Would you call this hunting???

G

GonHuntin

New member
Just looking for other opinions.....

I have been involved in a discussion on another website regarding what I would call canned hunts. In particular, the "hunt" being discussed is a Bison hunt and this is how it is done:

A "trophy" is pre-selected from the herd and is captured and hauled to a supposedly undisclosed portion of a very large (60,000 + acres) ranch where it is released. The guide and "hunter" then attempt to find the bull by traveling in 4X4 vehicles or, in some cases, on horses, they then stalk and shoot the bull.

Even though the website makes the claim that neither the guide nor hunter know the release location, I very much doubt that the guide doesn't know where the bull is released. 60,000 acres is almost 100 square miles, it would be nearly impossible to find a single animal in that much area without a good idea where to look.

Now, I don't have a problem with this rancher charging people to come to his ranch and shoot one of his buffalo, but I'd hardly call it hunting! To me, pre-selecting a "trophy" to be released, tracked down and killed is about as much like hunting as walking into Red Lobster, selecting the lobster you want, removing it from the tank with a net and then telling folks you went fishing?????

Am I off base here???

To me, it isn't hunting if the outcome is pre-determined!
 
Well I think its not fair chase. Fair chase for me means them animals can go anywhere they want. Unhindered by 11 foot fences.

I wouldn't knock someone doing that though. We like some pork and my wife wants me to get a pig. Now generally gettin a pig I guess is game farm huntin.

Well I'm rambling. Put it this way. I could go to a game farm and shoot a pig. But I couldn't shoot a penned up elk or bison.

I want to say again..I AM NOT knocking anyones huntin. A game farm or fair chase its your perogative.

But a bison has some kind or weird psychological signifacance attached to it.
 
Mule

Like you, I don't have a problem with someone doing it, but I don't think it's hunting. I consider it shooting, and I might enjoy it, but it doesn't fit into my concept of hunting.

Heck, I've got a yard full of squirrels, I could go out and whack one or two with a shotgun at will, but I sure wouldn't call it hunting!
 
I do not consider it hunting, either. Unless you called it "Hunting for handicapped people". That's what it was called when I was a kid. The paraplegics and such couldn't hike the fields or climb the hills, so they would take them out in the back of pickup's to pens with deer, antelope or whatever they prepaid for. They could shoot one or have their "guide" do it for them. Then it was butchered and packaged and sent home with them. The only difference today is, the gimps that are doing it now aren't physically handicapped.
 
I have hunted for the past 25 years with a paraplegic hunter. I can guarantee he would NOT shoot any animal in such a hunt. We both would consider this to be a shooting not hunting.

I know a man who shot a buffalo on such a "hunt" with a black powder rifle. He has the whole thing on video including the almost five minutes it took to bleed out before he went down. He has the head mounted on a wall and is vary proud of it. I don't hunt with him.

Just my opinion.

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In HIS Service
Scott
 
Scott, you're an honorable man and your friend is a true sportsman. You both have standards everyone can respect.
 
I agree with Scott,I don't like the sound of that at all. If they are going to hunt on a 60,000 acre ranch then I think the whole herd should be roaming,not just a pre-selected animal. Makes it a little harder to sneak up on if it's in the middle of a herd. Sounds kind of fishy to me,you could count me out on taking any part in something like that. It's not as bad as shooting one in a pen but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth!
 
GonHuntin, no way brother I would consider that hunting. At least coyotes have a chance at surviving the hunt. And I sure wouldn't pay for some guy to show me where to kill an animal that's really penned up and not free to escape my stalk. Don't do it. Take care!!!!
 
I'm no different than anybody else, the described "hunt" wouldn't interest me.

However. Taking an International perspective, there are large areas of southern Africa where you have the fences, true enough. But, does that mean you don't have fair chase? Not by my standards. If you think so, what about the common practice in many parts of Wyoming where they allow or entice the pronghorns into their fenced property, and close the gates when the season opens and charge considerable money to "hunt" these animals? The big record book elk shot, down on the San Carlos a couple years ago. Was it located by aircraft and radios? Many people suspect that it was. Cheapens the trophy, doesn't it?

I remember a piece by "the Colonel" Craig Boddington where he hunted chamois in (I think) Austria. He had a game manager at his elbow the entire time, and they showed him the only animal (a doe) that he was allowed to shoot. What's up with that? This guy could hunt anything, anywhere; trading on the value of his name recognition. Musk Ox, they form a circle to protect the young. Now there's a challenge.

Have you heard about the hog hunts in Tennessee, where they drive up to a location where the hogs are feeding on some corn, they hardly even look up while the dude loads his gun.

There are always borders. I have hunted extreme southern Utah where you had better not cross that Arizona fence; somebody is watching. I have also hunted the California eastern border where you pursue the migrating Mule deer before they cross into Nevada and certain death on the Pyramid Reservation. They watch for that, also. I have hopped the fence into Mexico to retreive a coyote; (not too bright), given todays conditions. Point being that there are "canned" aspects to virtually any hunting situation these days, except predators, especially coyotes. Ever hold a doe, or a cow tag?

There was a piece in Sports Afield, a few months back, about the buffalo hunters. Hell, they all took five minutes to bleed out, all twenty(?) million. The alternative to this canned hunt we are discussing today, might be a composition .22 LR on the kill floor.

We meet here because we have almost unrestricted freedom in pursuit of these sporting animals, the predators. Especially in the Western US with the abundance of public land. Anything else seems tame, doesn't it?

