RSPCA article on hunting...

[Dennis La Varenne]

Synjon,

I am particularly glad to hear from somebody so young who does not see hunting as bad. For some reason, I notice in the large number of pigging magazines in newstands that young women seem to find that pursuit exciting, and some even have their own dogs. For some reason, young women rarely feature in the solitary hunting pursuits like bowhunting for some reason.

As some of the writers above have pointed out quite well that there is a fundamental hypocrisy in the AL worldview. I have read through the whole of the set of papers attached in robmoor's first post and some of the thinking makes sophistry look honest. You should read the paper by Simone Dennis entitled - For the love of lab rats: kinship, human-animal relations and good scientific research if you want to learn about the deceitful art of sophistry.

There is not a shred of science in all these papers. They are purely AL rhetoric. In her paper - Recreational, conservation and traditional hunting – The ethical dimensions - Dominique Thiriet's section covering Feminist ethics in her paper reaches it apogee with some of the most ludicrous rot I have ever read, and I have some serious sympathies for the feminist ideal. But here, claims on behalf of feminism against hunting are embarrassing and I have difficulty believing that people in the real world actually believe such rot. Claiming that even in ancient cultures, the hunting of animals was some kind of put-down of the food gathering efforts of the women of those cultures. Where does she get that stuff???? In ancient cultures, men AND women gathered plant foods. Women also hunted small animals with their hunting equipment as well as gathered plant foods. Women were not allowed in most cultures to HANDLE men's equipment for cultural reasons. It had nothing at all to do with the superiority of male hunting practices.

Anyway, that is my two cents' worth.

I am glad to think that there must be some interest in your generation about hunting and some desire to participate and to preserve this most fundamental of human heritages, for without it, we will have lost our beginnings and our connection to this planet. In my view, hunting is the most basic and important of all human heritage, far exceeding even that of the fine arts in importance in my opinion. Without it, we will have lost our history because we will have lost our past and we will have lost our direction. I do not wish to live in a world where the sterility of the AL human-animal arpartheid religion predominates.

[woody]

This Dominique Thiriet woman reminds me a lot of my ex wifes divorce lawyer...............hates men and never lets the truth get in the way of a good story.

[Sinners121]

Personally i would put down the lack of women interested in bowhunting down to the lack of people they know that do it it most likely has just not occurred to them. There are a few people out there that want to hunt just lack the know how to get into the lifestyle and lack the real motivation to do that, however i believe if they knew someone who was active, clearly excited and encouraged them to join them on a hunt they would go and there would be many more people bowhunting and hunting in general.

Synjon

[Slackshot]

Old head on young shoulders Nice to see

[Nephew]

Welcome to Ozbow, Sinners. It's good to get a fresh, young perspective here.

[Sinners121]

hardly an old head just become obsessed with things and then must know everything i can
thanks for the welcome i will be certain to give my opinions on most things dont worry

[Stickbow Hunter]

Welcome to Ozbow Synjon.

Jeff

[Gringa Bows]

Welcome to Ozbow

[stickshooter]

These arguments have and alway's will go on,
the hunting mags in the bookshops for all to see people posing with there kills will do nothing but put hunting on a limited time frame ,
As things get to big they will alway's fall
Not sure what the Feminist's have to do with it,
BUT IT'S ALWAYS THE SQUEAKY WHEEL THAT GETS OILED FIRST.
Hunting conservationistis need to be more proactive & Magazines need to keep hero shoots out
But then you have the internet
thats my $100 bucks worth about equal to your 10 bobs I reckon



opps bugger there's a hero shoot

[robmoore]

Dennis
Well said...

I also asked the young female reporter if she could explain to me how an animal died naturally in the bush and then decide which form of death would involve the most suffering and pain for the animal. Once she started to think about it she realised that nature is not such a warm fuzzy place.

Most animals start to die and are being eaten well before actual death. When a major predator is not involved insects are normally the first on the scene followed by the smaller scavengers and birds, it can take days to weeks for an animal to slowly starve to death whilst being chewed on by nature.

