Do me the favor of giving me just a tiny break. You know exactly what the relevancy is.

Your answer makes it clear that you don't particularly care.

If you ate as much of a bear as you did a cow, like I said, who could blame you? At least who could blame you who also ate cows. Which is almost everybody outside (some) Asian cultures.

But if you discard most of the carcass, then we're talking about a thrill kill. You clearly are making sh*t up on the fly here or trying to pass it off as if it doesn't matter that you have no idea whatsoever.

If you don't even know how much you are discarding or care -- or play some goofy innocent card of "I don't even know how that's relevant," that is clearly a thrill kill.

Make up your mind man. Come clean and pick a side. If it's the BANG BANG! side okay, but why hide it?

From this baloney, I'm starting to doubt your claim about the lion eating, too.

You need to straighten this sh*t out. Or tell me to go f*ck myself. Either way.

I think it's more of a blind spot most hunters develop.

I am doubtful hunters haven't had their heart ache at the idea of taking a life just because they enjoy doing so. They come to terms with it by whatever socially accepted excuse they can find... Like eating the meat...

You hunt because you enjoy to hunt, not because you need the meat is the bottom line.


It is taboo to admit you enjoy killing helpless animals in today's society - so people are dancing circles around the issue. There are people out there who kill for the thrill of it. I find this disturbing but quite feasible and as expected - those who find joy in taking a life, don't care.

I guess this thread serves as peer pressure and will force a few people to consider a thing or two. Or not.

Isn't the ability to feel pain - a part of being alive?

My stance is that if you KNOW you're causing pain to another and it gives you a thrill - you might want to do some soul searching to find out if that's perfectly fine. Or if you've simply gone into denial and react negatively toward anyone who brings this topic about.

You as in whoever hunts, not you as a person


Animals don't sign contracts you're right. It is not about that. I think if you take 100 human beings and you tell them to take a knife and kill a chicken - most will feel very uncomfortable. Why?

There is no contract, and yet there is something there. We are aware of another's suffering - it is called compassion. It is a soul contract of sorts - otherwise we'd never feel sorry for anyone, after all, why would we choose to feel bad about anything.

A few people out there have their compassion numbed down to such a level that they don't feel any remorse about taking a life. These people usually end up in the army and are quite successful at what they do so I'm not knocking them, but I was curious if people who hunt have absence of compassion toward living creatures or what the deal is.

Thus far, it seems there is something there or else the discussion wouldn't get heated so quickly

I have watched a lot of Ted Nugent on TV, read his books and read a lot of what he has on his website. I have never ever heard him say he "doesn't mind being a crappy shot" and honestly knowing that he is a STRONG hunting advocate I do not for one second believe that he would think this is right. I am really sorry Blarg, but I honestly believe you are wrong on this

Yes, it is hard to make an accurate shot on an animal with a bow. I don't get the point. That is one of the things that is challenging about the sport and until you have seen or killed an animal with a bow I would refrain from challenging me on how "humane" a bow kill really is. I am the one who has done this with my own hands and watched with my own eyes how an animal dies from a bow kill

All right, Go **** yourself. Geeze, I don't really want to say that but you just really do not want to take what I am trying to tell you at face value???

If I say I will eat something, I mean it and am telling you the truth. When I say I do not know or frankly what the exact percentage/number yield is on a bear I don't. I have told you that IMO the number is not important. Using the edible meat is, no matter what that percent of the whole animal is. When you butcher an animal, you do not eat all of it, you eat the edible parts. That is the reality of the situation. I say this as a guy who even butchers his own game.

Geezeus. This is exactly why I hate threads like this. I don't know what bug crawled up your butt about this Blarg but I wish it would crawl back out. I am trying to tell you the truth or at least what I believe to be true or at the very least my thoughts and all you seem to want to do is think there are other deep hidden things lurking about. I am not that deep man!

I, for one, think you would eat the lion.

