Are animals self-aware?

I have no issues with hunting for food. In many instances, it is necessary for population control.

I can’t personally do it; but I do eat the meat. I don’t have a problem eating meat, I just can’t bring myself to kill an animal.

But I do have issues with the people that hunt rare and/or inedible shit just for the sake of getting a trophy on the wall. Fuck those guys.

 

Honest question ... what do you deem “inedible”? I assume you’re talking some of the African trophy hunts?

 

Yes.

 

I understand not EVERY animal that gets killed is for food. Like I said, sometimes it is necessary for population control. Or their might be a coyote killing your other animals and it needs to be put down. Shit like that happens.

I am referring to the people that will go out and kill something for the sole purpose of saying “Hey, look at this bigass bear/lion/moose/etc that I killed”.

Fuck those guys. When I see shit like that, it makes me want to beat the hell out of them. What did that animal do to them?

How would they like it if they were in their natural habitat, just minding their own business, and someone shot them just for the sake of saying “Hey, y’all look at this fat bastard I just picked off”?

 

I mostly agree, but as always it's complicated. I hate the term trophy hunting, because it insinuates that everyone with a head mount on their wall killed the animal for that purpose. In reality, responsible hunters remove the largest animals from the herd as a way to balance the breeding population. Batemans principle is very real in the wild, so nearly all females mate and produce offspring, but only with a select group of males. The dominant alpha males preside over many females, but are often past their breeding prime (i.e., shooting blanks). In the case of ruminants, these are also the animals with the biggest antlers or horns.

Years ago I read about a dude from Texas who paid $300k plus travel to Namibia to kill a Black Rhino. It made me furious so I started digging into why it was allowed. I was expecting some kind of African government conspiracy, but what I learned was very different. As it turns out, Namibia is very unique in that it has environmental protection written into it's constitution. They take conservation very seriously and do an amazing job. Since those rhinos are at risk of extinction, the crashes (herds) are closely monitored and their mating activity is logged. One particular hyper aggressive male who could no longer breed was still fighting for his right to party, and as a result had killed two younger males in combat over females. He belonged to a crash with only a few other males, and it seemed clear that he would eventually fuck them up too. The WWF and NCE agreed that the male needed to be put down to protect the population.

Now you have two options: You can just go out and find the thing and shoot it, or you can leverage the opportunity to do more for Namibia. They chose the latter and the $300k that the Texan paid went directly to conservation and anti-poaching efforts, and the meat was given out to a poor village which desperately needed food.

In fairness, what you described does happen and it's disgusting. There's plenty of corruption and bad actors, and if you want to go fuck those guys up I'll be right next to you with a claw hammer. It's just important to understand that there's always nuance.

 

Understood and agreed. That kinda falls under “population control”. Or perhaps “species preservation” would be a better term.

Either way, there is/was a viable and productive reason for it. It wasn’t done just to post on Facebook saying “Look what I killed”.

 

from what I’ve read most of the “conservationist” hunting groups are complete bullshit and funded by big money to allow the hunts. They don’t actually do shit to help conserve the population of a species.

 

i was on a private ranch, doing a hunt once on the central california coast. a department of fish and game helicopter landed, and picked up one of the guides, and flew off to count the size of the native elk herd. when the chopper dropped the guide back off, he was told how many elk tags would be issued for the upcoming season.

so, in this instance, the ranch owner (180K acres) is working with the state to support the local Tule Elk population, as well as his livelihood/business of guiding hunts. seems real enough to me...

i was there hunting feral pig- of which there is no season, no limit, and no regulations other than buy 1 pig tag, take 1 pig. they taste amazing.

 

Why is Idaho culling over 1000 wolves after they went through all that shit to re-populate the fuckers ??

 

sorry, I was speaking in terms of exotic game

 

I wish I understood it better. I'm told repopulation had to do with putting pressure on the ruminant population to spread out their grazing and eliminate pockets of deforestation. I can't say whether or not that was the only solution, but with strong breeding habits and no predators it's no surprise they're getting out of hand.

I love seeing them and they're beautiful, but they're the serial killers of the forest. I've heard arguments on both sides of the debate and I'm not smart enough to know who's right.

 

i'd argue that Orcas and Dolphins know that they "are"

 

Watch some videos of Fiona the hippo and tell me that isn't a self aware hippopotamus. There are also several videos of hippos saving other animals from crocodiles.

 

They may save animals but they murder a lot of humans.

 

I love Fiona the hippo!

I think hippos are awesome.

 

Or they're just extremely territorial and chase off crocodiles all the time whether they're having lunch or not.

 

Pretty sure they kill more people yearly in Africa than any animal,if my nature show memory is correct. The males will also kill the baby hippos from another father.Very graphic and sad video of the babies being killed.The audio and video is unforgettable

 

From being a former truck driver ,Ive learned a lot about animals we eat. Cattle can smell blood upon arriving to the stock yard to be slaughtered. They do in fact panic,and are aware of whats about to happen,or some form of shits not right. Chicken plants have literally made me not want to eat poultry.They suffer from beginning to the brutal end. The final moments consist of being hung upside down,electrocuted ,then decapitated..Im pretty sure they are aware these last moments suck. Im not peta,and eat everything,but wish everyone knew how it got to the table.If I could,I would rather hunt/kill my own meats.