Maybe the major hunting orgs could fund a warts and all doco or study on the natural death cycle of native and non-native animals.

Michael

Those who hunt are already well aware of the constant effort of animals in the wild just to survive. A "natural death" in the wild is frequently harsh.

Fred Bear expressed this rather eloquently:
"I have always tempered my killing with respect for the game pursued. I see the animal not only as a target but as a living creature with more freedom than I will ever have. I take that life if I can, with regret as well as joy, and with the sure knowledge that nature’s ways of fang and claw or exposure and starvation are a far crueller fate than I bestow.”

A similar sentiment is expressed by Tim Flannery here. It is a bit lengthy but I believe worth including:

Those who butcher their own food are part of a moral minority: Tim Flannery

The most moral Australians are those who slaughter their own meat, says Dr Tim Flannery, in a new book, Country, which calls for kangaroos to be reintroduced into some areas where they have become extinct.
Dr Flannery, the director of the South Australian Museum, said people who killed their own meat developed understanding, courage and compassion for life fundamental to human decency - values "those of us who receive our meat in plastic trays have little opportunity to achieve".
The sanitisation of society from the origins of our food and other resources was exactly why Australians were so disconnected from the environment, he said.
"We must also be willing to face the difficult decisions that are inherent in our role as the most powerful force in the environment. That is why I think people who kill their own meat, in as humane a way as possible, are the most moral of us all.
"It is as if we are inhabitants of a great feedlot - albeit an urban one - which robs us of control over our lives, in particular our consumption of energy, water, food and material goods. Worse, it compromises our morality."

One of the most highly adapted group of creatures that nature had ever thrown up had yet to fully gain the respect they deserved, he said.
"I want to see kangaroos given the enormous respect and affection they deserve and to see them utilised appropriately," Dr Flannery said.
The link between morality and meat-eating occurred to him in the late 1970s when he watched a farmer in western Queensland shoot and then slit the throat of a steer in order to get some steaks for a team of palaeontologists.
"Its end was, I suspect, significantly less painful and traumatic than the slaughterhouse-bound majority, for the creature went from calm grazing to the stillness of death in a few seconds, avoiding the round-up, transportation by road and queuing before the slaughterer at an abattoir," Dr Flannery writes in Country.
So would it be morally preferable to become vegetarian?
"What, then, would become of the outback, which is unsuitable for agriculture?" Dr Flannery said. "Without industry no one would live there and manage the land, so central Australia would become a vast degraded reservoir of feral animals, in which native species and introduced ones alike would, in drought, suffer and die by the million."


Bob

[Dennis La Varenne]

Those who butcher their own food are part of a moral minority: Tim Flannery

I may not accept his human-induced climate change beliefs, but this one is certainly worth remembering. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy and somewhat morally superior.

[looseplucker]

Those who butcher their own food are part of a moral minority: Tim Flannery

I may not accept his human-induced climate change beliefs, but this one is certainly worth remembering. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy and somewhat morally superior.

I do that merely by playing the banjo and practising the law.

[Siege]

I over the years have done some work with the RSPCA and there are no doubt some fantastic people that work there. Unfortunately like with everything some people take a very one sided view of matters. I could say more but best not for a forum.

I have also worked trying to get the way the media reports things, and correct falsehoods. Things like poisonous snake makes people fear straight away, not to mention snakes are venomous and not poisonous.
There was a story about a tiger snake that chased a man so it could bite him, we know this is false.

But no matter how much communication I had with the media there was only one newspaper in the whole of Australia that agreed to change the way they communicate snake bites.

At the end of the day you can only reach so many people, people who speak falsehoods will always do so. As long as both sides get fair representation that is about the best you could do.

[Rock Steady]

I over the years have done some work with the RSPCA and there are no doubt some fantastic people that work there. Unfortunately like with everything some people take a very one sided view of matters. I could say more but best not for a forum.

Good people help the RSPCA without ever knowing their agenda, any support for the RSPCA is supporting the anti's.

This is from their website.