I think you have no idea what you are talking about. You have not answered the question of you eating meat so I suspect you do and just won't admit it. If I am wrong, I take it back, but I am guessing that you have had a great big beautiful steak in your day and enjoyed the heck out of it. If you have then there is blood on your hands.

There is blood on my hands and I at least do the work myself. I have pulled the trigger. I have watched the very life go out of a deer's eyes in my hands. I have taken a knife and had to slit a throat to quicken the dying process from a shot that went a little high. I have heard the last breaths taken. Normally a kill is very quick and with one shot. But, sometimes something happens and it takes more than one shot or a little bit of time. Animals are very very tough. Sometimes things do not go as planned bu tthat goes to reinforce trying to be better the next time so you DO make that quick one shot kill. That is always the goal of a hunter.

This thread does make me consider a thing or two.

Of course I would. I do not understand why anyone would doubt that????

I guess there's a cultural tendency to not eat land carnivores. No idea why tho.



What did it taste like, Fish? Anything like cat?

Fish, you I like and respect, but Theo (as we used to call him), not so much. And this from someone who still has their vinyl copy of Free For All. He has stated that when he was younger, he crapped in his pants for a week before he went to his local induction center, to beat the draft and not be sent to Vietnam. Apparently, Ted is only man enough to shoot things when they can't shoot back. He's not a foolish man, but he is a coward and a paragon of self-inflicted ignorance.

For the record, I don't hunt, nor do I fully understand the mindset of those who do. I really don't see the appeal of killing another entity for the sheer sport of it, nor do I see the sport in outsmarting a dumb and basically helpless animal. But most of the hunters I know are far more humane and respectful of nature than the people who process the meat that I eat. Maybe they are trying to develop a "spiritual" rationalization for their otherwise violent leaning; maybe it's just so deeply embedded in our DNA as a survival method, we have to do so to rein it in.

I don't understand it myself. The insinuation that you wouldn't eat the lion is pretty insulting.

The goal of hunting, says Joy Williams in one of her typically polemical essays on Nature, is to make animals dead. That's it. I recommend her Ill Nature, a collection of these essays, very highly. Witness, if you will, the passenger pigeon that once were in such great numbers a flock could nearly block out the sun hunted to extinction for the sheer "sport" of it. Williams debunks the myth of the noble hunter who humanely tracks the wounded animal.

However, I do know one such hunter, a bow hunter, who would make every effort to track a wounded deer, but he admits that some do get away. And he's a damn good shot, a winner of several statewide and local competitions in Massachusetts. Over the years I have spent quite a bit of time in PA, and it seems creepy to me that the sports section regularly features pictures of a smiling adolescent with his or her first "kill."

I am, though, because I eat meat, reluctant to pass judgment on hunters. I believe, too, that if most people would take the time to read America's great Nature writers--Loren Eisley, Scott Russell Sanders, Barry Lopez, Joy Williams, Terry Tempest Williams, Edward Abbey, Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, Annie Dillard--fewer people would hunt.

I have never eaten lion, I am just saying if I was able to shoot a lion I WOULD eat it. I would have to guess it would taste like kitty and no I have no iddea what kitty tastes like.

We will have agree to disagree on Ted. I believe he is a much different man now than when he was facing being sent to Vietnam.

You don't give wild animals enough credit. They are not nearly as dumb and helpless as you would think. After hunting them for quite a while now I tend to believe that they have the advantage more often than not over me. Maybe not in their ability to kill me, with the exception of a bear, buffalo or elk and certainly some of the dangerous game in Africa, but of their ability to elude man (and anything else hunting it) and survive.

Also, FWIW, I take a moment after hunting and killing a deer or elk or antelope to say a prayer of sorts to thank that animal for the gift of life it has given to me and my family.

John Cole,

Interesting that you think it takes reading to realize hurting another is to be done only out of necessity, never for the fun of it.

