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Drone-Assisted Hunting To Be Illegal In Alaska
garymortimer (1882326) writes in with news about rules for hunting with drones in Alaska. "At its March 14-18 meeting in Anchorage, the seven-member Alaska Board of Game approved a measure to prohibit hunters from spotting game with such aircraft, often called drones. While the practice does not appear to be widespread, Alaska Wildlife Troopers said the technology is becoming cheaper, easier to use and incorporates better video relay to the user on the ground. A drone system allowing a hunter or helper to locate game now costs only about $1,000, said Capt. Bernard Chastain, operations commander for the Wildlife Troopers. Because of advances in the technology and cheaper prices, it is inevitable hunters seeking an advantage would, for example, try to use a drone to fly above trees or other obstacles and look for a moose or bear to shoot, he said."
What are they trying to protect?
Because at some point you can't call this "hunting" anymore. Good for Alaska.
How is shooting something from hundreds of feet away with a high powered rifle any kind of sport? And now drones? FFS , why not just nuke the whole fucking forest then Billy Bob Smalldick can claim he's killed everything and act the hero to all the toothless hags that inhabit the trailers in the area!
But what else are my drones good for?
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That would be more sporting...
I can still do a flyby in a brush plane.
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Then law enforcement using drones should be illegal too.
Bear uses drone to hunt YOU (BearCav close air support)
Real men drone hunt in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.
Trolling is a art,
I say, lets arm the moose and bear so they can fire back!
Just because you call it game doesn't make it a sport. I really do not understand the appeal of killing animals for fun. To get a meal? Sure. To deal with a pest? Makes sense. To protect yourself? No problem even though it rarely happens. For environmental stewardship? Great. But just for fun? With high powered rifles and drones? That makes that person a sadistic asshole. We're already WAY too good at killing things. If you are out to kill things for "fun" then make it a level playing field and do it with nothing more than a knife.
Someone who would use a drone to hunt is like someone who plays a game with "god mode" enabled. They're completely missing the point. The point isn't to kill the animal at any cost. Someone who can afford a drone isn't doing it for their next meal. They're just killing to get their rocks off. Pity we aren't more evolved than that.
In Maine it's legal to bait an area until bears come to it, then chase them up a tree with a pack of dogs, then walk up and shoot them out of the tree.
This pervasive mentality (shooting wolves from a helicopter) and now this new drone thing is what gives hunters a bad name.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Hunting was never a fair contest between hunter and prey. And anyway, I am not overly familiar with Alaska, but wouldn't a drone be rather useless against everything but the very biggest animals (moose, deer, bear)? I always thought that Alaska was pretty much one big forest. And forests have trees. And trees block your view.
What's the difference between a hunter with a drone and a factory fishing vessel with spotter planes? Is it scale? money? Both models are using airborne technology to assist in the gathering of food. If we are going to ban aerial observation, than it should be for all applications and uses of it regardless of how monied the operator is.
It does all the work. Finds a bear/moose, kills it, then flies it back to my house. The future is finally here.
You're assuming you and the original troll are qualified to comment on hunting, something you admit to everyone you know NOTHING about.
Nice try, TROLL
Kudos to Fish and Wildlife of Alaska. Drones are no different than shooting from a quad or using a helicopter or plane for wildlife spotting, It is fine to use that gear to scout the area the day before, but once sun rises the day of the hunt it is the one sport that for all practical purposes stuck in 1910 technology. It would be nice to have a regulation that you can search for a wounded animal with a drone as that is where a few hunters run out of steam, in the tracking or chase of elk or moose that didn't get hit with the hunters goal of a ethical mortal shot.
A drone in the back woods with 3 cans of bear repellant and 3 noisemakers would be a very ethical use of drones to keep bears and hunters apart. And we are fooling ourselves if we think illegal hunters and poachers wouldn't use a easy to fly drone to monitor police activity.
Assuming that they give out licenses to hunt for the purposes of food/materials, and that they place a limit on how many animals the hunter can kill in a season, there is no point to denying hunters the use of drones (barring issues with licensing and operating drones). The ability to more quickly hunt and kill an animal doesn't actually do anything besides give some people a better 'feeling' about hunting not being so unfair to the animal.
