At age 73 and severely limited by emphysema, my father's biggest heartache besides losing my mother is that he can no longer hunt and fish. Gone are the days of pheasant, venison and rainbow trout from the family freezer.
Thankfully they're all still common in the freezers of houses where I grew up, along with homegrown vegs and freshly made beers and produce. I love having my parents over and getting restocked on homemade jam, olive oil and jerky. MMmmmm.
Yeah, I know. On the other hand, if we never re-ran a topic we'd be out of stuff to talk about in a month Besides, this does have new info about encouraging kids to start killing harmless animals earlier
I'm reminded of a recent TV programme on the history of wildlife documentaries; an American series from the 1930's had an attractive young lady star who got filmed shooting all the animals they came across and posing on the carcasses.
Less people want to kill animals and more want to watch and learn about them... It's definitely a crisis... how about earning money from tourism like most other countries... might also start to wean the nation off their dependency on guns. Camera sales would soar instead.
There's nothing wrong with maturely handled and correctly enforced hunting. It can be very good for the environment and can keep game parks open as a natural resource.
Odd, never knew that nature would fail at self regulation if we didn't go around shooting stuff for fun....
I hunt and it's not just "shooting stuff for fun." Venison is very tastey but it's one of those meats you can't buy in a store. You can't buy rabbit meat either and it is quite yummy. Which would you rather see happen, a few thousand deer die from gunshot wounds or a few million die from starvation?
True. But I don't see how letting kids shoot guns with little training or a licence is part of this. Besides, the article is not about environmental management (which I expect is handled perfectly well) but about tax revenues that are shrinking.
Hunting is not about food (anymore) and it never was about food for the masses. I you had a hundred hunters they could maybe feed a thousand people. A hundred farmers could feed hundreds of thousands of people. Here in the UK you can get game including Rabbit and often Venison in good butchers (particularly rural ones) and you can get Venison in many supermarkets. I *do* like venison once in a while, but I can't stand rabbit - too greasy and stringy for my liking. But apparently it's regaining popularity in some circles over here - not a bad idea given how many of the randy little buggers there are.
Who mentioned kids having guns? We're having a discussion about hunters wanting to kill and eat/stuff animals. BTW, you can buy Venison, rabbit and all sorts if you know where to look. Just hang out around the proper farmers markets or head to your nearest equivalent to Chatsworth park farm shops.
My local butcher will sell game and stuff. And I mean 'butcher' not the 'dude in the supermarket'. That's pretty lucky because I'm a huge fan of pheasant, venison burgers and (a little odd perhaps) pigeon.
Pheasant I only like is a stew ussually, but there's an odd trend in my old stomping ground for farmers to breed Llamas and Bison (or buffallo, I never remember) which I'm a big fan of. I even tried crocodile and ostrich burgers once, though I've never had pigeon.
There is a restaurant in Lincoln at the Castle Hotel that used to specialize in fish & game (though I think they have dumbed it down a little now). Dishes I've had included: Pan-fried pigeon breast - not my thing Wild boar terrine Roast guinea fowl Fillet of venison in a black peppercorn sauce - to die for Game pie (inc rabbit) To my knowledge it was local stuff where possible. Edit: Just checked the menu... gone pretty mainstream now
Pfft, I buy it from the farmers market and then get cook it myself Wild Boar is something I've been wanting to try for a long, long time. My mouth is actually watering now, but I'll have to cope with Peanut butter and jam sandwich for a bit longer. At least it's homemade starberry jam though - all juicy and the bread just sucks up the flavour. God I'm hungry.
I might be over-simplifying, but it's just like tasty pig. Not a radically new flavour but has more flavour, a la organic food. Pig++ if you will.
I thought as much, but I still want to try some. Hopefully I'll be able to get back oop norf soon and get my grub on proper like.
Or how about a few billion of them being hit by alien microwave death rays, their bodies exploding in searing agony... sorry, but I just had to continue that line of emotive and illogical argument. Look, nature isn't always nice about its methods, but it has always managed to regulate itself nicely. Deer do not die by the millions of starvation --there is such a thing as periodical function. As more deer are born, food resources become more scarce and thus fewer are born the next year. The population gradually declines in number. Resources recover, deer population increases to suit. Repeat cycle. Sorry, but shooting, nowadays, is for fun. Whether it is the fun of killing things, or the more noble fun of hunting for your own meal. Personally, I think that shooting a deer and eating it is a cleaner and more honest way of coming by your daily protein than having calves raised in crates and killed in abatoirs, but it is a choice rather than a necessity (you could always go veggie) and let's not get all emotive about our rights to go out and kill stuff. For cavemen, it was a survival necessity. For us it is a lifestyle choice. And even the cavemen apologised to and honoured the spirit of the animal they killed. They appreciated the precarious give-and-take balance of nature. We talk about rights and lifestyle ffs.