Pro versus anti hunting problem.

[Tom]

This is a major problem, I think.

I just did a google.com search on anti and pro hunting.

anti hunting 2,450,000 google hits.
prohunting 3,300 google hits.

Anti has 742 times the hits as pro hunting!!!

Wow!!

That does look bad for the future of hunting.

 

[Hangar18]

Or it could mean that pro-hunting folks have real jobs and therefore don't have time to create idiotic websites.

 

[Washington Hunter]

How many times do you expect the term "pro hunting" will be used? Why not try a search without the "pro" and only the "hunting" and see what you come up with?

 

[Tom]

hunting 29,900,000 but it could be anti or pro?
animal rights 28,200,000 better, but the totals are still bad.

We need to promote hunting more, not just set back on tradition. We are being out marketed? Any marketing people here, to comment on it.

It could mean there's life on other planets. Get real, show something real. That's a cop out, without the data to support it.

 

[Nemont]

Tom,

Using Google stats is not a very effective way to gauge an issue.

Nemont

 

[Tom]

I agree, so, give a better gauge, if you have one, I'm all ears.

How about this? There are hunts being banned, lions, bear, etc. There is a national campaign now to end all bowhunting in the USA. Any campaigns for new types of hunting, new seasons, etc.?

Give a better gauge, please. This google stuff really puts up some alarms.

 

[Washington Hunter]

Nemont is right.

I searched using pro hunting and a lot of what came up had to do with professional hunting, not groups that support hunting.

Tom are you bored at work today?

 

[Tom]

No, a guy in Alaska told me today, he thinks hunting is on the way out, sooner than we think, and hunters are in denial.

Look at this,
meat eaters 641,000 hits
vegetarian 1,230,000 hits.

We're behind again. Its worse than CWD, the way these numbers look.

I did
pro abortion 4,030,000 hits
anti abortion 3,910,000 hits

Big issue, abortion and only 4 million google hits pro or anti.

Anti hunting is getting pretty big, at about 2.45 million hits. Its a problem.

 

[Washington Hunter]

Tom, 99.9% of the people on this earth eat meat. Why would there be web sites dedicated to "meat eaters?" On the other hand, vegetartians are a minority, so they can use the internet to meet up with others, and to promote their lifestyle.

Come on Tom! How much time left until you can retire?

 

[Tom]

I'll go to bed around 9-10 o'clock, if I get my work done. Give me some better data, hunters are on the decline, the number of us, I could find the numbers later, even though the general population is increasing. That's bad too.

How about that one? Its bad again.

 

[Curly]

I really don't think hunting is on the decline. I see more people out in the field each season. I wouldn't worry too much about anti-hunters.

 

[Tom]

"A comparison of estimates from the 1991, 1996, and 2001 Surveys reveals that millions of Americans continue to enjoy wildlife recreation. While the number of sportspersons fell from 40 million in 1991 to 37.8 million in 2001, ..."

from the national counts there Curly. We're down 2.2 million hunters in the field from '91 to '01.

http://fa.r9.fws.gov/surveys/surveys.html

 

[Washington Hunter]

"sportspersons"

That probably includes both fisherman and hunters. So how do you know it's not just the number of people who fish that are down? I could see that being the case with the drastic decline in the number of salmon.

 

[Curly]

from the national counts there Curly. We're down 2.2 million hunters in the field from '91 to '01.
http://fa.r9.fws.gov/surveys/surveys.html

Wow, well I guess lots of people are moving into this state and they are all out there hunting in areas I hunt. There must be some states that have lost a lot of hunters and we have gained them.

 

[Curly]

Thanks for the link Tom. There are some interesting stats in there.

 

[Tom]

Its a neat link, they do the study every five years and the fish and wildlife people use it. Here's some info on the hunter numbers WH,

"Comparing 1991 to 2001, the number of all hunters declined by 7%. Although the number of all hunters fell, the number of big game and migratory bird hunters remained constant. The decreases occurred in small game (-29%) and other animal (-26%) hunting."

We're loosing hunters, even though the population is increasing.

Our problem is bigger than we think, I think.

 

[Washington Hunter]

It's only because there are less places to hunt, and maybe less species to hunt. Protecting what wildlife habitat we have left is left is the key. Without surplus populations of wildlife there won't be anything to hunt. Of course, we need hunters to fund the preservation of habitat. So you're right, losing hunters is a problem. But, I'd rather put the emphasis on encouraging the hunters we do have to support the preservation of wildlife habitat.

 

[Tom]

That's a good thing to support for sure.

Our problems with antis are bigger than we think. Some of them are radical extremists, but some of them are smart. For example, Peter Singer and Tom Regan, do a search on them, they're philosophy profs.

Singer:
http://www.princeton.edu/~uchv/faculty/singercv2.pdf

Here's an interview with Singer where he discusses some animal awareness and how he argues its a serious moral issue to kill an animal like that.
http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/interviews-debates/1997----.pdf

Regan:

http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/archives/exhibits/regan/

We need high powered people to promote hunting if people like that are against it. Here's a quote from Tom Regan's pages:

"All of us engaged in the struggle for animal rights have a tendency to forget who we once were. Most of us once ate meat, for example, or unblinkingly dissected nonhuman animals in the lab during high school or college biology courses. Probably we went to a zoo or an aquarium and had a good time. Some of us hunted or fished and enjoyed that, too. The plain fact is, it is not just society that needs changing. The struggle for animal rights is also a struggle with self. What we are trying to do is transform the moral zombie society would like us to be into the morally advanced being we are capable of becoming. All liberation movements have this common theme. That's only one of the ways our Movement resembles other rights movements of the past."
—Tom Regan, The Bird in the Cage: A Glimpse of My Life—An Autobiography


Our problems with defending hunting are bigger than we think.