Now we will never find Bigfoot
Aside from being done to control populations, it is also done as an activity people enjoy.
Most population control does not require the involvement of people hunting for amusement. That argument in most cases is simply a red herring. The vast majority of hunting in the US is simply done for amusement and any other goals it accomplishes are purely incidental.
Hunters already have plenty of advantage over their prey.
That's putting in mildly. Humans are ridiculously efficient killers.
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Is it legal to hunt drones in Alaska?
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Actually, you might be surprised how much of the US population still hunts for food.
The answer is a very small percentage and close to none of them actually need to do it. We spend over $22 billion on hunting which could easily feed every person in the US that actually needs to hunt to put food on the table. Furthermore there are plenty of food assistance programs available to anyone in the US should they need the help. This argument that we have people that "need" to hunt for food is an absurd and false justification to whitewash the fact that most of them do it for their amusement and no other purpose.
They're not okay with drones, but I thought Alaska allowed people to hunt and shoot from a helicopter. If this is the case, then I guess they don't want the poor people to enjoy an aerial advantage.
Do you understand the appeal of first person shooters?
There is a HUGE difference between doing something imaginary in a video game and killing a real, live creature or a real live person.
Yea, namely that one is a method of food acquisition that requires training, certification, and licensing, and the other is a way for little kids (or people with little kid mentalities) to play up fantasies about murdering other humans.
Here's a hint, in a video game no one actually dies and all the participants know that.
No one actually dies when hunting either. At least, you hope no one actually dies, but accidents do happen.
Trouble is, if a kid's only interaction with firearms is playing a fantasy game where "no one dies," if/when they encounter a real firearm they aren't going to understand just how dangerous of a tool it is. Kids who hunt know the difference.
It's one thing to fantasize about something and quite another to actually do it in the real world.
True. Now apply that to your own thought process: your fantasy about what hunting is, and how hunters are motivated, is one thing, and reality is another.
We're talking about people getting amusement from the real world suffering of another creature.
Proof that you don't know jack about hunting, other than what [insert preferred 'envronmentalist' group] told you to think. FWIW, most hunters try to avoid causing the animals to suffer.
That's why we invented target practice.
I hope you can actually understand why that is very very very different.
I do. I hope you can understand how unreasonably uninformed you are presenting yourself as.
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Doesn't anyone remember when we used to go out after wooly mammoths with clubs? Youngsters these days!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Annnd where is the food from these food assistance programs coming from? I suppose the meat is all grown at the grocery store?
At least folks are still getting out in the fresh air.
Seems like its only a matter of time before people can just sit in their living rooms and run an armed drone around the bush to shoot stuff for them.
It already happens a bit with the astronomy crowd - why stand shivering when you can remote your telescope from the comfort of home?
On the plus side, if you do happen to design a drone smart enough to hunt down a critter, you may have a future building dystopian tech for the defense industry.
Then law enforcement using drones should be illegal too.
Huh? I'd love to see the reasoning that led to this conclusion. What premises and inferences did you use?
Yea, namely that one is a method of food acquisition that requires training, certification, and licensing, and the other is a way for little kids (or people with little kid mentalities) to play up fantasies about murdering other humans.
"Food acquisition"? BULLSHIT. It's killing and terrorizing animals for fun. Nobody in the US needs to hunt to put food on the table. That argument is a load of crap.
No one actually dies when hunting either.
Exactly what do you call the dead animal that results from hunting? Oh, because a human didn't die it doesn't matter? Wow, you are a pretty cruel individual. The medical term for people who lack empathy like that is psychopathy.
We're talking about people getting amusement from the real world suffering of another creature.
Proof that you don't know jack about hunting , other than what [insert preferred 'envronmentalist' group] told you to think. FWIW, most hunters try to avoid causing the animals to suffer. That's why we invented target practice.
