Hunting for meat vs trophy

[Socalman]

Hey y’all

I totally get the reasoning behind hunting to feed your family or others, getting closer to the food you eat, etc. Any meat I make or eat I always respect and honor the life that was taken to feed us.

I also understand taking life for ecosystem management (assuming we know what we’re doing, though there’s plenty of examples in history of humans messing up an ecosystem by introducing or removing species…)

I have a harder time understanding hunting for the sport of it or to take a trophy to put on the wall. Taking a life for the sake of it feels unfair, especially with the advanced gear we have these days. I didn’t grow up in a hunting family or social circle, so my context on this may be limited / different from some of you

Zero judgment, I’m just trying to educate myself / understand how you guys see the ethical considerations behind trophy hunting.

Thanks for your thoughts and honesty

 

[WeiserBucks]

Trophies have meat too. What is ethically wrong with killing the biggest animal possible and eating it?

 

[Jimmy]

Everyone has different motivations I would imagine.

Some want a trophy to impress their friends.
Some want food and the biggest animals have the most food on them.
Some want a challenge.
Some want food and then something to display to remember their successful hunt for food.
Some want to contribute financially and physically to making sure a healthy population of animals remains on the landscape.

Most probably are a combination of all these things.

 

[Ross]

They say we go through fazes in our hunting time. Young
/new hunter, shoot anything and build confidence and fill tags.
Next we have been successful and want a bigger challenge, holding out for larger animals and comfortable eating tags sometimes. Then, we are old and have hopefully had a lot of fun and now want to enjoy the minutia of the hunt, maybe more than the killing.

I see some of that and have been at stage 2 for 30 years. When I lose that adrenaline rush of walking up to an animal, then I’m done.

As to others. As long as legal and the meat is consumed, I don’t think about others choices. That is up to them.

 

[WoolOverAll]

I'm assuming you mean hunting exclusively for antlers or pelts while discarding the meat based on your framing. Wanton waste laws are in place to prevent that and force people to use what they kill. Personally, I would not hunt with someone who just wanted a mount or hide.

 

[ODB]

I am not sure there is as much “trophy” hunting as people think, where a legal tag holder legally kills a huge elk or deer and leaves the carcass. Those taking heads only generally seem to operate in the poaching realm, which of course is only conflated with legal hunting by idiots.

 

[TaperPin]

Hey y’all

I totally get the reasoning behind hunting to feed your family or others, getting closer to the food you eat, etc. Any meat I make or eat I always respect and honor the life that was taken to feed us.

I also understand taking life for ecosystem management (assuming we know what we’re doing, though there’s plenty of examples in history of humans messing up an ecosystem by introducing or removing species…)

I have a harder time understanding hunting for the sport of it or to take a trophy to put on the wall. Taking a life for the sake of it feels unfair, especially with the advanced gear we have these days. I didn’t grow up in a hunting family or social circle, so my context on this may be limited / different from some of you

Zero judgment, I’m just trying to educate myself / understand how you guys see the ethical considerations behind trophy hunting.

Thanks for your thoughts and honesty

If it has antlers, we’re still eating the thing. You don’t see any value in searching out for more rare, harder to get individuals that have lived a longer life, successfully evading hunters? Just shooting the easiest animal possible is somehow better? I don’t buy that.

We search out restaurants that cook a better steak - if our preference doesn’t matter is it better to eat the easiest to find steak? I don’t buy that either.

You mention honoring the animal you’re eating - we keep part of the animal on the wall to remember it for many many years. Honor and forget is somehow better than honor and remember it well? I don’t think so.

What about varmints that we shoot for sport and don’t eat or even take trophies, just getting enjoyment out of hunting them? We get enjoyment out of golf courses and they displace wildlife and reduce the carrying capacity of the land. Is an animal we hunt for recreation less valuable than an animal killed for a golf course? I don’t think so.

Much of society is unaware of how housing and roads not only kill wild animals in the short term that can no longer be supported, but they prevent generations of animals from being born. Shooting prairie dogs that come back every year isn’t killing all prairie dogs forever. A new daughter in law is not a fan of varmint hunting, yet she is a big fan of raising millions of pets for profit and the corporate emergency vets that pray on dog owners by charging crazy money to put them down when the time comes. Raising an animal just to eventually kill it after our enjoyment of it is over is better? The industry also creates hundreds of thousands of healthy animals that are put down in shelters when not adopted, so like it or not the pet industry is not anti animal death.

I don’t mind if someone doesn’t care to kill animals, heck I don’t care to kill many types of animals, but to say they have more noble ethics is laughable.

 

[Floated_down]

Big trophy elk are stinky gamey nasty beasts. Good for the wall, but no so good for the freezer. Meat is my primary motivator, but I also dont mind a nice euro mount of an animal I've harvested. 5x5 young bull is what I'm personally looking for.

 

[huntnful]

Just made an account and already giving Californians a bad name . Hopefully this is just trolling lol.

But you haven’t ever killed a nice animal and experienced the difference of walking up on one, you will probably never understand. You still eat the damn thing lol.

 

[magnum]

How else am I supposed to compensate for my small feet and hands if I’m not killing 180 bucks!?

 

[velvet muley]

Big trophy elk are stinky gamey nasty beasts. Good for the wall, but no so good for the freezer. Meat is my primary motivator, but I also dont mind a nice euro mount of an animal I've harvested. 5x5 young bull is what I'm personally looking for.

