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Why Hunters are Needed
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A Common
assertion Do they ?
People, on the other hand, establish legal rights on how other people (not wild or domestic animals) can treat non-human animals. This is why the amount of suffering experienced by a dying animal is usually minimal when wild or domestic game, livestock, pets and research animals die from the hands of people.
All organisms live by eating others. This high premature mortality rate of animals is what provides the energy needed for the balance of nature to exist. The following was taken from Howard's book on Animal Rights vs Nature and from the manuscript of his new book on Nature's Life-Death in Modified Environments. 1. In modified environments a desirable harmony between people and the faun can be established only if animal populations are managed. 2. For an ecosystem to be balanced on a sustained basis, the surplus individuals of all species must be cropped each year, and in modified environments this is usually done best by people. 3. Hunting is a sound, wildlife husbandry practice. 4. Hunting and trapping are the most effective tools for removing some of the surplus and excess animals of a population without damaging the capital. 5. Hunting and trapping are a long-standing, legitimate American Tradition and Heritage. 6. Most hunting and trapping of game species are done ethically and in accordance with laws and regulations designed to prevent their depletion and any inhumane treatment of wildlife resources. 7. Hunting is as much conservation as it is recreation. 8. Most of the funds for hiring wildlife biologist, game wardens and the preservation of wildlife habitats and biological diversity comes from sportsmen and excise taxes they pay on equipment they use. 9. Hunters are the ones responsible for the dramatic recovery of species such as the wild turkey, wood duck, pronghorn antelope, white-tailed deer and elk. 10. No other group show any inclination or preparation to pay for the protection of habitats now preserved by hunters, fisherman and trappers. 11. If the endangered whooping crane had been declared a game animal 50 years ago with hunting season closed until the population recovered, they would be common today. 12. All Trophy animal have had ample time to breed and pass on their genetic traits. 13. In modified environments hunters and trappers can prevent unnecessary population die-off from starvation, disease, fighting, cannibalism, territoriality, fighting and other species self-limiting factors. 14. Nature cannot crop surplus animals as humanely or efficiently as sportsmen. 15. There is no biological basis for opposing regulated hunting and trapping, only religious ones. 16. Animals which are pursued by hunters and trappers have literally never had it so good on the overcrowded, human-dominated earth. 17. Since large carnivores like lions, bears and wolves are territorial, it is necessary for hunters to remove the subdominant surplus individual before they are forced to dispense and conflict with people. 18. In contrast to the killing by natural predators, hunters and trappers operate under many regulations designed to make the way animals are taken as humane as is feasible. 19. One is morally justified to hunt or kill surplus wildlife that cannot be supported in a modified environment. 20. How does one equate the suffering of animals that are shot or trapped with being eaten alive or dying by starvation or disease ! 21. It is great for game animals to be born and live a quality life, under strict licensing regulations, even if later some are to be shot or trapped. 22. All organisms are predisposed, actually obsessed to overproduce to ensure the survival of their species. 23. People have a moral obligation to manage nature once they have disrupted it ! 24. Sportsmen can help nature maintain healthy populations of wildlife more humanely than can nature. 25. In the natural scheme of things, animals are born to be eaten by other animals so why not let the sportsmen humanely help nature's natural process. 26. The restraint hunters have shown to harassment by anti-hunter activists is admirable. 27. Hunting regulations came about because sportsmen recognized the need to protect mammal and bird game species from market hunters and unrestricted hunting. 28. Hunters and trappers are highly regulated licensed predators. |
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Of
course, animals have a right to do whatever is necessary for them to
survive, no matter how brutal they may be to other animals or even if it
means killing and eating their parents, offspring or siblings. However,
animals do not have a right that guarantees how other animals treat them.
Consequently, nearly all animals that die "naturally" suffer a great deal
more than when people hunt or trap them.
Nature's life-death
ethic requires that over time the rate of mortality equals the number of
births. The fact that so many young animals are eaten before they
reproduce is necessary to prevent the development of environmentally
damaging excessive population densities of species.