RSPCA Policy C05 Hunting of animals for sport

RSPCA Australia is opposed to the hunting of any animal for sport as it causes unnecessary injury, suffering, distress or death to the prey animal. The term ‘hunting for sport’ includes hunting with hounds, coursing, pig hunting, bow hunting and all forms of recreational shooting (e.g. kangaroo shooting, duck, quail and other game shooting).

They are the proverbial Wolf in sheep's clothing.

Michael

[Siege]

I have had my fair share of fights over the years, and in my older years I have reached the opinion that why can't we all just get along. There are always going to be thoughts and opinons that I don't agree with, and vice versa and that is ok.

The chances of hunting be totally being wiped will only come if the guns laws get even more strict because some nut job didn't get sugar in his coffee and decides to go shoot people. I doubt that hunting will ever be 100% wiped out for any other reason. Plus on the other side of the coin it is easier for police and government to control things if they making shooting and hunting legal as most honest people do the right thing, if they ban it more people will break the law and the black market for firearms will increase as people want to still keep shooting.

The only time I would agree with not hunting is if it involves a species that could be wiped out as a result.

[Dennis La Varenne]

Siege et al,

A bit off topic here, but years ago when I was Secretary of the Shooting Sports Council of Victoria and its ABA delegate as well as ABA's Bowhunting Defence Committee co-ordinator, we were told through the dealer delegates only a few days after the fact of the disappearance of the entire first shipment of new Glock self-loader handguns for the NSW Police - all 1200 of them, straight off the wharf - and they have never been recovered to this day. It never once got into the media and has been suppressed to this day.

The NSW Police recently had the gaul to put to the NSW Government that it is the licensed firearms owner who is supplying the 'outlaw' bikie gangs in NSW with firearms and ammunition for their hits. It is very easy to use licensed firearms owners as the baddies because of the success of our opponents in teaching the general public that we are a threat to society as a whole. And whilst we hunt with bow or firearm we will always be portrayed as a threat to society because we need those tools of the hunt to do it. It is us who are the sitting ducks and not the 'endangered' animals.

What has this got to do with RSPCA policy against hunting? So long as we need the means to hunt they will always be able to portray us as part of what is wrong with society with hunting being the symptom of that malaise in their eyes. Neither they nor Governments seem to want to look where the actual social or ecological harm comes from.

Hunting inflicts no greater harm on animals than the exigencies of their normal lives. Human instigated hunting as I practice it is at the level of 'cosmic background radiation' levels as it impacts on the lives of the animals I/we hunt. The so-called pain and suffering inflicted in the course of normal ethical hunting (our definition - not theirs) is at the level of any other harm incurred in the course of an any animal's life.

RSPCA and AL have tried to raise the status of that human induced harm to a level of something extraordinary and abnormal just because it is human induced. No animal can tell the difference and no animal conducts its life as if it fears harm from humans as being worse or greater than the same from its common predators.

[Siege]

I can agree with that Dennis. If you take hunting out of it for a moment, thee types of groups have issues with almost everything to do with animals, size of a tank a fish is kept in, the size of the yard you keep your dog in, and it just goes on and on and on.

The thing is in regards to hunting there are more of the for and against as oppose to the rights of animals in other areas. more people will feel something toward a roo with an arrow between it's ears then a backyard that may or may not be too small.

The RSPCA claims to get animals that have been hunted or mistreated by these sorts of people that they then have to put down. So the RSPCA is always going to have some level of involvement when it comes to the issue. Its these images that give the anti's ammo to protest hunting.

It comes down to those few bad eggs. No one who hunts can say it is ok to leave a roo with two arrows stuck in it, with the other side being that the anti's have to agree that if a animal is killed cleanly, or put out of it's misery quick than there is somewhat less to have against a hunter, but no one will ever agree to that on their side of the fence.

They don't even care about all animals either which is their claim. During black saturday they wanted all the soft furry animals, if it wasn't people like myself the tiger snakes would of been killed off.

This debate has no ending, you can make point after point and at the end of the day all you have is yourself back at square one.
I think that some onus has to be put on the hunter, especially those doing the wrong thing as in the roo, while the anti's have to agree that not all hunting is bad, and some people do the right thing.

