Killing for food or killing for fun. Nov 21 '02    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet The Bottom Line ugh. It's quite ironic that I find myself involved in the farming industry. We buy lambs to fatten and then sell them to the Freezing Works for (hopefully ) a good profit margin. We have a dwindling mob of breeding ewes ( from 2500 we have 200 left) which we harvest the lambs from every year. We have a mob of 200 cows and 4 bulls, every year we harvest the calves and send them to the livestock sales at 9 months of age.They are bought by fatteners who fatten them, then sell them to the Freezing Works. Just for the record, we dont use hormones. Our animals are free to roam over the hills, through bush, wade in streams on hot days and some even enjoy sitting on the beach in the middle of summer. We don't have them crowded into feedlots or penned in barns but the down side to the outdoor life is they are on their own to face the elements.Our weather is very temperate here though, no snow, moderate summer temps compared with some places, but lots of cold, driving rain in winter. Every now and then we hand raise calves and in the past, have had many 'pet lambs'. With these hand reared animals we have formed emotional bonds with the individual animals and yes, just like cats and dogs, sheep and cattle are individuals all with their own personalities and characters. Our 'pets' become part of the herd eventually and if they are lucky enough to be female, get to live a long life producing calves or lambs. If, on the other hand they are 'unlucky' and are males, they join the fattening ranks. I enjoy eating meat, I have witnessed animals being slaughtered for food, I have helped in the preparation process of skinning, gutting etc, but I still find I am a bit of a squeamish cook. I don't like handling lots of raw meat, it kinda turns my stomach. Maybe I need therapy to explain this one but it seems awfully strange to me that I can participate in the production, slaughter and preparation of the animal but once that animal has been reduced to a pile of 'meat', it turns my stomach. As far as my view of farming is concerned, I feel that if humans want to eat animals then the farming environment is the best scenario. The fishing industry will have to address this issue eventually as wild fish stocks dwindle. I have always had problems with the fishing industry wanting to kill seals, dolphins and any other predator that is out their in direct competition for our fish. These animals survival depends on eating these wild fish, humans on the other hand have the ability to set up 'fish farms' and produce enough fish to satisfy market demands. It involves too much effort though and it's easier to head out to the high seas and harvest the wild fish stocks to near extinction. Hunting on the other hand throws up a whole different argument. I have heard pro hunters accuse people of hypocrisy because they enjoy meat but condemn hunting. I cant see the hypocrisy myself, the two are not comparable in any way, shape or form. Hunting for food is one thing and I do not have an issue with that, hey, catch a fish for tea, shoot a duck if you want to eat it but why on earth people need to catch big game fish so they can get their photo taken with the carcass or mount it on the wall is beyond me. I have also heard 'duckshooters' boast that they have killed over 80 ducks in two days as if they are expecting everyone to bow at there feet and acknowledge their prowess as the great providers. For goodness sakes they have shotguns...and ducks are flesh and blood. Shoot them and they fall out of the sky. Every year in the duck shooting season our paddocks become full of Paradise Ducks. They seem to know that they will be safe on our farm for the duration of the hunting season and once it's all over, the numbers dwindle back to our usual resident ducks. The residents are no problem at all but as the numbers build up over the hunting season, the damage to the pastures becomes noticable. This is the reason they have the cull in the first place but I am a bit confused because it is only in the hunting season that we have problems. If they called off the duck shooting, would the ducks still cause the same damage to the pasture? I also have issues with killing Paradise ducks as they pair bond and mate for life. We have a pair that live near our house, they turn up every winter and spend the next few months hanging around being obvious. At the moment they are walking around with 6 fluffy babies which I always think my cat is going to catch but surprisingly, he dosent give them a second look. Every season I am glad to see them both return, I dread the day only one arrives. Around Feb, when the juveniles leave home so to speak, they all gather on the small river on the farm. They dont seem to be in control of flying at this stage and surely, if conservation issues were at the core of the duckshooters argument, wouldnt this ' sitting duck ' phase be the time for the cull? Why wait until the mating season when the ducks have started lifelong relationships, why not cull them as youngsters, surely they would taste better then as well. People throw the conservation argument around as if this justifies the thrill they get at killing creatures. The only reason humans need to kill animals to maintain populations is because we stuffed up in the first place. If we hadn't killed off all the natural predators out there the natural prey animals would be under control. We have also limited the wilderness to ever decreasing pockets that just can't support the natural increase in animal numbers. In New Zealand we have an issue with a herd of wild horses that have lived in the Desert Road region in the middle of the North Island for the last 100 years or so. The numbers get so high that they are unsustainable in such a small area so they have a cull from time to time. There is always an outcry and the debate goes on for months about the right to kill the horses but of course, eventually, the cull goes ahead. The cull used to be terribly inhumane with shooters firing from helicopters at the fleeing horses. These days they do a live cull and round some of the horses up. They sell the horses at auction to the general public and all the horses not sold are loaded onto trucks and sent to the knackers yard. All this is done in the presence of veterinarians and it seems to have appeased the masses and apart from a small number of protests, the cull goes ahead. It saddens me when I see snippets on TV of animals that have been bought, declawed, had their teeth pulled out and are let out of a cage, run all of 10 feet before a pack of dogs gets them then a whole lot of grinning fools with guns shoot at it. What the *#@&*? Whats that about? Is it fun? Is is fair? Is it right? Alot of amateur hunters out there don't even know how to kill humanely, they will body shoot the animal and cause the most horrific death imaginable. Take the case in the UK with the Foot and Mouth cull of sheep and cattle. One guy was filmed shooting at running sheep in a paddock. As he wounded one, he would chase it till he caught it and then kill it with a head shot. Why on earth couldnt they have taken the time to tie a few gates together and herd the animals into the makeshift pen. It would have been a lot less traumatic for all involved in the distasteful job at hand. At least at the freezing works when the animal is slaughtered it is stunned with an electric shock first so it is basically comatose. Cattle are killed with a direct head shot and death is instantaneous. I have witnessed animals being killed with a gun humanely, one shot and they are dead. Hunters seldom get the opportunity to kill instantly, they usually hit the animal a few times before the death shot is fired. It is cruel, it is obscene, it is disgusting.

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