Hunters contribute more to protecting nature than
environmentalists. Hunters pay qite a bit for their liscenses. In
NC, it’s $40 for a sportsmen’s liscense, which let’s me go for deer,
turkey, bear, some fowl, and fish, includign trout. Migratory
waterfowl and doves are a little extra. NC is one of the cheapest
states too.

It’s only contradictory if you don’t have an understanging of nature,
the environment and biological systems. Killing a deer, a bear or
anyhting else for that matter does not harm nature. As long as
hunting is regulated, it’s not harmful. In most cases, it’s more than
beneficial, it’s a crucial part of nature’s balance. The money
collected goes to enforcing regulations and sustainable forestry
practices. In the end, it helps protect the environment.

What’s contradictory is when environmentalists collect money to
save the forest, and use it to prohibit forestry operations in an
attempt at “preserving” the forest. In time, this leads to massive
forest fires and a truely devastating incident.

Managed forestry and selective harvesting of trees simply replaces
the natural regenerative process of limited burning. Burnign is
somewhat incompatible with civilization, so in many cases, forestry
is the only alternative.

An individual deer isn’t nature, it’s a component in nature. Just as
the food the deer eats, the trees, the rivers and streams – and the
things that help balance it all out – predators, fire, drought, and
disease. All are important, necesaary aspects of a healthy,
sustainable ecosystem. Problem is, predators are predators to us
as well as deer. Being the top predators, we’ve pushed out out
competition and rivals – it’s a prudent thing to do. Nobody wants
to run the risk of being torn apart by wolves, or ambushed by a
cougar every time they venture in the woods. As we supplant
these other predators, we must also replace them. IF they ar ento
there to fil their niche, we must do so, or else the whole system
becomes unbalanced. In Eastern NC, deer are all over the place.
Contrary to what’s popularly believed, humans don’t just hunt the
healthy, big bucks. Sure, they’r esought after,bu ut hunting limits in
overpopulated areas are slanted heavily in favor of killing does.
Here, you can’t kill more than 2 bucks, but you can kill as many as
5 does a season, per person. In th emountains, you can only kill
does on the very last day of the season, and only one at that.

A couple kid skilling an animal just to kill it certainly doesn’t make
them hunters. I killed a squirrel that was chewing through my
walls. I created a trap, caught it and shot it. I don’t consider that
a hunt. I didn’t enjoy it either.

Just the same, people go varminting out in the West. The AR-15,
esentially the M-16 only semi automatic, was developed for this
purpose – varmint hunting. They usually use them for killing praire
dogs and groundhogs. Purely for fun. Hard to see, very small
targets at long ranges – challenging target shooting. Looks like it
could be a lot of fun. It’s not hunting to me. It’s sport shooting.
Not for me, however. I’m an animal lover, and I don’t hurt
animals without a good reason.

I knew someoen was going to get to that. “we’ve moved on”.

No we haven’t.

We’re still animals, with instincts. You can’t repress that, or put it
away. Some people never have the desire – I certainly didn’t. I
had ZERO desire to kill anything but fish. After being around
hunters, I saw the enjoyment of the hunt – not just the kill – but the
hunt.

You feel the rush of a hunt, and you’ll clearly see that we retain our
hunting instinct. Our biology is definatly not suited to any native
plant diet. In fact, there are few, if any, places on earth where a
human could exist on a purely veggie diet without the benifits of
agriculture or industry. We couldn’t exist without meat prior to
agriculture and industry.

Besides, how does it make it better if the animals are slaughtered
in a slaughterhouse? Human kills animal, human eats animal.
Predator, prey. Hunters are predators, deer are prey.
slaughterhouse workers are not really predators, they are killing
wholesale. Hardly filling a natural niche.

In all actuality, the reason hunting is so much of a rush, and so
enjoyable, is not simply because of the hunting and killing, it’s the
overall experience. You’re truely one with nature. A hiker or
camper is just IN nature, watchign it, observing it, taking it in. A
hunter becomes part of it, a functioning part of the ecosystem.
You breathe in the air, watch the sun rise and set, listen to the
sounds, just like a hiker or camper. But you actually interact with
th eanimals, filling the role of predator. It is esentially going back
to the past, back in time. Just like camping fills some desire to go
back in time, hunting takes it to another level.

You want to truly experience nature, be a part of it, not just an
observer.