Good hunting. LB
 
Remember, science(DNR) may determine WHAT we hunt but the general public(non-hunters) and all of their emotions will ultimately determine HOW we hunt.
The shoot that has been discussed may have the science to support it, but it sure doesn't stand up to much, "emotional", "general public" or "fair chase" review.
I vote NO on the shoot.

Also, opinions are like a**holes, we all have and they are all different. Just my opinion!

Sean
 
Rereading my post I just want to say that all hoghuntin' is not game farm. I'm sure alot of it is fair chase and I don't want to tick off the hog hunters.
 
somehow I get the same feeling, on this type of hunt, as I used to get when getting a little to inebriated. It makes me really sick. SHOOTER
 
I wouldnt be particularly interested in killing a buffalo in that manner, but then again, Im not really hard up for killing a buffalo at this moment.

Those "hunts" are fairly pricey from what I have seen and prices are determined by two things:

Supply and Demand

If I was really hard up for killing a buffalo, and there werent a whole lot of opportunities to do it, Id take what I could get. And like anything else, Id pay more for a guaranteed chance of a shot at one.

Alot of the time the money made from the "hunt" goes into keeping the Buffalo Ranching/Breeding operation in business. Without that business, there would also be a good chance that there would be even fewer buffalo around for us to be concerned with.

Which brings me to the eMail Leonard posted a few days ago about the "Anti-everything" agendas and their methods for achievment...

"The Hunter's are already divided... Let's keep dividing them"...

If you dont like hunting buffalo like that, then don't go.

or better yet, put "your money where your heart is" and create a larger true-demand for a "real buffalo hunt" (whatever your definition of that may be)

Robb


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"Happiness... is a Target-Rich Environment"
{edit: my keyboard has a spelling virus}
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[This message has been edited by Robb/Scottsdale/AZ (edited 08-01-2001).]
 
GH,

No thats not hunting!! Thats about the same as going down to the local stock yard, picking out your side of beef, and firing the ole smoke stick at him. Then you watch them clean it for you, wrap it, then charge you for it.

GonHuntin give me an email when you get a chance.I have some questions about your calls. [url=mailto:tcw@gci.net
 
Even worse...below is a copy of information on hog hunting at a ranch here in Texas. Now understand, there in NO shortage of wild free roaming hogs in Texas. The first half of their text talks about fair chase, then they "drop the hammer"...if you don't get one you like, you can come shoot a "trophy" hog in our pen!! Not a few acres, 100 acres, 1000 acres....in the pen!!
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No thanks. I firmly believe that if it is legal, and you want to hunt it, go ahead and do it your way. I may not want to, but that is why there are Fords and other trucks.
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BUT...I guess there has to be a line somewhere! This makes me appreciate the class of hunter we have here.

"We have the Sabinal River coursing through our ranch, and in the heat, it is a natural attractant to the hogs for both drinking and staying cool. And if that isn't enough, the ranch is well-baited with sour mash and other nasty-smelling food stuffs that the big, ugly, critters love to attract 'em from miles around! So your chances of spotting them on the fair chase are waaaaaaay above the average here! Now if, for ANY reason, you CHOOSE not to take one on the fair chase, then previously trapped wild hogs are available for you in our pen. And if you don't believe they're really wild, we'll let you get in the pen with 'em! Now fellas, you CAN'T beat this! We've got 'em. All you need to do is come and bag your trophy hogs, have the time of your life doing it, take 'em home and proudly hang 'em on the wall, and then stuff that freezer full of meat!"

Good Hunting,

Bob C.
 
Robb

I understand and mostly agree with what you are trying to say, let me clarify a few things.

First, I don't have any problem with this rancher charging someone to shoot one of his buffalo, to me, they are just livestock, but I think we need to make a distinction between shooting and hunting. There are lots of different animals that aren't hard to kill....once you find them....caribou and musk ox come to mind......but you don't pre-select one of them and haul it out somewhere so you can "hunt" it.

As to the "dividing the hunters" situation?

Our "right" to hunt is largely based on what the non-hunting public thinks about hunting. There are those that are for it, those that are against it and the majority who really don't take a side but generally support hunting. It is the third group that we should be most concerned with!

The questions we need to ask are, how will the fence sitters look at the situation, and will our actions pull them toward our side or push them away? When they hear about "hunters" pre selecting their "trophies" to be released and killed, I wonder which way they will be swayed?

Make no mistake, I'm NOT saying we should do ANYTHING to appease anti-hunters, that is counterproductive. What I AM saying is that we should distance ourselves from this type of "hunt" if we don't want to be lumped together with these type of "hunters". Lots of people already think of hunters as "those drunken slobs that shoot up road signs after stumbling around the woods all day shooting at anything that moves". We all know there are lots of "hunters" like that out there, should we support or even tolerate them, too, just because they are "hunters"? NOT ME!

Like it or not, the future of hunting will be decided in the court of public opinion, we can't afford to lose even one of the fence sitters!

Mark
 
Encore:

Exactly...

and do they "skin them" or take backstraps or flanks for Lunch ?

(edit: If you use a FMJ bullet, even in something as big as a 308, theres still a salvagable hide... )

You can maybe "hunt" the first couple of P-dogs, after that its just shooting... over and over and over...

And Poison is a much better control, cost and effectiveness. Ive seen Praire dog towns grow the next year after being shot-at all summer, spring and fall.

So the point here is: Are you going to be willing to distance yourself from that large group (P-Dog shooters) of hunters rights/priveleges allies for essentially the same reason ? I dont think you can really afford too...

Robb

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"Happiness... is a Target-Rich Environment"

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[This message has been edited by Robb/Scottsdale/AZ (edited 08-02-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Robb/Scottsdale/AZ (edited 08-02-2001).]
 
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