Life and Death

[Wildfan99]

The older I get, the less I care about the harvest and the more I enjoy the experience.

I've always felt and taught my kids gratitude towards a harvest. Harvesting that animal was a gift from God to provide for us, and we have a responsibility to treat it with respect.

When I shoot a squirrel, gopher, or rabbit in my yard, I don't feel the same way, but I sure do wish they wouldn't put themselves in a position where I have to remove them for damaging my yard or eating my garden.

Of course, knowing that even the pest don't go to waste helps. There are plenty of yotes around to clean them up.

 

[Cogreeny]

For me the only thing I feel for predators is recoil. You see coyotes eat the face off a baby calf hanging out of its mom trying to be born it hardened me. Foxes or bears kill a whole pen of chickens for the sport of it I feel 0 remorse for hammering them any chance I can legally. I know they’re doing what animals do I guess I’m a cold soulless bastard.

 

[Wolfshead]

I hunt Whitetail Deer.
I dream of a Moose or Elk hunt, but at my age, and income, I probably won’t get that chance.
I don’t like killing.
I understand that it is a necessary part of what we do, but I don’t like it. I will not watch kill shot videos. Not my idea of entertainment.
I am extremely grateful to the animal I kill, and always say a small prayer and give thanks.
I’ve helped dispatch chickens, cows, pigs, on my uncles farm growing up. I’m not unfamiliar with taking a life. I just don’t find enjoyment in it, and it’s not why I hunt or fish.
The Hawaiian’s have a word, kahu, which is an honored attendant, guardian, keeper.
I feel that that word explains how I treat our Maggie. She is our family, and I treat her as such.
I believe, and a lot of you may disagree here, that we are not of higher standing as far as living beings are concerned.
I feel, to think that is very arrogant.
Our Maggie

 

[YukonGold]

For me, when considering our species' role in the deaths of other animals, the line might be fulfilling our role as predator in an ecosystem vs unnecessary mortality caused by fences, roads, etc. One is (at least we hope) a sustainable way to feed ourselves, where we respect the animal pursued, appreciate its sacrifice, and try to not to waste anything. The other is an animal getting whacked by a car or smashed into a building or caught in a fence or otherwise negatively affected by the immense changes we have made into their habitats, a cruel fate that serves no one (except scavengers, I guess) and which no living thing deserves, in my opinion.

I've said this before, in other threads, but there's no question we are the dominant species on this planet and everything we do affects the species around us, from driving a car on roads that fragment habitat and directly kill animals and are made of things that were exploitatively extracted from some other species' habitat, to killing rabbits that annoy us, to hunting an elk. I'm always pondering where in our history did we shift from being a natural part of the ecosystem to a virus, a la Agent Smith in the Matrix? Is it possible anymore to strike a balance somehow? Is it worth trying? I think, yes...I think we ought to everything we can to minimize negative impacts on our planet. I don't think hunting is necessarily a negative impact.

 

[BirdManMike]

I know the feeling. Its not only in the killing of animals.

I sometimes get similar feelings fishing. More and more often, I see trout with hook injuries, parts of their mouth or lower jaw missing, and otherwise mangled faces - old wounds from catch and release. Seeing these injuries - even though I dont believe these wounds negatively affect the fish or that fish feel pain in the same way I would - is extremely off-putting, causing me to really reflect on what I am doing.

Anyway, I am certainly becoming softer in my old age.

 

[marshman]

“There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.”

It is a good person that contemplates the death of animals. I fear we are losing more and more to the thought that "....breakfast comes from the grocery...".

Every year as hunting season comes to an end, I flip a mental switch from the harvest to aiding in surviving the a winter. Actually, helping the animal survive is a year-long endeavor.

Ever have someone over for dinner and they leave some wild game on their plate when they are done? It rankles me. The animal gave its life for that person to throw it away, to say nothing of my efforts in harvesting it. Leave the rice, eat the steak.

This is the most spot on thing I have read in this forum in quite a while, worth repeating - "It is a good person that contemplates the death of animals".
This is what respect of the natural world is about.

 

[NearerTheBone]

death is a hard thing to process. Last year we watched a family of great horned owls rear two owlets. It was a joy for our daughter (then 2 1/2 years old) to see. Later that summer we found one of the owlets dead near home. My daughter was there when we found it. It was tough watching her grapple the situation, and I know she didn't fully understand it at the time. Maybe to some extent we spend the rest of our lives trying to understand death. In some situations (like hunting, raising stock, etc.) we find the means to acknowledge and make peace with it. The degree of our involvement with death and dying forced us to accept it for what it is. In other situations, like the dead owl or fox, we're pressed to confront what might have seemed "unnecessary" or at least unexpected. I felt sadness for the owl, but mostly I felt sadness for my daughter trying to make sense of it when she doesn't have the means to.