Also, hunters were the first environmental advocates. Our national
forests and parks got their starts because of unters wishing to
protect nature (you can’t preserve nature, it’s always changing).
Hunters have been integral in reintroducing once native animals to
game lands. Elk have been reintroduced in NC, and are doing
well. In time, we’ll be able to hunt them. But the best part is
they’re back. hunter’s know you can’t preserve nature – they want
to protect it. Environmentalists try to preserve it, keep it as it wa
swithout human intervention. They don’t consider us part of
nature. It’s a flawed concept, and doomed to failure. We’re as
much a part of nature as anything, and denying that is pointless.

Basically, the fact that you feel hunting is bad, pointless or
“primitive and below us”, yet industrial breeding, rearing and
slaughtering of animals by the millions, is fine and dandy, is tself
absurd. The simple fact is ( and this is no way an insult) that
society and civilization has enabled us to be so far removed from
nature, survival, and the nity-gritty aspects of life that we are able
to look down on them.

If people had to slaughter and butcher their own animals, and they
learned how to do it from a youg age, then this would be no
problem. Now, people don’t even know what kind of animal their
meat comes from! I’ve had people swear bacon and sparer ibs
were beef products…

People that think meat, hunting and th emeat industry is barbaric,
that’s fine. That’s their opinion, and there’s no arguing against
opinion. However, the stance that hunting, preserving the balance
of predator and prey, is barbaric, yet the industrial process of
breeding for flavor, raising for tenderness, and slaughtering
wholesale, packing in plastic, and selling in unrecognizable
packaging is NOT barbaric is purely nonsense.

I’m fine with the meat industry. I could go into a slaughterhouse,
watch an animal walk in , and cook it’s steaks on the other side,
and enjoy them. I’m not in denial about where my food comes
from. Killing the thing yourself is just taking matters into your
own hands. Such independence isn’t for everyone. Many people
simply enjoy a life where thigs are provided for them, and they
simply fill their role. They do their work, removed from the stuff
they find dirtyy or ugly. For me, there is a certain satisfaction in
the idea of killing and providing for my family – it’s a
responsibility.

What really gets me is animal rights groups protesting hunting. IF
anything, they should embrace it. It’s far more “humane” than what
goes on in slaughterhouses. Domestic meat animals have no
chance, they live to feed us. I’m all for it, but noone’s going to
argue that that’s not a miserable existance. In the wild, deer have
a free life. They are not going to live forever, and will eventually
die. Either they are killed by predators, or die from natural
causes. In the wild, natural (non predator) causes means starving
to death most of the time. If I were to choose between dying from
a “natural” predator, or man, I’d choose the hunter’s bullet
anyday. Even an arrow will kill you with less suffering than a pack
of wolves.

Wolves will rip them apart and eat them before they’re even
fully dead – a terrible way to die. Mountain lions aren’t
significantly better, ripping them apart with claws and clamping
their necks. A hunter, on the other hand, usually kills much faster,
and without the drawn out chase. If deer know you’re there, it’s
over. When deer get shot by a hunter, it’s over pretty quickly
most of the time. A much better way to go than anything nature
has to offer.

I find there to be nothing wrong with a trophy. If I get a nice
buck, I’ll at least mount the antlers, maybe even the whole head.
I’m not crazy about wasting te animals, however. If you kill a
deer, use the meat – and if you’re not into venison, give it to
someone who is. Venison isn’t my favorite, but cooked well, it’s
a great change of pace.

Personally, I’d love to go hunting some of those big, black angus
cattle up in the mountains. Some good meat in them.

The “rush” you get when hunting is pretty funny. Like I said, I’;ve
never so much as seen a deer while up in a tree stand, and yet I
had fun. I got up in the tree about 5:00AM, and sat in it until
noon. Your senses become so sharp, it’s amazing. Every bit of
movement is noticed, every smell, every sound is clear. Your
hearing is amazing when you’re hunting. Every little rustle in the
leaves, every animal in the distance, it’s all picked up. Every little
sound that MIGHT be a deer gets your heart pumping like crazy,
the adreniline rush is amazing. Pretty cool.

I’m going to the mountains this weekend, but hunting season there
isn’t until the NEXT weekend, when I’m probably in Atlanta. I’ll
have to go up there again before December 10th, which is the last
day.

