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American hunter illegally killed Cecil the Lion

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There is nothing wrong with hunting when it is done with conservation in mind. If you didn't have sport hunting of deer you would need to artificially cull them anyway. Heck even with deer hunting you still need to cull.

Just as an example, our city had to hire hunters and give them special permissions to shoot deer in and around the city because there were so many. Causing accidents, damaging property, stuff like that.
 

MilkyJoe

Member
It's quite true, actually. Cats are technically classified as an invasive species in the US and Australia, among other places. They have demonstrated the ability to hunt animals to extinction on some contained islands.

http://www.environment.gov.au/biodi.../publications/factsheet-feral-cat-felis-catus

Low end estimates for the number of birds and rodents killed by American cats each year is 500 million; more recent estimates suggest 1-4 billion.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cats-kill-more-one-billion-birds-each-year

The evidence suggests they take the sick, dying or dead birds. That is the official line from the Royal Society for the Protection of birds. And despite what your study shows, I'd wager in almost every location it's the same. Birds have this advantage over cats, it's called flight. So if they take a billion birds a year, it's the exact same thing as any other scavenger in the food chains, weeding out the sick the dying or the dead, ergo a billion soon to be dead anyway, birds. An if it's because they are an invasive speicies, like plopping them on an island with a bunch of flightless, birds that taste like pizza, then of course you are going to have an extinction scenario, and again, that was probably a man-made introduction.

Numbers - a quick Google search says there are approx 10,000 species of birds in the world and some of those in the numbers of 3billion+ individuals, and an approximated total population of 400 Billion. So even with your 1 billion a year birds killed a year , whether they be healthy, sick, old or dazed from flying into windows, the cat predation is not going to make a dent in the population.
 

entremet

Member
Just as an example, our city had to hire hunters and give them special permissions to shoot deer in and around the city because there were so many. Causing accidents, damaging property, stuff like that.

Deer are a serious problem in the US.

The issue is that townships don't want to introduce wolves or mountain lions due to safety concerns.

Mountain lions are extremely majestic creatures.

I know the Florida Panther has seen tons of opposition in terms in bringing up their numbers back up.
 

Alucrid

Banned
Deer are a serious problem in the US.

The issue is that townships don't want to introduce wolves or mountain lions due to safety concerns.
I'd be okay waking up to a wolf or mountain lion in my backyard. I would also be infinitely more sad when one of them gets hit and rots on the side of the road for a week.
 
Humor is not easy.

Just read up on this story. Damn it, hunting these animals makes me angry and sad.
tFb9ewg.jpg
That one is funny . . . and sad. Would be better with proper punctuation.


That one kinda sucks because it is a bit racist. It seems to assume all/most white people agree with these instances of terrible police behavior.
 

JCX

Member
I'm not speaking for that poster, but considering that my facebook feed has recently exploded with all this Cecil the Lion stuff while basically being a barren wasteland any time anything related to a black person being killed by the police has come up, I don't think it's too far-fetched a conclusion.

Yeah the people on my FB feed upset about Cecil are the same ones who are silent or the first to complain about PC Culture when a race-related news story blows up.
 
There is nothing wrong with hunting when it is done with conservation in mind. If you didn't have sport hunting of deer you would need to artificially cull them anyway. Heck even with deer hunting you still need to cull.

That's because there are no wolves left in the wild.

I remember reading about the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone. It was fascinating. They brought the deer numbers down which helped the beevers create more wet land which the environment need. It shows how perfectly nature is balanced
 

BamfMeat

Member
You made the statement that human life is equal to animal life and I was arguing that it can't be or we can't justify killing animals for food. There's an inherent unequal relationship. I don't believe animals operate on a moral basis or can even conceptualize morality. I am saying we should care about hunting animals to extinction and because we care we are fundamentally different from other animals. And because we are different human life does not equal animal life so I can't justify killing this man for killing a lion. And it is gross to me that people would think that way.


Actually, I didn't make a statement - I asked a question. Why is it we place more value on human life than animal life? I didn't actually say that I thought human life is more important than animal life or vice versa. I also stated (I think, maybe it was just in my head, unlike what animals do ;-) ) that this was more of a thought experiment than anything else.