First you have no idea how much I know about hunting. (A lot actually as it turns out) Second, I know plenty about biology and it is a well documented biological fact that animals, just like humans, almost never die instantly or painlessly from gunshot wounds no matter how accurate the hunter is. Just because they fall down doesn't mean they are instantly dead nor does it mean they don't experience pain. Neither people nor animals usually die instantly from gunshot wounds and one shot insta-kills are pretty damn rare unless you are using enough firepower to vaporize the target. Any emergency room doctor can prove this to you. Any claims that hunting is somehow more humane than how livestock is killed when butchered is simply not supported by the facts.
I hope you can understand how unreasonably uninformed you are presenting yourself as.
Right, this from someone who can't understand biology, doesn't understand pointless cruelty to animals and can't see the difference between a video game fantasy and killing a real creature in the real world. And I'm the clueless one? Piss off troll.
I see the hunting supporters have some mod points to burn. Pathetic.
Actually, donating your deer meat to charity is a common thing and it feeds, not the hunters themselves, but those who rely on food banks and assistance programs. The hunters that donate their kill are usually just rich guys that want to shoot stuff, which is kind of sick-in-the-head when you think about it. But at least their mental deficiency benefits someone.
Get it right... it has nothing to do with drones... it has to do with lost revenue from chopper pilots and bush pilots getting paid to help hunters scout game.
Your comment is beyond false, and you have no way to prove your point. I can truthfully state that there are many people that only survive off of the food they grow and/or kill, and not because "it's fun". There are many people that don't engage in trade based off of fiat currency, and are literally days from a grocery store. Oh, but you felt it was intelligent to make a claim, with no facts(your "feelings" don't count) because it's the "cool" position to take.
I would be interested to see you survive in the world that others live in for one week, or even for a few days. Afterwards, I want to see you come back and make these same comments.
If I was going to buy a drone, then I'd weaponize it and hunt with it directly!!!
No need to walk needlessly in dirty forests or swamps. All done from my cosy armchair, watching the TV and controlling the drone with my wii-mote.
Talk about F'ing horrible treatment. You think that's better for the animals?
Now who's the sadist?
Delusional!!! ;)
This pervasive mentality (shooting wolves from a helicopter) and now this new drone thing is what gives hunters a bad name.
Damn right. Even a high powered rifle with no other technology is a ridiculously one sided advantage when hunting. There are several perfectly practical reasons to go hunting that have nothing to do with entertainment. (food, pests, protection, environment) They even have the gall to call hunting a "sport" and euphemise their bloodlust by calling their kills "harvesting" as if it was no different than planting corn. I'm not quite sure how it is a "sport" if the other team doesn't know they are playing.
I don't have a problem with allowing hunting for practical reasons but most hunters I know (and I know lots of them) are pretty disingenuous about their motives for killing harmless animals. 99% of the time it is for no purpose other then their own amusement. I find that sort of mentality rather disturbing.
Sorry, your biased opinion of hunting aside, it is called harvesting because left to their own devices, and with no other predators available, many hunted species would populate to the point of being unable to feed and then slowly dying of starvation killing off most, if not all, of entire herds. Hunting seasons are used to cull these herds of excess population and provide food and "sport" to humans. I am not disingenuous about my motives. I want to eat venison and until I can buy it at my local grocery or meat market I will continue to hunt. Yes, it is a harmless animal as is every chicken, hog, pig, and steer that we also kill daily in an even less sportsmanlike manner. I know many hunters who feel exactly as I do as well as others that do it only for pleasure. The fact remains that these animals must be culled one way or the other. It is more humane to hunt them than to allow them to overpopulate and slowly starve as well as deforest large areas causing even more animals to starve for lack of vegetation (I have seen this first hand)?
Why each hunter hunts is their own business but you should not lose sight of the overall reason why hunting is allowed in the first place. If you want healthy forests and healthy ecosystems the populations of certain species must be controlled. Why do you care why a particular hunter hunts? As long as the animal is killed as humanely as possible does it really matter? I hunt with both rifle and bow. Both are equally lethal and grant me an immense advantage while hunting. As long as I take my kill with as little prolonged suffering to that animal as possible why do you care why I do it?
On one hand you acknowledge the practical reasons for hunting and then immediately demonize those that hunt because they might enjoy it? I think you are being a little more than disingenuous with your opposition. You can't have it both ways. Either hunting is good for the health of the species or it isn't. If it is you need to get off your high horse and allow those that hunt for pleasure the benefit of the doubt and look at the long term benefits that hunting bring to both the species in particular and the ecosystem in general.
