white rhino, but the northern subspecies just died out due to poaching. I think the number should be atleast 5,000 animals to be considerd recoverd enough to hunt! The IRF says ( http://www.rhinos-irf.org/rhinoinformation/blackrhino/index.htm ) that. Just because black rhino's are increasing from an all-time low does not mean that they have recoverd enough to hunt.
 
  • #34
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Just because black rhino's are increasing from an all-time low does not mean that they have recoverd enough to hunt.

anychance you know weither there is a high percentage of males? anyways ive only heard of them being able to be hunted within the last 18 months or so......the price is EXTREAMLY high and i have yet to see a picture of some one who has successfully hunted one. what i am guessing has happened is the countries government hass allowed the shooting of older males past their prime that are no longer contributing to the gene pool. give as much as the hunt costs a significant portion is most likely making its way back to help out the rhinos.

a quick look at the range of the northern subspecies shows me that it was in areas that do not allow hunting at all or just recently(in the case of the Congo) have allowed hunting and do not really have a well running system of anti hunting patrols set up.

the southern white rhino is down in the countries that have always allowed hunting. even in countries that havent had the steadiest governments, the rhino has held on due to the efforts of hunters. the northern species was in areas such as the Sudan, Uganda and eastern Congo which really havent been accessible to hunters do to a very very bad political climate.

hunters=conservation dollars, hunters as a whole are VERY interested in keeping large tracks of land as natural as possible for game animals to thrive. hell the president who started the national parks was one of the biggest hunters of them all Teddy Roosevelt. hunters have brought back the pronghorn and bighorn sheep from the brink of extinction. hunters are the reason that mule deer numbers are climbing where they were almost wiped out. "activists" are the ones causing big horn sheep to die off in the southwest USA because they will not allow hunters to control the feral populations of horses, donkeys and goats. i, personally, donate alot of money to Ducks Unlimited and i dont own a shotgun nor do i have any interest, what so ever, zero, zip, nada, in hunting waterfowl(i did it once and never again) but the group does ALOT for improving and rebuilding wetlands which means better deer hunting for me cause other animals benifit from the work, not just waterfowl.
 
  • #35
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]the southern white rhino is down in the countries that have always allowed hunting. even in countries that havent had the steadiest governments, the rhino has held on due to the efforts of hunters. the northern species was in areas such as the Sudan, Uganda and eastern Congo which really havent been accessible to hunters do to a very very bad political climate.

What the map doesnt' say is that the recovery has almos exlusivly been in south africa, the country with the strongest goverment and strictest regulations... In POACHING. Not just hunting The northern countries did not do a thing to prevent the decline, or prevent pochers.

I am not against hunting rhinos specifically. I just worry that their population may be too low to allow hunting to resume.

I agree with you the value of hunters. I myself am also a donater to DU and enjoy their magazene, and have not hunted. Its well written. I am not anti-hunter. Do not assume, by me disagreeing with you, that i dont know how hunters have helped, how they set the first conservation laws. And dont confuse conservationists with animal rights activists. I have a big problem with THOSE activists. They try to stop the population controls of goats on offshore islands as well. They are NOT conservationists in the sence of ecosystems. Those 'activsts' of wich you speak in reference to the bighorn sheep...
crazy.gif


I know hunters are some of the best things to come along for this planet and help conserve lots of stuff. I am actually in most respects very pro-hunting. We need it. Hunters provide a most valubal service to us all. When everything comes down to it, i almost always agree with the hunters. For example, hunting is needed to control populations of deer, snow geese, and other animals that overpopulate. Without them, the enviorment woud be very much damaged, and the animals would die a slow death. Without hunters, how could we eradicate the scourge of offshore islands, the goats, to allow the islands to recover? We cant!

But with rhinos, the goverments in their ranges that just cant control the hunting and poaching often see a decline. The parks just dont prevent hunting, they activly prevent poaching within their borders, something that outside of the desegnated area would be difficult.
 