So I'm guessing under your personal code of ethics you'd be against animal testing and using any procedure that was first tested on animals?

Would you rather die than use a medical procedure or drug that was tested on animals?

I try to not use products that are not tested on animals. (Examples are shampoos/body washes that are not tested on animals). It does bother me that the procedure I might have just had might have, at one time, killed an animal. But because of the way medicine works, I don't think I'd be able to get away from that at all. Same with drug tests/trials. For instance, I was reading recently that in the process of trying to make head transplants a "thing", they've attached a second monkey's head to another monkey's body to see what would happen - and it was successful. The idea that this could be a reality is amazing but it kind of depresses me to think that these animals that have no choice in the matter are being used to better our lives. Ultimately, it's for the good of humans for this to go through - and again, it comes back around to then, is this monkey's life more valuable than ours or vice versa.

Everyone has a different limit they're OK with. As most people have said, society has stated that a humans life is worth more than animals lives, etc. My questions revolve around how did we get to that result and what led us there. What was in our heads that made us sit up and say "I'm willing to sacrifice this life of a lesser being because I want to do X."
 

entremet

Member
Actually, I didn't make a statement - I asked a question. Why is it we place more value on human life than animal life? I didn't actually say that I thought human life is more important than animal life or vice versa. I also stated (I think, maybe it was just in my head, unlike what animals do ;-) ) that this was more of a thought experiment than anything else.



I try to not use products that are not tested on animals. (Examples are shampoos/body washes that are not tested on animals). It does bother me that the procedure I might have just had might have, at one time, killed an animal. But because of the way medicine works, I don't think I'd be able to get away from that at all. Same with drug tests/trials. For instance, I was reading recently that in the process of trying to make head transplants a "thing", they've attached a second monkey's head to another monkey's body to see what would happen - and it was successful. The idea that this could be a reality is amazing but it kind of depresses me to think that these animals that have no choice in the matter are being used to better our lives. Ultimately, it's for the good of humans for this to go through - and again, it comes back around to then, is this monkey's life more valuable than ours or vice versa.

Everyone has a different limit they're OK with. As most people have said, society has stated that a humans life is worth more than animals lives, etc. My questions revolve around how did we get to that result and what led us there. What was in our heads that made us sit up and say "I'm willing to sacrifice this life of a lesser being because I want to do X."
I'm not at odds with your opinion.

I respect it, I just don't share it.

I do agree that humanity's success has come to the detriment of many animals.

I said it before, but we broke evolution badly--we basically have no rivals in the animal world in terms of resources.

But again, we're also the best hope to make things better.

You also have to remember that the fact we're animals doesn't remove us from nature. Many anthropologist believe humans caused massive extinction of megafauna.

Did we do that for fun? No, it was for survival, just like any other animal, which is hard coded in our DNA.

But it's a very complex topic. We're both from nature and out of nature at the same time.
 
You made the statement that human life is equal to animal life and I was arguing that it can't be or we can't justify killing animals for food. There's an inherent unequal relationship. I don't believe animals operate on a moral basis or can even conceptualize morality. I am saying we should care about hunting animals to extinction and because we care we are fundamentally different from other animals. And because we are different human life does not equal animal life so I can't justify killing this man for killing a lion. And it is gross to me that people would think that way.

Feeling that all life stands on equal grounds does not conflict with having a predator-pray relationship.

I feel that cats and birds stand on equal footing, but if cats could talk they may have a different opinion.
 

Tigress

Member
You made the statement that human life is equal to animal life and I was arguing that it can't be or we can't justify killing animals for food. There's an inherent unequal relationship. I don't believe animals operate on a moral basis or can even conceptualize morality. I am saying we should care about hunting animals to extinction and because we care we are fundamentally different from other animals. And because we are different human life does not equal animal life so I can't justify killing this man for killing a lion. And it is gross to me that people would think that way.

Here's the way I look at it. The life of an endangered species > life of any animal that is to the point of being overpopulated (humans easily count here. At the very least we are on the opposite end of the spectrum of being threatened).
 