Some people choose to spend a few dollars on a box of bullets which will put meat on the table rather than subsisting on government-sponsored food stamps because they have a thing called pride and the belief that using their own means to feed themselves is somehow far more fulfilling to their lives than spending other peoples' tax dollars buying Cheetos, porn, and lottery tickets.
That being said, other people like my family do it because venison is far healthier than any beef you buy in the grocery store and it's a shitload cheaper than having to buy piece of a cow.
Are you seriously going to pretend that that same hunter gets all their meat from hunting? No one does and you know it.
I'll agree with the general point you are trying to make in your post but, there certainly are populations in very rural parts of this country, think Alaska (some cities are not even connected by roads to this day) and northern Maine, parts of Montana, some Indian reservations, etc were some people certainly do obtain all or at least the vast majority of the meat they consume from hunting and fishing. Is it a tiny part of population, yes, but they do exist.
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From what I recall from the hunting laws, you had to have a 72-hour "cooling down" period after using a helicopter or aircraft to spot animals.
Honestly, we (my father and I) were more interested in terrain issues than we were the animals. You want to try to find the path of least resistance, and also making sure that we could actually cross specific rivers, and at what points they were broken open during the winter time. At some places the snow would be so deep that if you stepped wrong, you would be up to your neck almost instantly. That doesn't even count making sure that you weren't in a hunting route for a grizzly bear, which makes things even more difficult. Having something that is the size of a VW beetle running at you full-bore at around 40 MPH is not something I want to ever repeat. It was hard living. It was more a survival thing for us.
Every winter, there was a herd of about 400,000 caribou that would come within about 50 miles of town. Honestly, getting to the animals was the hard part. Getting one was as easy as taking a 200 yard shot with a high-powered rifle.
Keep in mind that where I lived, we were 500 miles away from any major city, and the only way in and out was by aircraft. We actually lived off of what we killed and made use of it. We weren't out there looking for the big racks. We were doing it for survival, and we also followed the rules.
The lead in text talks about preventing hunters from having an "advantage". Advantage over what, the game? That does not compute. SO an advantage over other hunters? Seriously, is Alaska regulating drone hunting simply so bragging rights over game room trophies are legitimate state wide? That's retarded. They should also make cleats illegal in children's baseball leagues, that way we know who the fast runners really are.
...are pretty much illegal now. Great.
So its perfectly okay to kill a cow in captivity to eat, but hunting a wild animal is different?
How does a food assistance program change anything? People still eat meat, regardless of wether it comes from captivity or the wild.
The difference is, a poor person can far easier go hunting than can get government assistance in some places. I'm speaking from experience having lived the government cheese before, if you know what I mean. (Do they still do cheese even? Its been 30 years). I've lived in places were the government and all handouts combined did not help 25% of the people who were qualified to get it.
You live in a nice comfy world and think that the government just protects everyone and makes everything roses ... you are ridiculously mistaken about what its like being poor. Obama didn't magically fix everything with government handouts, sorry. You need to get out into the real world.
In Alaska, its a legal requirement that if you hit an animal and kill it, you MUST notify authorities so that it can be processed for those who need food and can't afford it.
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Anyways, as for drones, I don't mind so much that it allows hunters to find game, as infrared does a similar job. The problem I have is that it allows a hunter to know about game that is far away or hidden, encouraging long-distance shots
So then, the reasonable conclusion would be that you should be able to use drones to hunt, as long as:
(A) You also have a 50 cal sniper rifle to make the kill.
(B) You are bound by law to recover whatever it is you shot, no matter where it ended up... that includes paying for a helicopter if required.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You seem to have Sarah Palin confused with Tina Fey. SP never said she could see Russia from her window, or her porch, or her back yard, or any other part of her property or of mainland Alaska. She said that Russia could be seen from an island that is part of Alaska, which is actually true.
Are you seriously going to pretend that that same hunter gets all their meat from hunting? No one does and you know it.