As for guns and N.S.W, doesn't surprise me, wouldn't surprise me if it was police selling the firearms either. There are lots of books on police curroption in this country, but best to stay clear of it as I couldn't possibly say what is right and what is wrong in regards to this.

This could be considered nit picking, but we can not honestly say that a animal is more fearful over one thing over another thing. I have seen foxes near rabbits, and only upon my approach did all the animals flee. If we did really evolve from primates than at some point in history we must of been capable of thought on the level of good and bad. We can't say if any certainty that animals today do not have some level of memory or thought. Again this is a pointless endless debate.

[robmoore]

...I also asked the young female reporter if she could explain to me how an animal died naturally in the bush and then decide which form of death would involve the most suffering and pain for the animal. Once she started to think about it she realised that nature is not such a warm fuzzy place.

Most animals start to die and are being eaten well before actual death. When a major predator is not involved insects are normally the first on the scene followed by the smaller scavengers and birds, it can take days to weeks for an animal to slowly starve to death whilst being chewed on by nature.

Maybe the major hunting orgs could fund a warts and all doco or study on the natural death cycle of native and non-native animals...

Michael

And to further illustrate Michael's comments here is a recent article about the type of death nature has in store. If a human was to be convicted of killing a native animal or reptile, I understand the maximum penalty can be a $10000 fine and/or 6 months imprisonment. If the human caused a lingering death taking an hour to complete, try to imagine the hue and cry which would occur.

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It’s the stuff of nightmares – a giant spider devouring a snake. Ant Hadleigh witnessed the bizarre battle in a Cairns backyard, and said the 50cm brown tree snake managed to survive for more than an hour before succumbing to the golden orb’s toxic venom. “I would have put my money on the snake for sure, especially seeing how big it was,” he said.

Hunters are accustomed to such things but maybe more and more examples of death in nature could be splashed in front of the the anti hunters - especially those with graphic images available.

Bob

[hazard]

The slow and painfull death of the oldest Deer isn't really acknowledged by these people.

This woman probably doesn't realise we are doing the big Bucks a favour taking them out before they die of Infection from an ulcerated mouth after all their teeth have worn out and gone rotten. She must think nature has a Special health care facility for old animals get taken in and fed supplementary diets & mulched oats through a straw and get anti biotics denchers and wheel chairs

Are these people really that Naive?


I am pretty sure this Finch didn't get councelling or a humane euthanasia to ensure its rights weren't violated

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They better charge this farmer for fencing without a licence, did he get permission from the Greens before he put it there?

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I understand these people won't give up but advertising how limited their perspective is needs a loud and really clear boost.


Hazard

[Rock Steady]

I once suggested that that the Australian hunting orgs get together and fund a scientific paper on how the animals we hunt die naturally in nature.

Having a detailed timeline of the animals death to show how slow and painfully most animals we hunt die naturally could not be a bad thing.

Being able to say for example 99% of animals are already being eaten by other creatures in the minutes, hours, days and sometimes weeks before they actually die and back it up with a recognised paper may put a different light on the whole argument for the fence sitters or uninformed.

Michael

[jindydiver]

That isn't the point though when we are dealing with the rabid animal liberationists. They see the problem with us as US and are just against humans interacting with animals. It is not about the quantum of suffering via different ends to their lives, it is about humans living in some fantasy world where they don't interact with animals. If the liberationists had their fantasies come true we would all be dead and the only humans left alive would be the frutarians (and them only if they can get a feed without impacting on any animals.

[hazard]

That isn't the point though when we are dealing with the rabid animal liberationists. They see the problem with us as US and are just against humans interacting with animals. It is not about the quantum of suffering via different ends to their lives, it is about humans living in some fantasy world where they don't interact with animals. If the liberationists had their fantasies come true we would all be dead and the only humans left alive would be the frutarians (and them only if they can get a feed without impacting on any animals.

