‘Diary of a Drug Fiend’ by Aleister Crowley…

And Al is worried about what plants feel, unless he had his tongue in his cheek.

Isn’t that what the 😉 icon is for?

I’m just amazed that anyone can try to justify taking pleasure from snuffing out another creatures life…

What about the poor plant’s feelings – don’t they count??;)

Some muddled thinking is in evidence here.
No muddled thinking on this side, mate. I get the distinct impression you don’t know what you are talking about.
As a conservationist you will presumably acknowledge that once man has interfered by removing the natural checks on the population (In the case of deer – bears, big cats and wolves) the only natural restraint on a population growing exponentially is the availability of food.
I’m well aware that humans interfere in the natural world all the time, almost always to its detriment. I’ve been successfully involved in the breeding, recording and releasing of the extremely endangered Scottish wildcat, and would like to see all our native predators restored – even wolf, lynx and lion. Nature has to find its own balance, without our interference.
So without some culling, you end with all the old and less able animals, that would normally be dispatched by the predators, condemned to a slow and lingering death from starvation. You might think that is being kind to them, serious conservationists who have thought things through, don’t agree with you. Hence the number that are culled.
By simply culling numbers, the strong vanish with the weak, again to the detriment of the gene pool. Nature should decide which ones die and which live – it’s called natural selection.
Serious conservationists? You mean the Forestry Commission and Scottish Natural Heritage? The government? Most conservationists would like to see them culled. Vested interests old boy…
Once you establish that for the benefit of the deer population as a whole culling will necessary, you might find yourself on rocky ground trying to explain why the deer would feel better about being shot humanely by a paid employee of the forestry commission, rather than shot humanely by a sportsman.
It sounds like you’ve established it’s a benefit, not me…
I also presume Al that you are a vegetarian and never allow a chicken nugget to pass your lips?
What part of my first sentence didn’t you understand? Killing for food and killing for pleasure are entirely different – the same difference as a soldier killing someone compared to a serial killer.
If not your position on game bird shooting becomes pretty indefensible. They are shot for sport, but virtually all of them end up in the food chain.
Not on my estate, mate. Maybe 200 pheasants are shot on a day, most end up as landfill.
But then maybe you feel it is better for our ‘food’ to be raised in crowded pens, possibly away from natural light, and after an unnaturally short life be crated into a truck and driven somewhere distant to be hung by their feet on hooks, electrically stunned if they are lucky, and then have their throats slit before being dunked into scalding water, inevitably some of them still alive? That’s where your chicken nugget came from. But then the guy who slits their throat is doing it for a living so is obviously much more worthy than someone shooting for sport. I’m sure the birds feel much happier about that.
Personally, if I was a bird I’d rather live free in the countryside and take my chance with the guns.
Once again you are making totally incorrect assumptions. I like eating chicken, beef, fish, or indeed anything other than parsley and raisins (!), but the chicken I buy comes from a family-run free-range farm I pass daily, and my farmer neighbour supplies my local butchers meat, so I’ve satisfied myself they have had a good life – ahem, right up until they were lightly killed…
Another forum member here could testify that we had a mutual friend whose father managed a slaughter house, where we used to spend some time, so I’m under no illusions as to how my meat is produced.
Not many farmers take pleasure from slaughtering their livestock – that’s the difference.
Moggy

Al – I sense your resentment has more to do with your dislike of the manner and style of the participants than the sport itself. But please correct me if I am wrong.
No, any form of killing for pleasure angers me. As I said, bullfighting for one, but I see these so called sportsmen outside my door, so naturally they come first to mind!
And in answer to another post I wonder who has seen the infamous footage of killer whales tossing penguins around for sport. I doubt that humans are alone in killing for sport and personally, I have no strong feelings about hunting and killing for sport. I hasten to add that I have never hunted nor do I own a rifle.

I’ll butt in here too!
Other animals, even with relatively big brains like orcas or chimps, don’t kill for pleasure. In the case of orcas, they train their young how to catch prey by stunning it first, then letting the young practice on the impaired version. They also practice attack coordination and strategy, and don’t forget they also eat the penguins and seals.
Sometimes an abandoned kill might look pointless to a bystander, but it’s common for predators to simply kill other species which may compete with them for food. The bottlenose dolphins in the Moray Firth have been seen to kill porpoises for that very reason.
The fox killing every hen in the henhouse might look like wanton killing for fun, but left to its own devices, every kill would be taken away, and buried somewhere for when times get tough…

Killing for food is one thing, but as a conservationist I have to say that killing other living creatures for pleasure just can’t be justified in this day and age, with no exceptions.

It just so happens I live in the middle of a sporting estate, and am often sickened by parties of ‘sportsmen’ heading out for a shoot. These small people think they are so macho with their tweeds, rifles and shotguns, shooting ‘game’, but I wonder how well they would do if they were to fight, say, a red stag buck naked, armed only with their teeth and nails? The same applies to Matadors – I would like to see how tough they are without the recourse to swords, etc!

What right do we humans have to decide if an animal lives or dies?

If the nuclear deterrent is so important, why cancel the Nimrod MRA4, which would found and destroyed the foreign hunter-killers following our subs?

I don’t think I’ve ever owned a copy – just signed it and handed it over…

I understand your sentiments, Al, but surely if you extend your logic, what is the point in anyone signing the Official Secrets Act. I had to many years ago, and left that employment many years ago but I still respect it. If you know that you might not respect it, why sign it?

I expected someone to ask that important question.
To me, the difference is fairly clear cut. I proudly signed the document in 1975, and never since, but I definitely feel bound to it in practically every aspect, and will be until I shuffle off.
But I would like to think that if I was privvy to information that proved my government was covertly involved in torture, genocide, etc, and hiding behind the gravity of a document like the Act, then I would speak out publicly about it, irrespective of the consequences to me.
You may think that scenario is highly unlikely, but history tells us otherwise. I don’t think, however, that I would have had the guts to speak out if I had been a Civil Servant in Nazi Germany, for example.
It’s all very well standing up to be counted, but it’s a totally different thing when the price is also paid by family and friends…