Regarding vegetables, I've actually asked the same question. Vegans don't want to kill animals - OK why is it ok to kill a plant but not an animal? If we are to survive, we have to take in nutrition in some form. But where is that line that vegans draw? Plants have been shown to respond to things like sound, thereby giving them a kind of sense(s) that are similar to ours. So these things are living and humans have cultivated them to live and be "our" source of nutrition.

Plants don't feel pain and don't fear death.

Besides, vegans "kill" fewer plants than omnivorous people, because breeding animals for meat requires more plants (animals bred need to eat plants) than just cultivating plants directly for human consumption. Therefore, even if plants felt pain, a vegan would cause less vegetable pain than an omnivorous person.
 

Amory

Member
Fuck this guy, but fuck internet vigilantes too.

There's yelp reviews going after his family, linking people to his daughter's business to spout shit there too, etc. That's fucking wrong.
 

darscot

Member
Plants don't feel pain and don't fear death.

Besides, vegans "kill" fewer plants than omnivorous people, because breeding animals for meat requires more plants (animals bred need to eat plants) than just cultivating plants directly for human consumption. Therefore, even if plants felt pain, a vegan would cause less vegetable pain than an omnivorous person.

I don't have the facts but I have often wondered if this is really true, we displace and kill a lot of animals so we can plant crops, I wonder how it all works out in the end. P.S. Plants scream when cut so I think it hurts.
 

Tigress

Member
Fuck this guy, but fuck internet vigilantes too.

There's yelp reviews going after his family, linking people to his daughter's business to spout shit there too, etc. That's fucking wrong.

You know, I don't get this going after family too. They aren't the ones who chose to go hunt a lion in the most cowardly way possible.

Honestly, usually I disagree with internet vigalante but in the case of poachers of endangered animals I just can't be given to care. But I still think it's wrong to go after his family. The sins of the father do not pass on to his kids or his wife. For all they know the kids/wife was against it (doesn't mean the guy will listen).
 

Mimosa97

Member
There is nothing wrong with hunting when it is done with conservation in mind. If you didn't have sport hunting of deer you would need to artificially cull them anyway. Heck even with deer hunting you still need to cull.

There's plenty wrong with TROPHY hunting even if it's for conservation purposes. You don't need to make it a game. The animals that " need " to die should be dealt with attention and extra care. They should be killed in the least harmful way, to avoid them being in pain.

So yeah I'm kind of tired of this argument about hunters doing animals a service. When you're doing a service, you usually are the one getting paid, not the one handing the cash. These people are mental. They like the thrill of an innocent being. Annihilating a breathing and heart-beating form of life from the face of the earth brings them pleasure. They are killers. Plain and simple. Saddistic scum.
 

BamfMeat

Member
Plants don't feel pain and don't fear death.

Besides, vegans "kill" fewer plants than omnivorous people, because breeding animals for meat requires more plants (animals bred need to eat plants) than just cultivating plants directly for the humans. Therefore even if plants felt pain, a vegan would cause less vegetable pain than an omnivorous person.

But how much pain is completely irellevent to the conversation. The question isn't an amount but whether is doing so good or bad.

Also, from the article I linked, plants don't feel pain in the way we do, but they do understand threats.

And we assume you need ears to hear. But researchers, says Pollan, have played a recording of a caterpillar munching on a leaf to plants — and the plants react. They begin to secrete defensive chemicals — even though the plant isn't really threatened, Pollan says. "It is somehow hearing what is, to it, a terrifying sound of a caterpillar munching on its leaves."

This to me, says they probably "fear" some sort of death. They wouldn't react to a potential threat if they didn't. Also

They don't have nerve cells like humans, but they do have a system for sending electrical signals and even produce neurotransmitters, like dopamine, serotonin and other chemicals the human brain uses to send signals.

We have no clue what's happening when those electrical signals get passed back and forth. I believe our "thoughts" in our brains are nothing more than electrical signals getting passed back and forth, yes?