I thought it'd be the other way around - it takes a lot of propaganda and uneducated parents to think going out and killing is some sort of manly, macho activity. Look! I can take a gun someone else invented and made, aim it, press the trigger and an alive being drops dead! I am a real man because I can do that! Makes me feel so strong!

Lol sorry I got carried away

With all due respect, and just in my opinion, Joy Williams is just wrong.

Fish, I know you do, but I think you would also enjoy her book since hunting is not her only concern. Read it and let me know.

Alex, no, I don't think it takes reading; in fact, my interest in Nature writing stemmed from different concerns than you might imagine. I was much more interested in how Nature writers explore the self through Nature.

I have always been sorta neutral on this issue. Nature says kill and as humans we are on top of the food chain. But killing just for the sake of killing? I can see the sport aspect of hunting. When I was a kid we used to hunt niehbohood birds with BB guns. When I finally killed one I felt bad.

Where do you draw the line? Rodents? Insects? I'm sure most have no problems swatting a fly or mosquito. Or have trouble ridding there home or cockroachs or mice or rats. For excersize I go 2 blocks from where I live to the train station and run up and down the stairs there. Last weekend while doing this I stepped on a centipede. On purpose. I felt bad. It coulda been an accident and just have happened but it didn't. I shifted my step to make sure I got it. Since then I have gone out of my way to avoid this kind of activity. But I still have no problem swatting a mosquito on my arm or spraying Riad into the wasp nest that they built under my barbeque.

Where do the avid no killing people draw the line? No bug spray? No mouse traps? No rat poison? Just wondering.

What I have read is that he has videos of his bow hunting out which show him taking a long time to chase something down. There's where the not humane comes in as applies to Nugent.

Whaaat? What does the challenge or how interesting and fun it is for you have to do with whether the kill is humane or not? These are two different subjects.

You certainly are not immune from challenge as to the humaneness of bowkills when you yourself admit yourself that it is hard to make an accurate shot.

There is nothing wacky or hard to understand about that. Play straight.

I think you see what I mean but don't want to admit it, because what I am saying is very clear and easy to understand.

Obviously I believe that if you eat a trivial amount of an animal, it's basically a thrill kill and wasteful and cruel. You are in that case obviously not killing it to eat it. You are killing it for the thrill of killing it. If when doing that you admit as much, then you don't contradict yourself. But if you say "I eat what I kill" but then throw away most of it, somebody is blowing smoke up somebody's arse.

You should also have no problem understanding why it's significant that you don't have any particular idea how much of the bear is edible, or at least so far even when questioned you have refused to say so. More than that, you have tried to brush off the question as nuts or something asked in some sort of bad faith or something.

I'm asking simple stuff that's directly pertinent to the discussion. There's no point jumping on me for asking.

I'm asking, as noted above, simple stuff. You could take the bugs out of your own self and give me simple answers, rather than acting like only a looney would ask.

Where I think you're wrong is that you pose these questions as if people by and large come to their feelings about hunting, the way they might come to an understanding of how to drive a car. I think a lot of them come to their feelings the way we come to our religions and probably usually our politics. We're born into them because that's what our family and/or community believes, and there wasn't really any process to it. It's just absorbed and there it is.

That's also where some of your attempts to talk about these things goes off the road too. People do the thing they are raised to do and then they think it, not think and then decide what to do. So when you ask, How can you feel that way?, you get back puzzlement or hostility, or kind of a mirror image -- How can you not? This is who I am. Who the hell are you?

alex,

is it like a pattern with you to start a discussion, ignore what other people say to/ask you, then make up your own beliefs about why other people do what they do, and dismiss any of their reasoning as "made up?"

Max is it your pattern to attack a poster?

If you have a question I have not addressed - state it. No need to make it into "Alex is such a bad guy." I work, go to school full time and have a life outside of the forums. I don't sit around checking who says what and making sure everyone gets a reply - I don't have the time.

