Preying on the predators

[The Grand Nudger]

People get this all wrong.

As a consequence of our game management strategies, nationwide...there are actually more predators and more prey than any game management area can support.

The thing to do, if you're gung ho about the environment, is to hunt. We need help taking out the deer that the dogs cant (and paying for those permits.....), and we need help taking out the dogs that most people won't (and paying for...those..permits.....). If we dont get it, there will be fewer dogs and deer in the future world.

It is precisely and demonstrably because there are fewer things killing the deer..today, that they've all gotten the Z - and a present world with more human hunters could support a healtheir deer pop which would, in it's turn, support a healthier dog pop.

The universe loves irony - and it's fucking hilarious that man is an extinction event, even more hilarious that even less lethal humans are a even more lethal extinction event. People who want to help the enviroment but don't want to kill...should be buying up all the tags..... The best thing that a person can do for wild animals right now, in mere reality and ignoring the spread of disease for reasons of conscience.... is to purchase the license, and if they use it...shoot them and leave the body to rot. Welcome to late stage capitalism. Truth is, in late stage capitalism, people who wont shoot kill more animals than people who will.

Seems strange, but lets do a little Q and A. OLB, how many pounds of sausage did you get this year from deer> How many deer did you have to kill? Now, if anyone else has bought that many ounces of sausage over the year, how certain are they that their meat came from the same number of animals? I know, I know, sausages, deer..we're talking about dog.

Like people don't eat dogs, like we cant make sausage from dogs.

[The Valkyrie]

I was wondering if this was about hunting priests.

Am disappointed.

And longpig is a food.

[The Grand Nudger]

More pedantics.

An m1 is a weapon of war.

an ar15 is not.

-Every single day, american sportsman..mostly with ars... funnel @ 10 million usd into conservation, and that money makes another 50 billion or so a year in retail supporting it. It's entirely through these fees that my state, for example, has been able to build the largest herd of elk this side of the mississippi..and, it's looking like..re-introduced wolves to the east cost after 200 years of having been utterly driven out.

[onlinebiker]

Update...

Tonight was an abort.

...

When I mounted the spotlight to the top of my scope with the provided hardware - I tested it inside the garage at 40 feet - and it worked nice.

Not so much at 300 feet. The problem - reflected light off the front sight ramp - washing out the view in the scope.(my AR15 is a "flattop" which comes with a removeable carry handle which houses the rear (iron) sight. The front sight is on the gas tube fitting as any standard AR15 or M16.)

Anything past 40 yards - the light reflected off the front sight ramp is greater than the light reflected from the target making it impossible to see the target.

....

Solution.- in morning I will mount a Weaver style base at the end of the (M4 type)  handguard and will mount the floodlight only an inch from the end of the.muzzle - under the barrel -eliminating the "splashback".

Live and learn...

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

@SUNGULA

Coyotes have adapted behaviors to survive in a human-dominated world. If we don't like those behaviors we should reflect on how we do things. Not blame them for adapting.

Replace 'coyotes' with 'plague rats' and revisit that idea. Should we give up modern sanitation to control sewer rats? Should we dismantle the pest control industry so we don't blame rats for adapting?

The simplest, most economical, most humane way to control a population of pest organisms is to kill them.

Boru

[The Architect Of Fate]

@SUNGULA

Coyotes have adapted behaviors to survive in a human-dominated world. If we don't like those behaviors we should reflect on how we do things. Not blame them for adapting.

Replace 'coyotes' with 'plague rats' and revisit that idea. Should we give up modern sanitation to control sewer rats? Should we dismantle the pest control industry so we don't blame rats for adapting?

The simplest, most economical, most humane way to control a population of pest organisms is to kill them.

Boru

1. You can't replace coyotes with rats so there is nothing to revisit. Thous the rest of your analogy fails. Also,most lethal methods of getting rid of rats are also ineffective.

2.No the most economical, most humane way to control a population is not to attract them in the first place. Killing Coyotes does not work.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...ock-safer/
https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/...oesnt-work
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/14/730056855...rchers-say
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/k...-1.5323900
https://www.pressherald.com/2013/01/09/s...013-01-09/
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewc...dmconfproc
https://www.rpvca.gov/DocumentCenter/Vie...PDF?bidId=

Also as an aside deer culls don't work either 
https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...eer-herds/
https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/sc...56763.html
https://www.humanesociety.org/sites/defa..._FINAL.pdf

[Peebothuhlu]

*Reads through thread*

[The Grand Nudger]

Also as an aside deer culls don't work either 
https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...eer-herds/
https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/sc...56763.html
https://www.humanesociety.org/sites/defa..._FINAL.pdf

I read through these.