Here's a question for the people saying that the calls for this guys death is too much because this was an animal. If someone continually harms animals - let's say that someone is purposely going out and hurting a specific type of animal - dog, cat, deer, whathaveyou - not hunting for food but purposely going out and torturing and killing said animal. Let's say this individual can't be rehabilitated - the judge knows that when they give him the max sentence for animal abuse that he's going to go out and do it again and there's no stopping it. What punishment should that merit? What punishment, if any, should, say, an adult who bludgeons animals to death get? Any at all? Max sentence? Death? Again this is all hypothetical and thought experiment-y.

At what point does harming animals for fun become death-worthy, *if at all*?

I want to point out that I'm not one who's said this guy should be killed. I don't think that. So I'm not asking this as someone who's screaming for his death - I'm just curious to hear limits for people.
 

railGUN

Banned
I don't have the facts but I have often wondered if this is really true, we displace and kill a lot of animals so we can plant crops, I wonder how it all works out in the end. P.S. Plants scream when cut so I think it hurts.

A lot of animals (and insects) die in the name of vegetable farming, and they are not harvested or consumed in any way. Large scale farming has a massive (negative) impact on the environment.

In my perfect world, I'd hunt and fish all of my meat, and grow a garden 365 days a year (climate permitting) without using insecticides or pesticides.
 
But how much pain is completely irellevent to the conversation. The question isn't an amount but whether is doing so good or bad.

Huh? How is it not a question of amount? Causing less pain is better than causing more pain. Doing less bad is better than doing more bad.

I'm not even a vegan or saying they're right or wrong, I'm just explaining their view.
 
How much pain/how much suffering is literally the only thing that matters in terms of how the animal dies. It's going to die no matter what. I mean there are ecological things to consider too but that's different. As long as an animal is killed humanely there's nothing wrong, that's why even Peta kills animals humanely.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
What is it saying to you? To me it saying the person tweeting thinks more people care about a lion getting killed then a black person, is this correct? If it's having a go at the media then he most probably is correct. But I have seen plenty of people caring about yet another black person getting killed in the USA.

Anecdotally speaking, I have seen a fair share of acquaintances get very agitated over the Cecil story, while witnessing very limited reaction to stories of black people getting killed.
 

MIMIC

Banned

xD

When people come up with this shit ("I am Cecil", "Cat Lives Matter") are they even aware of what they're doing?

With that said, what this guy did is deplorable. I'm totally against killing for sport (but not on the same level as some others though). I think the worst of it was the fact that this guy lured the him out of a national park >_<
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
I am mad about the hunter. He's a dick for Hunting a dwindling species, but I'm more pissed that there is a legal way to hunt lions. Even if this guy paid people who ended up not being legitimate, the fact that there are legitimate people to go to to hunt lions is what makes me mad.
 
I am mad about the hunter. He's a dick for Hunting a dwindling species, but I'm more pissed that there is a legal way to hunt lions. Even if this guy paid people who ended up not being legitimate, the fact that there are legitimate people to go to to hunt lions is what makes me mad.

I think it's because lions are technically not an endangered species (at least in that part of the world, unlike the Asian lion).
 

BamfMeat

Member
Huh? How is it not a question of amount? Causing less pain is better than causing more pain. Doing less bad is better than doing more bad.

I'm not even a vegan or saying they're right or wrong, I'm just explaining their view.

In regards to this conversation the context of amount of pain isn't relevant. We're talking about someone shooting a lion - the fact that they shot him at all is what's bad, and then to add to it you have arrow shot + 40 hours - but the base conversation is that they killed him at all.

I think it's because lions are technically not an endangered species (at least in that part of the world, unlike the Asian lion).

That's correct - they're not endangered, just threatened, which is the level just below endangered. :(
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
Is there a popularity contest between tragedies of what? People can't be sad or outraged for more than one thing at a time?

I don't understand this kind of reaction, trying to blame people for their feelings based just on the assumption that they didn't feel the same for what you feel stronger. It's a really sad show to watch.
 

Resseh

Member
Jimmy Kimeel tears and some peoples reaction to animal killings compared to when innocent teens die...
Same with films - the dog dies( any film with the dogs name in the title) and it's the saddest thing ever yet cheer when people get gunned down.

Or show a starving African village eon the news and people filter it out but some old woman puts a cat in the trash and it's time to get the pitchforks.