  • #36
I don't agree with relying on the Market to protect endangered species.   Species will have no reason to exist unless someone can squeeze a profit out of them.  I'm not ready to concede that a system of glorified elephant farms = conservation.

Plenty of hunters consider it a good day of hunting if they shoot a farm raised pheasant that stumbles out in front of them as they walk across a field almost shoulder to shoulder with other people.  Or if they shoot a deer that spent the summer fattening up on exurban gardens.  Just like lots of people consider fishing to be catching pale hatchery trout with balls of Velveeta.  Many, like Rattler, aren't that way, but people whose interest in the outdoors is satisfied by pulling a few farmed fish out of a silted-up stream aren't a reliable force for conservation.

Beyond that, too many hunters are so mesmerized by the politics of their guns that they've become a pretty solid voting bloc in favor of any anti-environmental policy proposed by the NRA Party.  Paying millions of dollars of excise taxes towards stocking fish and maintaining some land doesn't overcome that.  I'm still pro-hunting, but with reservations.
 
  • #37
Finch wasnt just refering to South Africa.....was also refering to countries like Tanzania and Zimbabwe(where i will prolly be hunting).

Finch by your arguments ive never gotten the sence your an antihunter. most of my original comments were directed twords others, you just seem to be more interested in disscussing this.

Bruce i agree that hunting blocks are not the only answer. a very effective anti poaching tactic though has been to ring the large National parks over there with hunting consessions. this in effect allows the anti poaching patrols to extend much farther out than the park borders keeping the poachers from setting up shop a mile or so outside of the parks. this also helps put more buffer room between the parks and encroaching humans other than the odd farm that has always been there.
 
  • #38
Ah, i must have misunderstood.
rattler, the menthods you are suggsting in terms of this do indeed seem low-impact. But, is there any goverment oversight on hunting there as it is there, like bag limits and tags? Also, the hunting would have to have restrictions. Where goverment is weak, that would have to rely on the guides and the unters themselves, and i dont know about you, but i feel that history shows that people cannot offten self-reguate themselves. Not as an individual, but as a whole. In many areas of central africa, its difficult to find any large animals due to out-of control market hunting.
 
  • #39
government oversite is the rule but prices are generally market driven. a government has to allow hunting in the country for it to take place. other wise the hunter is in effect a poacher. you can only import elephant ivory and rhino horn from countries that are working with CITES. if you take an elephant in a country that is not working with CITES than you can not get a permit to import the ivory or what ever into the USA. same situation with lion i believe. in order to be CITES compliant there have to be strict bag limits and such which is why in Africa you pay for every animal you hit with a bullet, recovered or not. with some species if you wound one and it gets away the assumption is it will die from the wounds and you are done hunting that species
 
  • #40
rattler_mt For the most part, the large free ranging populations of rhinos that used to roam over huge areas, and which therefore could not be adequately protected, have been eliminated or reduced to low numbers. The bulk of remaining black rhinos occur in areas with more concentrated security, such as national parks.[1]

We arnt just talking about hunters from overseas here, but also bushmeat hunters who live within the rhino lands.

I should note that the rhino decline started before any restrictions and park systems were in place. This, and the fact that only Two countries have shown net increases in numbers of black and white rhino over the period 1980-2001: South Africa and Namibia. In both countries, investments in conservation programmes, including monitoring and law enforcement, have been high.[1]

If what you say is true, why is the increase only in the two countries that have been able to almost eliminate poaching and hunting from their lands? Why not in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, wich has no enforcement?

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Civil unrest and the free flow of weapons in Africa have had a significant impact on African rhino conservation efforts. Black rhino populations in Angola, Central African Republic, Chad, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda have to varying degrees all suffered from the consequences of war and civil unrest since the 1960s (Emslie and Brooks 1999)
This civil unrest has almost stopped all protection programs in these countries at one time or another. During those periods, rhino nimbers declined.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Many remaining rhino are now concentrated in fenced sanctuaries, conservancies, rhino conservation areas and intensive protection zones where law enforcement effort can be concentrated at effective levels.
 
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