My father lived that way for over a year. Marine rifleman, got out of Korea about a year before getting a decent pension and medical because the alternative was some posting worse than what he had, which was ATC and therefore safely out of range of bullets. He went into the corps guaranteed air wing, in case you're wondering.
He may not have got a good deal from the government, but he did learn how to shoot like a motherfucker. And thus, he ate.
You know less than nothing.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Your comment is beyond false, and you have no way to prove your point.
Sure I do. I simply have to point out the fact that there is essentially no one in the US that cannot get food without hunting which is a demonstrably true fact. Even the most poor among us have alternatives to hunting unless they choose not to take advantage of them. I don't have a problem with someone hunting for food out of economic need but that describes a vanishingly small percentage of our population.
I can truthfully state that there are many people that only survive off of the food they grow and/or kill, and not because "it's fun"
No there are not and I defy you to point out someone in the US that has no other alternatives. (Farmers don't count) Seriously, where is your evidence? We have vast food assistance programs in the US and a huge obesity epidemic. Explain to me how we have companies like Bass Shop Pro and Gander Mountain based on economic need to hunt. Exactly who needs to hunt and cannot get food any other way? If these people exist there should be some evidence of their existence. Prove your case.
Fact is that very little hunting in the US occurs due to economic need. It is primarily a form of amusement and any other benefits from it are second order effects. All I'm asking is for hunters to own up to that fact and not waste everyone's time with these lies that it is about food or the environment or anything other than their own amusement.
I would be interested to see you survive in the world that others live in for one week, or even for a few days.
Buddy, you have no idea what my background is. I have hunted and fished until I realized what I was doing was pointless and cruel. My family was poor as church mice when I was a child. I raise livestock and understand better than most what it means to kill the meat you are eating. I have a large family many of who are very rural and some were/are very poor. But you know what? Not one of them ever had to hunt to survive. Some do and that's fine but none of them pretend to do it for any reason other than they enjoy it.
By the way, his ex-wife Marlena has a message for him.
Hunters with high-velocity rifles/sniper scopes/drones/helicopters vs. an unarmed animal? When one side has such a massively asymmetric advantage it is ridiculous to label the activity as a sport. I laugh at those pathetic people. They should be embarrassed to even admit that they are mentally stunted enough to even want to do it.
Hunting will only be a sport when the hunted animal gains an equal ability to locate and kill its hunters, including taking out their vehicles and helicopters.
Until then, hunting is just a predetermined and terminal (therefore the worst) form of sadistic bullying and/or an unnecessarily inefficient form of food gathering. Apparently those that spend thousands on hunting then claim they do it just for food aren't capable of even basic economics or understanding that there's a good reason why hunter-gatherer societies got completely superseded by agrarianism.
I'll agree with the general point you are trying to make in your post but, there certainly are populations in very rural parts of this country, think Alaska (some cities are not even connected by roads to this day) and northern Maine, parts of Montana, some Indian reservations, etc were some people certainly do obtain all or at least the vast majority of the meat they consume from hunting and fishing.
Out of choice, not out of necessity. I don't actually have a problem with someone hunting for a meal but the fact remains that hunting in this country is a choice, not an economic necessity. People don't live in those sorts of areas because they landed there by accident. They made a conscious choice to live in a location away from society.
Hell, get a bunch of chickens and raise them. I have chickens myself and you can get chickens for about $1 each and feed them with scraps and a little grain. Hunting simply is NOT a necessity and hasn't been for a long time.
they really can't murder animals without cheating? I'm glad the Democrats put a stop to this stupidity. They try so hard with their campaigns to make species extinct. It's nice to see someone fighting back against them.
So if I don't want to be hunted by a drone I should move to Alaska ?
There are plenty of people in the nation for whom they can't buy food that was farm raised and slaughtered, and the government doesn't provide enough help for them to do anything other than hunt.
Demonstrably nonsense. They may not know how to get help but help is out there. Not just from the government either. There are food banks, there are shelters, there are non-profits, there are huge amounts of resources. And frankly if there are a few people remaining who actually do need to hunt then I have NO PROBLEM with them hunting. What I DO have a problem with is arrogant asshole hunters using those very very few people as a justification for their own hunting which has nothing whatsoever to do with food. The vast majority of hunters hunt because it amuses them, not because of economic need. At least most of them have the decency to actually eat what they kill so that's something...