I am sorry if this does not satisfy you but please realize that this is a forum and I don't owe you anything. Please lower your attitude and expectations.

then make up your own beliefs about why other people do what they do and dismiss any of their reasoning as "made up?"


and please don't think this has any resemblance of a "personal attack." you're the one that started the debate. is there a reason i'm not allowed to question your methods?

and what does your having a job and going to school have to do with anything? i don't care how long it takes you to reply to something. when you respond with a non-answer to a relevant question though, and then ignore it once the relevance is pointed out and start assuming things about people's reasons for doing what they do, i'm going to question you about it. i have a life outside of the forums too that i enjoy very much and you'll never see me posting a question repeatedly for someone unless they have blatantly ignored it already.

and seriously, "owing me anything?" are you serious with that. how can you get so defensive over something so petty? lowering my attitude and expectations would require me to not expect someone to try and participate rationally in a debate they started, so that's not going to happen.

relax a little bit man. there's a difference between healthy debate and childish bickering/ personal attacks.

the latter i have never partaken in.

OK, I am hoping to answer Blargs question.
I have looked these over and would say that as far as the approximate yields I have seen with deer the numbers are accurate. I have not processed a bear and could not find an answer to the yield on a bear but I imagine it is similar to some of these

So here goes:

This is from North Dakota State University


Table 1. Average weight of various stages of
processing.
----------------------------------------------------
Whole Field
Species Body* Dressed** Carcass***
----------------------------------------------------
--------- Pounds ----------
Whitetail Deer 148 115 96
Mule Deer 137 107 89
Elk 555 384 312
Moose 914 666 498
Antelope 96 74 60
Pheasant 2.6 2.2 1.6
Mallard 2.4 2.2 1.3
Gadwall 1.7 1.3 0.75
Canada Goose 6.0 4.8 3.0
Sandhill Crane 8.5 6.7 4.8
----------------------------------------------------
*Whole body is the weight of the entire animal minus
blood lost during harvest.
**Field dressed is the whole body weight minus the
entrails.
***Carcass is the field dressed weight minus head,
legs and hide (skins and feathers).


Table 2. Average yield of lean edible tissue of
game animals by various stages of processing.
---------------------------------------------------
Whole Field
Species Body* Dressed** Carcass***
---------------------------------------------------
-------- Percent --------
Whitetail Deer 51.7 61.1 71.6
Mule Deer 42.7 54.2 64.9
Elk 40.1 54.1 65.7
Moose 36.5 50.3 67.0
Antelope 42.6 55.2 68.4
Pheasant 45.6 51.3 70.8
Mallard 34.0 35.9 65.4
Canada Goose 32.6 40.3 62.5
Sandhill Crane 35.0 45.1 60.9
---------------------------------------------------
*Whole body is the weight of the entire animal
minus blood lost during harvest. Example: If a
whitetail deer weighed 200 pounds, then 200 x
51.7% = 103.4 pounds of edible lean boneless tissue.
**Field dressed is the whole body weight minus the
entrails. Example: If a whitetail deer dressed 150
pounds, then 150 x 61.1% = 91.6 pounds of edible
lean boneless tissue.
***Carcass is the field dressed weight minus head,
legs and hide (skins and feathers). Example: If a
whitetail carcass weighed 100 pounds, then 100 x
71.6% = 71.6 pounds of edible lean boneless tissue.

Now the yield on Beef, Pork and Lamb

"These are some very general guidelines to help estimate meat yields
from the Sustainable Farming Association's Locally Produced Meat Fact
Sheet Series...Weights are in pounds."
Beef Pork Lamb
Live weight, whole animal 1000 250 95
Hanging weight (after slaughter) 682 175 40
Total meat yield after processing 550 165 33
Percentage (I added this) 55% 66% 34.7%

Blarg,

Of course, I wasn't at all offended by Alex's response since it made so little sense in reply to what I had posted that I assumed he had gone off for a nice jaunt to his happy place.

Fish,

I would, though, be willing to bet that a much higher percentage of those animals killed are turned into food in the beef/pork/lamb category.