Thread: Defending hunters

Originally Posted by Scouser

" If we condem or don't condone the dentist bloke who pulled the trigger then we condem ourselves because there is only a subtle difference as to why he wanted to kill a lion and why we want to hunt the species we hunt."......

Not ALL of us agree with that statement, i dont condone some rich bastard who puts an arrow in a lion, does not kill it outright, has 'somebody else' shoot the lion the next day after a nights agony then has the balls to have his photo taken next to the lion with his bow like he's 'The man'.....i dont support that type of hunting, never have, never will!!!!!!....just my 2c

Have you never in your entier hunting career wounded an animal that you didn't recover?

if sandra kyle thinks that our sport is cruel and barbaric then i suggest that she should watch blood brothers, its about male lions killing each other to take over the pride, if you haven;t watched keep an eye out on discovery channel

Originally Posted by pope2506

if sandra kyle thinks that our sport is cruel and barbaric then i suggest that she should watch blood brothers, its about male lions killing each other to take over the pride, if you haven;t watched keep an eye out on discovery channel

I've seen that, and that is brutal and made me cringe when they would bite into a male lions rear legs and basically disable it from moving.

Originally Posted by MassiveAttack

Have you never in your entier hunting career wounded an animal that you didn't recover?

Hi @MassiveAttack to answer your question….no….two reasons,

One, im still new to hunting and haven’t fired at a lot of deer,
Two, and the reason I put something on this thread, is i class myself an ‘Ethical Hunter’, unlike the yank prick in question!!!!

I would not hunt a targeted species ‘under gunned’ (223/243) against a Lion, never mind a bow,
if I was an egotistical prick and was using a bow, I would make sure 100% that it would be a ‘kill shot’

then, and this is the real reason for my total distaste of this persons character….i would not squat behind the lion with my bow and big cheesy grin
so anyone/everyone would ‘assume’ I had killed it…….that is the aspect that fucks me off the most, if the story had not got out, he would have ‘claimed’ that kill

I fired and missed a spiker last year, I went up a hill to search for it or a blood trail, could not find anything,
went back with my mates dog 3 hours later just to make sure, as I said earlier, I class myself an ‘Ethical Hunter’…..

Originally Posted by Scouser

Hi @MassiveAttack to answer your question….no….two reasons,

One, im still new to hunting and haven’t fired at a lot of deer

Indeed. No matter how ethical and well-intentioned, you will end up (like everyone else) having some poor shots or misjudgements which end up wounding animals you thought you would kill cleanly. Then you might not be able to find them afterwards, despite your best attempts. That doesn't make you unethical, just human. But maybe you will have climbed down from that high horse after some more experience.

Originally Posted by GravelBen

Indeed. No matter how ethical and well-intentioned, you will end up (like everyone else) having some poor shots or misjudgements which end up wounding animals you thought you would kill cleanly. Then you might not be able to find them afterwards, despite your best attempts. That doesn't make you unethical, just human. But maybe you will have climbed down from that high horse after some more experience.

Hi GB, Massive asked me a direct question which i answered honestly....my 'rant' wasn't about wounding an animal, one day that will happen to me too.....

my 'rant' was about the said trophy hunter claiming an animal he didnt kill...simple as that!

Originally Posted by Scouser

Hi @MassiveAttack to answer your question….no….two reasons,

One, im still new to hunting and haven’t fired at a lot of deer,
Two, and the reason I put something on this thread, is i class myself an ‘Ethical Hunter’, unlike the yank prick in question!!!!

I would not hunt a targeted species ‘under gunned’ (223/243) against a Lion, never mind a bow,
if I was an egotistical prick and was using a bow, I would make sure 100% that it would be a ‘kill shot’

then, and this is the real reason for my total distaste of this persons character….i would not squat behind the lion with my bow and big cheesy grin
so anyone/everyone would ‘assume’ I had killed it…….that is the aspect that fucks me off the most, if the story had not got out, he would have ‘claimed’ that kill

I fired and missed a spiker last year, I went up a hill to search for it or a blood trail, could not find anything,
went back with my mates dog 3 hours later just to make sure, as I said earlier, I class myself an ‘Ethical Hunter’…..

Thanks for the honest reply. I have done more hunting than you although probably a lot less than others on here. While I also consider myself a ethical hunter I have had wounded animals that I haven't found and also, like you, shot at animals that have "dissapeared", presumably missed but possibly wounded. Like you, I have whenever possible spent hours looking for the lost animal.

Hunting isn't an exact science, if it was then it would just be shooting dairy cows in a paddock. For the hunt to be "fair chase" the animal must have a relaistic chance of escape and that often means a wounded animal can escape as well.

So wounded animals are a undeniable fact of life (as you found with your spiker). Stats for gamebird shooting can be as many as 25% hit but not recovered birds. As ethical hunters we spend our lifetimes getting better at the sport so that we can reduce that percentage but we can never reduce it to zero.

Now onto bow hunting. You may argue that it's undergunned but the fact that the human race survives today proves that this method can put food on the table and bring down the biggest animals on the planet. Bow hunting is different to rifle hunting in that there is no hydrostatic shock when the animal is hit. Animals die of blood loss rather than the shot of being shot so bow shot animals generally don't drop on the spot and normally require tracking.

Standard practise for any wounded animal is not to chase it immediatly after it's shot. Best practise is to give it at least 10min for the shock to set in and it to seeze up. If you chase it before then while it's full of adrenalin then it will run further than if you left it. I would also point out that this is a huge man eating wounded lion so sensible caution would say you don't go running into the bush after it without a plan. I would also point out that they did follow up this animal and not just go home and drink beer becasue thats easier.

So shooting it with a bow then having to track it and follow up and kill it would be fairly normal for these types of hunts. You may say this is unethical but our ancestors didn't think so and PETA would say the same about duck hunting today.

I don't see that this dentist bloke has done anything worse than what we all have done during our hunting career. Personally I don't consider an animal that I have paid for a valid trophy but I also don't feel the need to criticize and judge the dentist bloke.

I see in todays news that Zimbabwe has reopened lion hunting so I guess they are a sensible lot over in Africa.