I've been there. I stood in line for the government cheese ... and then was fucked when it ran out before the line got to me.
And I've both gotten government assistance AND helped hand out that very same cheese later on down the line.
You have no idea what being poor is actually like...
Really? You know my life story? You know how much money my family had when I was a child? Fact is I know perfectly well first hand what it is like to be poor. Very poor. Most of my family comes from parts of Tennessee that are known for crushing poverty in years gone by. I also know what it is like to have crushing debt and I also know what it is like to depend on others for help. I'm not poor now but that doesn't mean I don't understand. And what I understand is that virtually no one in the US has to hunt to feed themselves.
I doubt there are very many states that don't have people who MUST HUNT TO EAT or die.
Ok, point out some evidence of their existence. I have no problem with someone hunting to survive but there simply are not very many of those people out there in the USA. Fact is that most people who get significant amounts of the diet from hunting do so because they chose to, not because they have to.
I don't hunt myself, but even I see the anti-hunters in this discussion for the fucking idiots they are.
Hunters with high-velocity rifles/sniper scopes/drones/helicopters vs. an unarmed animal?
So you support the right to arm bears?
I agree. Similarly, javelin throw will only be a sport when javelins gain an equal ability to hurl humans for long distances.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
You know for some people, accepting charity is very humbling and they would rather provide for themselves than live off of someone elses charity.
In pheasant hunting some birds are wounded or killed but can not be found by the hunters or dogs. These lost birds do not count against your daily limit. I think most would agree a drone that helps to retrieve already shot or killed prey is a good thing.
Seems like its only a matter of time before people can just sit in their living rooms and run an armed drone around the bush to shoot stuff for them.
It would be awfully tempting to get one of those and go hunting for... drones.
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I may be misunderstanding sjbe (his first post seemed trollish) but I think his point was that people choose to hunt for food and that hunting is not the sole source of food for anyone within the US. He is correct that there is a huge market in recreational hunting and fishing. However having an industry made up of almost entirely of recreational hunters and fishermen doesn't mean that there aren't people who chose to subsist solely on meat that they hunted or fished. I also agree that people chose to survive on what they hunt or fish and there isn't any real requirement to do so to survive within the US.
So what?
There isn't anything wrong with choosing to gather, hunt and grow your own food. I think it actually helps the environment. If more people had to get their own food, they would be more vocal about industry dumping waste in their streams or land being overdeveloped and adversely affecting wildlife populations.
Also I do not know a single recreational hunter that do not eat what they kill. Some members of my family hunt every deer season and we all enjoy venison. As members of their hunting club they work hard keeping their hunting grounds maintained and make sure the deer population remains healthy. During the season the club enforces strict hunting limits because the last thing serious recreational hunters want is poor game populations. FYI most recreational hunters in my state use hunting clubs which are self regulated while the game warden concentrate their efforts on the public hunting grounds.
Back on the topic of drone-assisted hunting, my state already bans hunting using planes or even radios. Why when enforcing limits should be enough? Because hunters outnumber the wardens and the hunting grounds are massive. While game wardens do perform checks on hunting clubs and been known to walk up to you at the entrance of public hunting grounds and inspect your kill, there are still a huge potential for abuse. Everyone I know that hunt support the restrictions on plain/radio coordinated hunts because often they are used in poaching and they don't consider that part of the hunt anyway.
Personally I don't hunt but I do fish and yes I eat what I catch and release what I don't.
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I may be misunderstanding sjbe (his first post seemed trollish) but I think his point was that people choose to hunt for food and that hunting is not the sole source of food for anyone within the US.
Yeah, but he's full of crap. I've known some homeless people over the years, it's not always as easy to get free food as you might think.
Also I do not know a single recreational hunter that do not eat what they kill.
Also, if the hunters aren't out killing these animals, they'll overproliferate and the results will be awful. And indeed some of the animals are doing this already, and the results are awful. Wild pigs are taking over the continental US and doing more damage than most people would imagine possible.