I understand your point but these fanatics refuse to accept that we also have evolved through the natural order of nature, we just got out of control when it came to populating the planet and poluting the atmosphere we evolved from nature never the less.

I don't think fair reason of any kind will stop fanaticism like that. Concentrating on informing the reasonable people who are just in need of education and placing it fairly and objectively to them is the real problem. Nutters outside that window cannot and will not ever be reasoned with logically. Human nature seems to have a very clumsy habbit of catering with knee Jerk reactions to minority noise makers.

I would ask how could we place our argument forward without lowering ourselves to their level?


Hazard

[Nephew]

You'll never change a fanatics mind on any issue, it would be a waste of time and resources. What we need to do is concentrate on convincing those that have no opinion on hunting, or animal rights, either way.The folk that, in fact, probably never even think of it. The majority, in other words.

[Rock Steady]

That isn't the point though when we are dealing with the rabid animal liberationists. They see the problem with us as US and are just against humans interacting with animals. It is not about the quantum of suffering via different ends to their lives, it is about humans living in some fantasy world where they don't interact with animals. If the liberationists had their fantasies come true we would all be dead and the only humans left alive would be the frutarians (and them only if they can get a feed without impacting on any animals.

Jindy, did you see I mentioned useing it to educate the fence sitters, not the anti's. I know there is no hope of opening the anti's eyes but with proper documentation the reasonable fence sitter (non-hunter) has a better chance of forming an educated opinion with facts, at the moment all they get are the emotional warped facts that anti's throw out. I would like us to be able to counter with documented facts not just our opinion.

Michael

[Siege]

Just thinking about the anti's, and this will go a little off topic, but most of the people who love animals and want to protect them from people and hunters often have a many number of animals themselves, one being cats. In the course of 12mths cats kill and harm the enviroment more than any hunter does. Yet they are okay as they don't have a gun or something to hunt with?

I helped DSE for four months to remove wild and feral cats from a area of bushland which had just won the right to stay a national park and no longer was it for housing. The cats we came up against I thought would be similar to a house cat that just lived in the bush. These cats made the most awful noise, were not afraid in some cases to stand their ground. These cats seemed to be bigger than the normal domestic which I found interesting.

Anyway to make my point, domesticated animals, even dogs do far more damage than a hunter, in general terms.

[hazard]

Just thinking about the anti's, and this will go a little off topic, but most of the people who love animals and want to protect them from people and hunters often have a many number of animals themselves, one being cats. In the course of 12mths cats kill and harm the enviroment more than any hunter does. Yet they are okay as they don't have a gun or something to hunt with?

I helped DSE for four months to remove wild and feral cats from a area of bushland which had just won the right to stay a national park and no longer was it for housing. The cats we came up against I thought would be similar to a house cat that just lived in the bush. These cats made the most awful noise, were not afraid in some cases to stand their ground. These cats seemed to be bigger than the normal domestic which I found interesting.

Anyway to make my point, domesticated animals, even dogs do far more damage than a hunter, in general terms.

These are the exact points that we have to advertise to the fence sitters, most even acknowledge cats, Indian Myna's, Starlings, Cane toads e.t.c...e.t.c
are a pest but educating them their warm and fuzzy feelings for their Moggy and the aftermath of distruction in its wake shouldn't be so fuzzy or even better to blast the fuzzy is a very hard point to accept especially when our own children argue so strongly not to D4 the family cat.

A difficult argument but as said before Facts and actual proof is the answr, not some bent uninformed rant designed to get a knee jerk reaction.

Hazard

[jindydiver]

That isn't the point though when we are dealing with the rabid animal liberationists. They see the problem with us as US and are just against humans interacting with animals. It is not about the quantum of suffering via different ends to their lives, it is about humans living in some fantasy world where they don't interact with animals. If the liberationists had their fantasies come true we would all be dead and the only humans left alive would be the frutarians (and them only if they can get a feed without impacting on any animals.

Jindy, did you see I mentioned useing it to educate the fence sitters, not the anti's. I know there is no hope of opening the anti's eyes but with proper documentation the reasonable fence sitter (non-hunter) has a better chance of forming an educated opinion with facts, at the moment all they get are the emotional warped facts that anti's throw out. I would like us to be able to counter with documented facts not just our opinion.