-The first was from 2011.  The main point comes near the end.

Many animal advocates oppose such practices. In Defense of Animals (IDA) reports that even permitted sport hunting, under current wildlife management guidelines and outdated land management policies, contributes to deer overpopulation problems. “Currently, there are approximately eight does for every buck in the wild,” the group explains. “Laws restrict the number of does that hunters may kill.” Since bucks will often mate with more than one doe, the ratio of does to bucks “sets the stage for a population explosion.” And open season on both sexes won’t solve the problem, as too many does would die, stranding needy fawns and depleting the reproductive pool—as happened in the early 20th century when deer numbers fell precipitously low. IDA and many other animal protection organizations believe that sport hunting should be banned and that deer populations should be allowed to regulate naturally.

I'm sure that many animal advocates oppose killing animals.  I'm also sure that, no matter what angle you approach it from, they will oppose killing animals.  

Should be allowed to regulate naturally™ is a strange euphemism for extinction, though.  

-From the second.

"Given the significant costs to taxpayers, local and provincial governments should want a cost efficient and effective conflict resolution program" said Liz White, Director, Animal Alliance and spokesperson, BCDPS. "For example, Oak Bay spent $16,000 to kill 11 deer."

That does sound like it's a bad idea.  If hunting deer costs us billions rather than made us billions then it might extend to a comment further than the poor management of Oak Bay.  Further, there would be less of a problem with urban intrusion of wildlife if that species weren't overpopulated.

-The third, weeeeeeeeell,......the humane society is actually a very well funded anti-hunting astroturf group - people think that they're donating money to local pet shelters but that's not what they actually use that money for.  Still, assuming that you began with the idea that you absolutely weren't going to kill deer, it's full of ways to try and avoid collisions, disease spread, property loss, etc.  

Hunting deer would also achieve those things, generate money for conservation in the process, while protecting the deer themselves from extinction.  At the point where you're considering culls you already have the problem that hunting would have resolved, and that just not killing them could only exacerbate. More deer in an area that already can't hold the deer it has, more intrusion, more disease both within the deer pop and spreading to humans. More property loss, more collisions.......and none of the money that local and national business, as well as a little thing called conservation, depends on.

I understand peoples ethical and personal objections to hunting, but the case against hunting is difficult to make in the us and positively relies on that objection being the first principle of any argument that we should do away with it. Ultimately, their goal isn't to stop deer from dying, it's to stop people from killing them - and whatever happens next..well, That's Natural™.

I did like the bit they included about bcc vs ccc - fun fact, both numbers correlate upward with an increase in hunters in the region - in the us, at least. The cultural carrying capacity increases because people understand that there are people out there applying pressure to the numbers - you wake up and see a deer in your mixed veg - it sucks, but you know her ass aint long for this world. You think, meh, what's a few deer and isn't it nice that we still have them here. The biological capacity increases because hunters directly fund conservation and land management with the taxes they pay and their hunting related expense. That's how their numbers came back up in the fantastic way that the first article briefly describes. Contrast this against an alternate senario - a suburban or exburban gated community goes up, no hunting. The bcc of the land just increased while the ccc decreased (deer, you see, prefer the same things that property developers do) - leading necessarrily and inevitably to conflict, and, apparently, super expensive and useless culls.

The relationship between hunting and the management and conservation of species is inarguable - but for some animal advocates and people who just have a general objection to people hunting, it doesn't matter that the numbers are clear and argument is sound and the results manifestly successful in the real world - they believe that even so, it's an illegitimate situation - because people are hunting and killing animals. Meanwhile, deer themselves are a major driver of wildlife death, from mushrooms on up to plants and tress and past that to other large mammals. Without us killing them, they would be very much (more) like us in effect.

[onlinebiker]

If you need a dose of stupid - talk to a bunny hugger.



They can help.

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't think that it's a dose of stupid so much as it's a dose of refusal to allow reality to inform our principles, rather than the other way around.

That works out for us sometimes, other times, not so much. In an ideal world with respect to conservation and management, there are more bunny huggers with guns who hunt - and I'd go so far as to say that, in mere reality, the hunters are the real bunny huggers in this case. The other guys plan is to prevent human beings from hunting deer so that they can be left to die off, after all. Sure, let's add another animal to the list of critically endangered or worse. Success!