I’ve got my father’s Remington 700 in .308. It’s the civilian version
of the Marine Corps M40 sniper rifle. They got a few kills over
700 meters. I’m pretty confident shooting the thing up to 300
meters, but I don’t see me having to shoot more than 50 (dense
woods).

Sean, where do you live, and, if it’s NC, Can I come over?

I’ve been hunting twice – once each year in November. Up in the
Smokey Mountains, 20+ feet up a tree, freezing temps, all fricking
day. Didn’t see a single deer. Tons of fun. I’ll be up in a tree this
weekend (if It’s hunting season… can’t remember).

Humans are predators. We didn’t evolve big brains and small
jaws for chewing tough plants. It’s all because we figured out how
to kill things with our brains and not out massive jaws and claws.
Hunting – stalking, killing, etc… it’s all ingrained in our brains,
instints passed down over thousands of years. As a result, there’s
a primal rush in hunting. It’s enjoyable, an adreniline rush that’s
unrivaled by anything.

Plus, you get lots of great, fresh from the wild venison.
Furthermore, you become part of nature, filling a niche that was
vacated by the wolves and lions. Their role is necessary to the
ecosystem, but their prescence is incompatible with civilization.
Deer need to be killed. If they are not hunted, they’ll increase in
population to a point that they die from hunger. In time, this
results in smaller, less robust deer. Short term, this means lots of
smashed deer (and cars) on the roads.

There’s no reason to kill a predator except for the trophy. I
personally have no desire to kill anything but something that I’ll
eat. Deer are prey, and hunting them is a thrill. Hunting for a
trophy predator( bear, lion,etc. ) is a thrill because they are a
threat – different thing alltogether. Hunting prey animals isn’t
picking on them, it’s hunting them. Finding the things is tough
enough.

It’s easy to deride hunters when you benifit from the advances of
civilization. You’re so distanced from the killing and butchering
that you feel yourself above it – despite the fact that you still
partake of their products. You live in a world of denial. You eat
meat from an animal that lived and died just as the hunter’s prey,
yet you slander the hunter for doing the work himself. The cow
was slaughtered and suffered just as the deer did. More so, in
fact, since it never had a chance at living free. The cow needed to
be butchered, just as the deer. Though you have someone else
do it for you – so you are spared seeing the meat as part of a
formerly living animal. the hunter who butchers their own meat is
not in denial of the origins of their dinner. They are aware of
where it came from, and alone responsible for the animal’s death,
butchering and preparation. You, on the other hand, simply buy
meat that’s ground up into an unrecognizable pile and shrink
wrapped, or cut into steaks named so you can’t even tell which
part of the animal they came from.

And yet you have the gall to slander the man who simply does this
himself?

Oh, because he’s pround of it. He took a picture of it… oh, yeah,
that’s mean. Well, how about you take a picture of the cows lined
up in the slaughterhouse, then after they’ve been stunned, bled split
and hung up. This is where you get your meat.
A hunter is someone who deals with all the dirty work himself, and
in the end, is proud of it. Can you say you’re proud when you see
a side of beef, or a strip steak?

Halo2 on HDTV looks sooo nice. The local Best Buy has a big
HDTV (60″) running some Xbox driving game. It’s amazing how
good it looks. I can’t wait to see what halo 3’s going to look like.
Hopefully, xbox360 prices will drop by them so I can get it…. my
wife will not be happy….

Before you buy the DLP, find out how much a replacement bulb
will cost for it – some are over $500. You can pretty much be
sure you’ll have to replace it in 5 years. So if the DLP is $2,000,
and th ebulb is $500, but the plasma TV with a comparable
picture is $3,000, the DLP is probably a better buy.

However, I’ve seen some plasmas that are $2500 that were far
superior to any DLP’s within $1,000 of their price.

Plasma doesn’t mean good quality – many of the cheaper plasmas
are just EDTV, not HDTV – that’s why you see pixels. You’ll
usually see them for $1,500-$2,000. If you just pay $500 more
(“Just” $500, hah!), you get a much better TV.

DLPs look great. Probably the best picture for the price. Just find
out the price of the bulb first. Retailers will not mention the
replacement of the bulbs – it makes selling them harder. People
don’t like the idea of having to maintain a TV over time. Especially
when their OLD TV has been working fine since the 80’s or 90’s.