Michael

Yes Michael, read the first line. I am saying that it is okay to have arguments to present to the fence sitters but one based on the quantum of pain and distress an animal undergoes being killed by man as opposed to being killed some other way isn't an argument that is going to rebut the anti's stance that we (humans) should not be engaging in the "natural" world at all.
We hunters spend too much time looking at the logical and the scientific when we search for validation of what we do. The anti's go straight for the heart strings (pictures of joeys anyone). We need to move the focus of the debate away from "we are no worse than" back to "we are more engaged in nature".
When I end up in discussion with joe blow average about where my meat comes from I make huge inroads explaining to them that sure a deer dies but it dies on MY terms not a companies terms. I am killing that animal and what I do is driven by my compassion for animals and my need to eat meat from animals that have had a good life and that I take full responsibility for. When the fence sitter eats meat he (or she) is eating meat killed in a way forced on the killer by a code, moderated by a boss motivated by profit, through a system motivated by profit, meaning that the animal is treated a certain way to increase profits (stocking rates, chemical interventions, economies of scale meaning bulk transport, food miles).
When I have these discussions the debate turns out to be nothing about the killing as such, it becomes all about these other issues and the fence sitter sees that opposing the hunting because something dies is hypocritical (after all they are willing to kill by proxy, 98% of us still eat meat) and that my meat has had a hell of a lot more thought (and compassion) put into it.
This approach bears fruit. We had 3 pages of the Canberra Times Food and Wine supplement a couple of years ago devoted to hunting and since then we have seen half the front page of the paper devoted to showing a man going out and shooting a red deer to take home and eat (twice, hunting on the front page last year alone). The slow food people and other foodies are supportive of our hunting and here in Canberra you will see hunters openly discussing their hunts in front of public with no fear of offending people. Sure we still have AL people here but they are treated with disdain for their narrow minded and closed minded views on what it means to be an Australian with a heart. An example of this is the protests when the Gov had to remove a bunch of landlocked roos from a Gov facility a couple of years ago. While the AL activists were crying and making a nuisance of themselves (all of a dozen of them) people had set up a roadside sausage sizzle at the entrance to the facility and were advertising roo sausages. They had many people pulling in and grabbing a feed

When we point out that we are the good guys who care for the animals and the wider ecosystems they inhabit, and that the AL guys couldn't give two ***** if the cats killed all the birds because they believe we (man) should somehow live in a box (or just not live) and the animals should "fight it out for an equilibrium, it is their right" we win. Joe Average likes animals and wants to help bilbies and bandicoots, he doesn't like the idea that the AL guys are fighting to reduce our efforts to help the little animals we disadvantaged by our poor choices of the past.

[Dennis La Varenne]

I am very much encouraged by the debate going on in this thread. The big wrong coming from the AL perspective is that there is only ONE ethic - and it is theirs.

We hunting folks so often fall headlong into that trap by trying to argue a defence from their perspective that human induced harm to animals is wrong on the basis of the infliction of pain and suffering. I have fallen into it as well.

Mick is correct. The AL perspective is that they believe that there should be a complete disengagement of humans from the animal world - an apartheid system. Whilst they argue that the basis of their concern is the infliction of pain and suffering on an animal, it is only concerned about human induced pain and suffering which can easily be controlled by how we hunt.

The natural world does not concern itself with pain and suffering. It just kills, and the object is death by whatever means.

The resultant pain and suffering to prey animals is irrelevant to the AL view. Naturally occuring pain and suffering is deemed by them to be somehow morally acceptable no matter what the animal may be experiencing in the death process. Unless it occurs by accident, such as in a fall from a height or a big rock drops on it, or a bird flies into a rock, etc. a fast and painless death does not occur in nature. Weak animals are eaten while they die, even while the lion has them by the throat. Here in Australia, we don't have the large predators which can kill as quickly as a lion. Here, they tend to be chewed or nibbled to death once they cannot escape. There is no comparison to death by arrow or bullet. There is no comparison between the levels of pain and suffering.

