Internet Hunting Banned in California

TheSync writes "California has banned Internet hunting. Emergency regulations will be put in place by the California Fish and Game Commission, and legislation (SB 1028) is in the works. West Virginia is considering legislation against it as well. Hunters consider hunting by robot and mouse click 'a digrace to the sport,' whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine."

Comments

Re:Wait... Logic Check...

[Inspector Lopez]

What would be useful here is a new term that would permit the distinction between "hunters" and "dickwads with big guns." Currently we lump the two groups together and heap derision upon both for the sins of the latter (and some don't like the former, either).

In my case, I *have* been deer hunting and goose hunting --- myself armed with a camera, and my companions with guns. I've had a bleeding deer carcase in my lap for 45 miles bouncing along in an open jeep in 25F weather, ... and thought myself lucky to have had an interesting day.

I don't think I could pull the trigger, and there is that little issue that I'm a vegetarian. But I don't hate "hunters."

I do, however, hate dickwads with guns. In my day job, I put up scientific apparatus in remote places, and dickwads with guns use my antennas for target practice, chop up my coax, steal the guy lines, and generally remind us that the gene pool has a shallow end.

But if there is one group of people who should *really* loathe dickwads with guns, it is ... the hunters, of course. It may be shallow to lump hunters together with dickwads with guns ... but the hunters would not suffer so much abuse if the dickwads with guns went away forever.

Re:Hunting

[dabigpaybackski]

In many areas of the U.S., particularly the Northeast, the gap made by the wolves' extermination has been filled by coyotes, who are extraordinarily adaptable and defy eradication efforts better than larger predators. Visit the northern woods and you'll see (if you're very lucky, that is) coyotes that weigh twice as much as their relatives in the Western U.S. It's quite amazing, actually; they have evolved in a very short span of time to take down the larger prey that wolves and cougars once hunted, though some of this is attributed to cross-breeding with the red wolf population. Coyotes are, in a real sense, becoming the wolves. I think this is a long-term shift in the ecological balance that will not be reversed, even as large predators are slowly introduced into the areas depopulated by extermination campaigns.

But the public in most areas is largely unaware of what sort of damage the burgeoning deer population can do to the woods. They just graze and graze and cause automobile accidents. And interestingly enough, they are involved by far in more fatal attacks on people than any other North American wild mammal. Yet people fear the quite miniscule numbers of wolves and cougars...

Re:A good use for this.

[rossifer]

Assuming evolution works, then the fact that our bodies don't make us good hunters should tell you something... like perhaps we shouldn't be hunting.

Ah, but our big brains and opposable thumbs make us very good hunters (us very good tool builders/users can use tools to overcome our lack of running speed, sharp claws and sharp teeth). The calorie density of meat is the only reason your distant (and your fairly recent) ancestors flourished and resulted in a population that included you.

Among primitive man, nobody who lived very long was a vegetarian, and nobody had the luxury of buying their meat already killed and cleanly presented in the supermarket. If they didn't kill the animal themselves, they knew who did.

If you're a strict vegetarian, congrats, I haven't got much criticism for you (though I do dislike a lot of the self-deceptive propaganda you read). If you're not a vegetarian and you buy meat from a supermarket, there's only one response you deserve:

Sit down and shut the fuck up.

Having someone else kill your meat for you doesn't put you in any better ethical position than a hunter who kills his own meat. If anything, the hunter has some control over how much pain the animal feels as it dies. You'll need to be keeping a close watch on the slaughterhouse that supplies your butcher to claim the same ability. As someone who had an informal tour of an operating slaughterhouse, I know I can do better with a rifle. And after taking that tour, which showed me just how horrible the process is that puts cleanly wrapped cuts of meat on the supermarket shelf, I took up hunting again.

Regards,
Ross

Re:You're violating my rights!

[ScentCone]

No, the amoraility in hunting is killing another living animal for fun, and claiming it's a "sport".

Except, you call it a "sport" and I call it "putting lean, healthy meat in my freezer, and helping to manage wildly out of balance deer populations."

I know a lot of hunters, and I don't know a single one - at all - that takes pleasure, per se, in the act of killing the animal they're taking. The nearest thing to it would be the pride they take in being good at it - which results (by way of a well placed shot) in a humane kill, and less wasted meat.

Now, I do know people that take great joy in swatting mosquitos, or killing rats in their house, etc. Those are people that kill a creature just for their own convenience/happiness. But those are as likely to be non-hunters as hunters.

Re:A good use for this.

[zaroastra]

Among primitive man, nobody who lived very long was a vegetarian, and nobody had the luxury of buying their meat already killed and cleanly presented in the supermarket. If they didn't kill the animal themselves, they knew who did.
Indian culture is vegetarian (India indians, not native americans). As they are the second most populated country with around 800 million habitants (or almost a billion as americans call them) I would say that you can be vegetarian, live long and procriate.
On top of that mankind has another source of proteins that doesnt involve hunting. Man started domesticating animals thousands of years ago.