Hunting for food is not cruel
Where's the beef?
Out in the Canadian woods, apparently.
Blog TO (and freshdaily) want you to have a nervous breakdown because hunters are posting pictures of their kill — mostly deer — now that hunting season is upon us.
Let's not take that bait, people. Canadian hunters have mouths to feed.
What was it Gary Dunford used to say? Everybody wants a hamburger, but nobody wants to see the meat grinder ... something like that.
Nobody wants to know about killing the cow and removing the hide and butchering the meat, etc. Yergh!! Pass the ketchup.
If you eat meat, you can't really argue that hunting and posting pictures of the kill are offensive. Every hunter responding in high dudgeon to blogto made it clear that hunting puts food on the table — a protein source most claimed to be superior to the meat from factory farmed animals available at your local grocery store.
Many hunters responded by pointing out the need to cull the deer herd (now that natural predators are on the wane) while others wrote about the conservation work done by hunters and fishers.
Some people referenced cultural norms; others spoke about life outside the big city.
The one thing nobody mentioned was hunting for the sake of killing things, which most would agree is some kind of abomination.
Why would anyone hunt and kill an elephant or a giraffe or a wild cat?
Rule of thumb: If you can't eat it, don't kill it. Photos of the Eric and Donnie Trump Jr. (or anyone else) with dead animals they've shot for 'sport' are a good reminder of the many connections between cruelty to animals and cruelty to people. Is this the right place to mention that many infamous serial killers got their start in childhood, killing neighbourhood cats and dogs?
Anyone who is cruel to animals is suspect.
As for posing with the bloody dead deer you just killed and posting that photo on social media, yeah — that's not something everyone can get behind. It's kind of gross if that's not your thing.
On the other hand, does anyone really want to see pictures of your car, or your lunch, or your naked bum? They do not, but these photos are also posted by people on the regular. So chacun son gout, which is one of those fancy French phrases that is difficult to translate but more or less means everyone likes his own goat best.
If it bothers you that people eat deer at all — Bambiiii! — remember that the Chinese, Italians and Mexicans (among many others) eat horse meat and Koreans and Nigerians eat dog.
North Americans eat spareribs from a dear, smart, pink little piggie but would never, ever eat Fido! Go figure.
In New Guinea, the Biyani and Korowai tribes allegedly still eat people.
Let's hope they have no access to social media.