Everyone I know that hunt support the restrictions on plain/radio coordinated hunts because often they are used in poaching and they don't consider that part of the hunt anyway.
Well, we should do more to control poaching, then. But I only go so far on this thing about not doing certain things because they're not sporting. Don't do things that are cruel, don't do things that are poor management practice, but if your goal is to go out and eat, then go get the food and don't worry about what kind of chances the animal has. The people who think they're hot shit because they killed an animal with a sniper rifle offend me, but only slightly. The people who use all available technology to bring home food, however, are just bringing home food.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This pervasive mentality (shooting wolves from a helicopter) and now this new drone thing is what gives hunters a bad name.
Damn right. Even a high powered rifle with no other technology is a ridiculously one sided advantage when hunting. There are several perfectly practical reasons to go hunting that have nothing to do with entertainment. (food, pests, protection, environment) They even have the gall to call hunting a "sport" and euphemise their bloodlust by calling their kills "harvesting" as if it was no different than planting corn. I'm not quite sure how it is a "sport" if the other team doesn't know they are playing.
I don't have a problem with allowing hunting for practical reasons but most hunters I know (and I know lots of them) are pretty disingenuous about their motives for killing harmless animals. 99% of the time it is for no purpose other then their own amusement. I find that sort of mentality rather disturbing.
Sorry, your biased opinion of hunting aside, it is called harvesting because left to their own devices, and with no other predators available, many hunted species would populate to the point of being unable to feed and then slowly dying of starvation killing off most, if not all, of entire herds. Hunting seasons are used to cull these herds of excess population and provide food and "sport" to humans.
Here's a thought. How about re-introducing natural predators like say ... wolves rather than shooting them from helecopters? Not that I'm against hunting but wolves in particular have been demonized far beyond all sense.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
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Hunting has been around for longer than any government has existed. It will be with us long after the last one crumbles. What are we debating again?
So they live off the charity of everyone (the animals are "owned" and protected by the state). So they are accepting charity, but get to kill to do it, so it doesn't count.
Learn to love Alaska
As the parent said, "worry about your own food, which was probably mistreated all the way to your plate..."
If people are going to eat meat (and we are) taking that meat from free, wild animals is orders of magnitude more ethical than raising it in your nightmare factories.
and you have no way to prove your point. I can truthfully state that there are many people that only survive off of the food they grow and/or kill, and not because "it's fun".
Do you have any way to prove your point?
There are many people that don't engage in trade based off of fiat currency,
So refusing to buy food they have access to makes hunting necessary?
and are literally days from a grocery store.
Only if you walk. Slowly. Or can you name a place where access is as remote as you claim? I've driven from Texas to North Dakota in a day, so there's nobody anywhere in the lower 48 that doesn't have better access than you claim. And yes, I know people that have no access to stores. In Alaska. They take food with them for a summer, then go out to a remote cabin. They live on the food they brought, and suppliement it with catch/hunt, but could still live off the time they are there without any hunting. They hunt for variety/fun. The women that do it generally don't hunt, but trap instead.
I would be interested to see you survive in the world that others live in for one week, or even for a few days. Afterwards, I want to see you come back and make these same comments.
Are you talking about tribes in the Amazon or Africa or something? This topic is about Alaska, on a US site dominated by US posters. The only possible explanation for your comments is that you are deliberately selecting alternate rules, and hiding them from us. The only question is whether that makes you a liar or a fool. Given your use of the word "fiat" I'll assume both.
Learn to love Alaska
what about us drone hunters? What are we going to shoot if we can't shoot drones?
You know less than nothing.
That's because the jackasses who claim to know more refuse to explain anything, as if they have something to hide (like their argument being knowingly false). Most of the time it's that charity was available, and the person affected refused it.
Learn to love Alaska
Wow.... I have heard a number of ridiculous arguments but.... that takes the cake. I guess every breath I take is the charity of the state letting me freely use its air too.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Sure if you're a criminal and trying to elude the authorities otherwise you have Welfare, Rescue Mission, Salvation Army, Church Charities, and area food banks.
It will main perfectly legal for the government to do so with humans.