I've killed some big bulls that were extremely tasty.

 

[LongWayAround]

The term "trophy hunting" is largely made up by people who don't hunt and have no knowledge of the habits of most hunters.

Animals with impressive head gear usually have more meat than smaller animals.

If you take a destination trip, it's probably not about acquiring meat because it's often very expensive. The "trophy" on the wall is a reminder of the entire experience.

Thinking of hunting in terms of "sport" is just acknowledging the reality of modern life. Very few people actually need the meat for sustenance. When I drive two hours each way to go duck hunting, it would definitely be cheaper to buy a steak at the grocery store. We do it because it is enjoyable. If I drive a couple hours and kill a cow elk, you could justify that... If you don't count how much I spent on gear for the endeavor.

I happily shoot does, cows, young bucks/bulls, but I certainly appreciate a big set of antlers. Most people I know have a similar outlook.

All in, it's a really complex relationship that's hard to explain to people who haven't immersed themselves in it.

No one cares more about wild animals than hunters. Given that some don't really care, but the majority do. Think about this, a hunter cares what the nesting conditions are in the prairie pothole region and what the winter snowpack is, we care about habitat loss and conservation, the management of invasive species, etcetera.

When is the last time you heard of a "humane society animal lover" giving any thought to winterkill in Wyoming? Or volunteering their time/donating to efforts that benefit wildlife?

The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has preserved millions of acres for public access and millions more that is not accessible just for wildlife. An organization that is undoubtedly made up of and funded by hunters. Every one of those people dream of mature bull elk (i.e. big antlers) and they're all chipping in to make sure that elk (and all the other animals) have a place to keep being wild.


Assuming that the OP is from California... A state that banned hunting mountain lions because "trophy hunting" is now realizing that those same lions that are protected from hunting are killing too many of the desert bighorn sheep in the state. Food for thought...

 

[velvet muley]

Both things can be true. I trophy hunt and pass up smaller animals all the time, but I also fill all my tags by the end of the season because we eat a lot of meat.

 

[TaperPin]

I had a conversation with a girl who just didn’t approve of killing any more animals than are needed, so I had to ask what she likes to eat, which was white meat chicken. So she’s ok wasting all the dark meat? She tries not to. She would kill 100 chickens instead of a single bigger animal? She hadn’t thought of it that way. I had to suggest that in her lifetime she will be directly responsible for far more animals being killed than any big game hunter. Is a small animal less worthy of life than a big one? I hope she’s a vegan and someone is bursting her bubble as we speak about other things she is doing that kills animals indirectly. Lol

 

[IdahoBeav]

Here's an easy way to tell if you are hunting for meat:

Take the sum of the total dollars you have spent for all of your gear and expenses involving hunting activity. Add this to your daily work wage multiplied by the number of days you have hunted. Divide this by the number of total pounds of meat you have harvested from game.

If your calculated figure is greater than about 7 or 8, you are not hunting for meat.

 

[huntnful]

Here's an easy way to tell if you are hunting for meat:

Take the sum of the total dollars you have spent for all of your gear and expenses involving hunting activity. Add this to your daily work wage multiplied by the number of days you have hunted. Divide this by the number of total pounds of meat you have harvested from game.

If your calculated figure is greater than about 7 or 8, you are not hunting for meat.

Is $100/lb still considered hunting for meat??

 

[hunthikecamp]

Here's an easy way to tell if you are hunting for meat:

Take the sum of the total dollars you have spent for all of your gear and expenses involving hunting activity. Add this to your daily work wage multiplied by the number of days you have hunted. Divide this by the number of total pounds of meat you have harvested from game.

If your calculated figure is greater than about 7 or 8, you are not hunting for meat.

Nooo, I intentionally avoid doing this math, lol.

Especially if i'm talking to my wife, it's: "this $50 deer tag / 40lbs of meat = $1.25/lb. look how much money i'm saving us!" Now if only i could get her to believe it...

 

[cmahoney]

Hey y’all

I totally get the reasoning behind hunting to feed your family or others, getting closer to the food you eat, etc. Any meat I make or eat I always respect and honor the life that was taken to feed us.

I also understand taking life for ecosystem management (assuming we know what we’re doing, though there’s plenty of examples in history of humans messing up an ecosystem by introducing or removing species…)

I have a harder time understanding hunting for the sport of it or to take a trophy to put on the wall. Taking a life for the sake of it feels unfair, especially with the advanced gear we have these days. I didn’t grow up in a hunting family or social circle, so my context on this may be limited / different from some of you

Zero judgment, I’m just trying to educate myself / understand how you guys see the ethical considerations behind trophy hunting.

Thanks for your thoughts and honesty

Have you ever passed up a small buck?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Socalman]

I'm assuming you mean hunting exclusively for antlers or pelts while discarding the meat based on your framing. Wanton waste laws are in place to prevent that and force people to use what they kill. Personally, I would not hunt with someone who just wanted a mount or hide.

Indeed what I was referring to; sounds like it’s more infrequent than I had believed

 

[Oregonmuley]

Indeed what I was referring to; sounds like it’s more infrequent than I had believed

And what made you believe that its common in hunting? It would be really tough to do in most of the USA based on the regs required to harvest edible meat to be legal.