People are fucked up
 

moered6

Banned
Is there a popularity contest between tragedies of what? People can't be sad or outraged for more than one thing at a time?

I don't understand this kind of reaction, trying to blame people for their feelings based just on the assumption that they didn't feel the same for what you feel stronger. It's a really sad show to watch.
Because a big majority do not,or some think they deserve it.
Just telling how I feel as a black person
 

Dai101

Banned
#catlivesmatter '??????????????????????????????????????????

No fucking way....... suddenly my urge to kick every fucking cat i see is rising.
 

Chariot

Member
#catlivesmatter '??????????????????????????????????????????

No fucking way....... suddenly my urge to kick every fucking cat i see is rising.
What kind of twisted logic is that? Kick the idiots who made the hash tag. Or is this some between the lines way of saying that you get the urge to kick black people when you see BLM?
 

Wazzy

Banned
#catlivesmatter '??????????????????????????????????????????

No fucking way....... suddenly my urge to kick every fucking cat i see is rising.
What the fuck is wrong with you? You can disagree with how stupid the hashtag is without being a psychopath.
 

Two Words

Member
It's not saying people can't care about both.
I think there would be national outrage if somebody hunted and killed a black man who was just minding his own business. I think what dampens the outrage of black people being killed are the side-arguments and details that aren't truly important but still capture attention.
 

Darren870

Member
The evidence suggests they take the sick, dying or dead birds. That is the official line from the Royal Society for the Protection of birds. And despite what your study shows, I'd wager in almost every location it's the same. Birds have this advantage over cats, it's called flight. So if they take a billion birds a year, it's the exact same thing as any other scavenger in the food chains, weeding out the sick the dying or the dead, ergo a billion soon to be dead anyway, birds. An if it's because they are an invasive speicies, like plopping them on an island with a bunch of flightless, birds that taste like pizza, then of course you are going to have an extinction scenario, and again, that was probably a man-made introduction.

Numbers - a quick Google search says there are approx 10,000 species of birds in the world and some of those in the numbers of 3billion+ individuals, and an approximated total population of 400 Billion. So even with your 1 billion a year birds killed a year , whether they be healthy, sick, old or dazed from flying into windows, the cat predation is not going to make a dent in the population.

Do you really believe the shit you type out? Have you even bothered looking into what feral and/or domesticated cats due to the wild life when let out by irresponsible owners? Its not even just birds, its reptiles and rodents as well.

Besides the links already posted there are plenty, and I mean plenty of studies that cats have contributed greatly to the extinction of multiple species of birds. In NZ alone they believe they've contributed to the extinction of 7 species of birds.

You also say they prey on sick, dying or dead birds, because of this thing called "flight". You do realize birds aren't born flying right? Cats get into nests and eat the young as the can't really fly yet. That obviously has a dramatic impact on birds actually growing and being able to have future offspring.

http://smithsonianscience.si.edu/2013/01/cats-kill-2-4-billion-birds-annually/

http://www.doc.govt.nz/news/media-releases/2010/cat-nabbed-raiding-the-mothership/

In the space of 7 days, one cat killed a total of 102 bats, and these only the ones that were found. "This really highlights the impact that cats can have on native wildlife, and I don’t think a lot of people realise what skilled predators cats really are. It’s one thing to suspect predation occurs, another thing entirely to actually witness the damage one cat can do." - Jess Scrimgeour, DOC scientist.
 

Alebrije

Member
Plants don't feel pain and don't fear death.

Besides, vegans "kill" fewer plants than omnivorous people, because breeding animals for meat requires more plants (animals bred need to eat plants) than just cultivating plants directly for human consumption. Therefore, even if plants felt pain, a vegan would cause less vegetable pain than an omnivorous person.

According to whom? We have not study enough plants to conclude they do not feel pain.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fGLABm7jJ-Y
 

Cheebo

Banned
#catlivesmatter '??????????????????????????????????????????

No fucking way....... suddenly my urge to kick every fucking cat i see is rising.
What a stupid comment. What did a cat ever do to you? The hashtag is over the top but the lives of lions do deserve attention and protection. The hashtag has a positive message. Yours is just ignorant anger.
 
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