If you can afford to use a drone to aid in hunting then you can probably go to Walmart and pick up some groceries.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Sure if you're a criminal and trying to elude the authorities otherwise you have Welfare, Rescue Mission, Salvation Army, Church Charities, and area food banks.
Lots of places have only some of those things, and if you depend on them you'll get fed three days in seven or so.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Nope, the state doesn't own the air, the federal government does.
In all cases, the people of the jurisdiction are the "owners" of the resource, and they have "agreed" to let the government with jurisdiction manage it on their behalf.
Just because you don't know how government works doesn't make someone pointing it out to ridiculous.
Learn to love Alaska
Hunters with high-velocity rifles/sniper scopes/drones/helicopters vs. an unarmed animal? When one side has such a massively asymmetric advantage it is ridiculous to label the activity as a sport. I laugh at those pathetic people. They should be embarrassed to even admit that they are mentally stunted enough to even want to do it.
Yea, just like all those people who use a computer to do billions of mathematical calculations, instead of breaking out the ol' stone tablet and chisel. Pathetic fucking losers.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
..grats for showing the world how you can totally miss the point bud.
you suppose farm animals get a nicer deal? you eat their meat, right?
it can be a sport, animal is just a target not a participant.
hunting with weaponry is and has been natural for humans and their ancestors for over a million years, get over it.
..grats for showing the world how you can totally miss the point bud.
No, I get that you're a Luddite, I just refuse to accept your worldview.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I'm not a Luddite at all. I love new technology.
I just don't like people that gain pleasure from needlessly slaughtering wild creatures, especially those that try and delude everyone else that their disgusting actions are somehow socially acceptable by simply labelling it a sport.
There's a big difference between killing to survive and killing for pleasure.
They would limit hunting to bows, spears, knives, and blackpowder rifles.
Why? Because all of those require actual skill to take down prey, and additionally give the prey a chance to escape if you fuck up.
Modern rifles on the other hand lower those odds dramatically. Bolt-action less than semi-auto but not by much.
I don't know if you're aware, but you may have heard of this revolutionary agricultural industry. I believe they call it 'farming'.
But then again, you may not have - After all, it's only been around for about 15,000 years...
Then the state really needs to keep their property off of my land or compensate me fairly for allowing their property to graze on my land.
I'm not a Luddite at all. I love new technology.
... unless it's firearm technology, apparently.
I just don't like people that gain pleasure from needlessly slaughtering wild creatures
Yea, I don't like it when people make baseless assumptions because their preconceived notions and attitudes prevent them from even attempting to see the world from a viewpoint other than the one cemented behind their own eyes.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
>> ... unless it's firearm technology, apparently.
No I'm ok with that too. Guns are just tools. Its the (lack of) thinking behind what some people choose to do with them that I find repulsive.
>> Yea, I don't like it when people make baseless assumptions because their preconceived notions and attitudes prevent them from even attempting to see the world from a viewpoint other than the one cemented behind their own eyes.
Dude read your own words and look in the mirror.
hell yes.
yeah for that tasty salmon and mango sauce I had yesterday the fish was totally killed for my pleasure by the fish monger's supplier. let's all shed a tear for the fish and for another one I'll have later this month
I am familiar with these concepts, as familiar as I am with many fictions. Just because I think its ridiculous, doesn't mean I don't understand the claim.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
It isn't "hunting" to shoot them on your own land. On your own land, there is no limit, and no season, and they are "nuisance animals". When your deer are on your private land, the only rules that apply are animal cruelty laws.
Learn to love Alaska
Your opinion has been noted and summarily ignored.
Have a nice Tolkien Appreciation Day.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Maybe they can ban spotting drones, but put a gun on the drone and you'll have the NRA defending your right to hunt with it.
All valid points. However, you've got to admit that the hunt itself is fun. The stalking, slow movements, feeling like a predator. That is part of hunting. And for some hunters, that is the main motivation. The meat is secondary.
"most hunters try to avoid causing the animals to suffer."
Well, except for the killing part. I understand what you mean (quick death). But it is death whose main purpose was just a game to a sport hunter. A death whose main purpose was to give someone a thrill leading up to it.
*I used to hunt a variety of things, but became less interested in it over time.