Ethics is about human behaviour, not animal behaviour. In so saying, from my perspective, so long a my killing of animals is no threat to species populations and my take from that population is not detrimental, then my only concern is that I do not cause unreasonable pain and suffering either by my negligence in carrying out my hunting or from deliberately inflicting pain and suffering as an end in itself which is the most monstrous of abuses which some kinds of people entertain sadly.

But, as Mick is saying, human disengagement from nature is false and duplicitous. WE ARE PART OF THE NATURAL WORLD, not separate from it. We have as much right as any other specie to participate in it and the intelligence to moderate that involvement as circumstances require.

The only way that the AL people can overcome the fundamental hypocrisy of their position, believing as they do that humanity is a blight upon the planet is to commit mass suicide and remove themselves. They only use the animal cruelty and ecological arguments as justification for the animal-human apartheid argument. They don't really believe either if you follow their arguments.

[hazard]

But, as Mick is saying, human disengagement from nature is false and duplicitous. WE ARE PART OF THE NATURAL WORLD, not separate from it. We have as much right as any other specie to participate in it and the intelligence to moderate that involvement as circumstances require

I understand what Mick is saying but I really dont believe this mentality is the major part of these AL groups they are just nutters trying to stir up a bent and sick cause. hopefully they will as you say have a mass Suicide and stop theiving oxygen.

The only way that the AL people can overcome the fundamental hypocrisy of their position, believing as they do that humanity is a blight upon the planet is to commit mass suicide and remove themselves. They only use the animal cruelty and ecological arguments as justification for the animal-human apartheid argument. They don't really believe either if you follow their arguments.

The real group are more probably just people hell bent on asserting thier opinion on others! (You know the types you meet them every day they arent all AL groups) It could possibly have nothing to do with their real beliefs They just live for the opportunity to argue about something!.

Even if they had their way tomorrow and all "Hunting of every kind " was banned! they would turn their inate need of argument to something else (bow hunting is our hobby arguing is theirs) otherwise they would be quoting acurate facts not utter garbage.

The vast majority understand we evolved from hunters and gatherers surpressing that primal need is an un natural act! Educating sane human beings on our natural calling natures cruel truth in perspective to the real world not the fantasy world of minority nutter groups will help people accept natures order and respect our oragin and why this calling is so strong.

Hazard

[Dennis La Varenne]

Hazard,

I am not sure about the 'nutter' thing. A great many of them that I have had dealings with are very bright and use their intelligence to justify their stance in the same way as the fundmentalist Islamists do their bombing campaigns.

Unlike them, we do NOT believe that everybody should be compelled to be a hunter. Whereas they believe that everybody should be compelled by every means to be like them and to believe what they believe. That is a fundamental difference between us and them. We are defending. They are attacking. We want to be left alone within reasonable limits. They want to us stopped by any means legal or otherwise, and sometimes even lethal means as has been the case in the UK in former years.

But like all extremes of any position, eventually you find you have painted yourself into the proverbial corner when you become faced increasingly with the nonsense of your ideas and you have to discard the exceptions. Eventually, there are exceptions to everything and the 'purity' of your ideal is shown up for the nonsense it really is. When you find yourself in that corner, that is when you become most dangerous because you find yourself faced with idealogical annihilation from the illogicality of your own extremism and that is where these people are increasingly finding themselves.

Do not be surprised to find these people resorting to more lethal means just like the fundamentalist Islamists or any other fanatical group as time goes on.

By the way, I have no particular problem with mainstream Islam. Until recently, the Melbourne suburb in which I have lived for almost my entire life was an immigrant suburb and the latest immigrant wave has been Moslem people who live and behave just as the rest of us do. But like various religious groups though history, Islam has its fundmentalists who cannot tolerate that other people have a different way of thinking in their heads and believe that they have been specially selected to sort out the rest of us.

AL comes from that same mould. Their thinking is the same and they will resort to the same methods when they cannot 'persuade'.