Killing a wounded deer that will likely die a horrible death during the winter makes one a “cruel bastard.”
But it’s okay if you let your dogs maim the deer– which means the keepers– “the cruel bastards”– have to kill the ones the dogs wounded.
Makes perfect sense to me!
This problem could be solved if the policy was that all dogs on the property were required to either be on a leash or under control.
NB: Stags are male red deer. Fallow deer and roe deer males are called bucks. This animal rights person doesn’t even know the proper nomenclature.
But they killed two males didn’t they, of which one was injured. The other one was OK health-wise. Yet they admitted to only killing one.
It doesn’t matter. Within each of these parks, a certain number of them must be taken every year. It includes taking mature bucks.
It doesn’t bother me that people manage lands for sport hunting.
If deer aren’t hunted, I can tell you what they do.
They don’t live in a deer’s Valhalla. The become very crowded. They eat all the vegetation. They starve. They get disease. It’s better that a certain percentage of them be culled, even if it is sport hunting.
Fallow deer, as they exist now, are not native to Britain.
The Romans introduced them, where they existed for a time, but it isn’t clear if deer from this introduction were around when the Normans arrived. The Normans introduced them.
Britain has several introduced deer species. The only two that are actually native are roe deer and red deer.
They have Reeves’s Muntjac and Chinese water deer, which are definitely not native.
Well, I read ‘Where The Wild Things Were ‘ by William Stolzenburg at your recommendation. So I pretty much know what an over-population of browsers and grazers is capable of doing :-)
However, I am missing another point. The video is clearly showing they killed two bucks, but to the woman, they are only confessing to killing one on humanitarian grounds. Why is that so? Admittedly, I may have missed something watching the video in office environment.
It’s also inaccurate to call someone cruel when they killed both deer with only a single shot.
With the exception of my wife (and my dentist), I’ve come to the point where I generally try to avoid talking to women.
I’m thinking this because of another fanatical woman I just ran across a few minutes ago:
http://02varvara.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/uniate-chieftain-blessed-location-in-washington-dc-for-a-proposed-monument-to-the-victims-of-the-golodomor-in-the-ukraine/
Sounds like a personal issue on your part, to me frankly.
A lot of people who don’t deal with wild animals or even domestic livestock have a very skewed understanding of them. They get their information from programs that pretty much decry any hunting as “evil”. Never mind that a human killing an animal is most often far more swift and painless than a natural predator killing one. It’s somehow “wrong” if it’s a human doing it. And yes, a lot of “pet” owners just don’t “get it” that fluffy (cat or dog) can damage both wild and domestic animals with chasing alone. One wants sometimes to take them by the scruff of the neck and show them the aborted lambs or animals that have injured themselves in running away when “fluffy” was having fun. Anti hunting is the “in” thing for a lot of animal rights folk. Never mind that proper management of these animals is essential with limited resources for them to exist.
There’s nothing wrong with killing deer. Wolves and cougars do it all the time….
I am actually fine with what the woman was doing. Shows that she locked her horns with ‘good guys’ in this case, but goes to prove she won’t be letting crooks go off the hook that easily. My following piece to be published elsewhere reflects who are the crooks:
“I also like wolves for their hunting technique. Wolves are known to intimidate and startle a herd of Elk or Caribou into running with them on a close chase, snapping at their flanks if possible, to find an old or weak animal. Although hunt success rate of wolves has been calculated at a low 22%, they ensure that the weakest members of the herd are weeded out and that healthiest genes are carried forward. This actually, is true for all other top predators – lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, cheetahs, etc.
Now compare this strategy of wolves with those of human hunters. There is one most unfortunate part associated with hunting in that the hunters take down healthiest and fittest of our beautiful wildlife as trophies only to last in their ‘show-off rooms’ for 3 years at the most. And then there is that breed of pseudo-hunters. If you browse websites, you will note these pseudo-hunters leaving comments against wolves and cougars in the wild as varmints who kill their stock of elk, deer, and caribou. You have to see their uploaded videos on youtube to determine how unprofessional they are. Armed with bows and arrows, they hunt boars, elk and deer inflicting terrible pain on them and then boasting about it. In other instances, they encourage hunters to go on wild geese slaughter killing hundreds of them in few minutes using indiscriminate firing from their hides. These pseudo-hunters and their ilk are a bane of our society. Now I am not against hunting and all hunters. Everything in moderation is acceptable.
This is a concern that takes me back to our best friends – dogs, and especially hounds and gun dogs. How can we learn from them and from their ancestors – the Gray Wolf?
During three trips to the deserts with my Bedouin friends in the UAE for coursing with Salukis, I observed that when the dogs were set after a herd of gazelles, they tended to pick and chase the slower and the weaker ones, which is a wolf strategy. Needless to mention, the gazelle caught is always released. On hare hunting with Greyhounds in a central Pakistani district of Bahawalpur, I observed that the dogs were successful in only 1 in 5 chases due mostly to a rough terrain that hares knew well, they had a good head start, and they were able to camouflage themselves in the thicket, giving dogs a ‘wolf success rate’. The fun for the hunters was whether the dogs would catch the hare or the latter would outrun and outwit them. The hare caught was in all likelihood not the fittest of them all. Compare this with organized blood sport of hare coursing, which is legal in several parts of the world, including Ireland, where hares are released by hands with almost the same head start, but the terrain always favours the dogs. The success rate for Greyhounds is higher, the fun element being which dog catches the hare. “
I had a coworker who was ranting about wolves recently; saying that they breed “like rabbits” (uh, what?) and suggesting to another coworker that he shoot any wolf he saw to save the deer and elk. However, I don’t think Mr. Anti-wolf is actually an unethical hunter himself, I imagine that he typically obeys the game laws and hunts fairly. I find that most of my coworkers do, at least according to their descriptions. I don’t hunt myself, but working in a paper mill, most of my coworkers do.
I think my coworkers, and some of the other hunters who rant against top predators, are really just misinformed. I mean, the comment about breeding “like rabbits” PROVES that my coworker didn’t really know what he was talking about. I didn’t try to inform him, since I don’t think he’d believe me, and I doubt he’s really going to shoot any wolves. Or see any to shoot (not many in the state)
In the vid posted here, the dog walker really is ignorant, and her ignorance probably more dangerous than my coworker’s. Dogs really are a threat to wild species and livestock, and ignoring that danger does endanger those animals.
Bowhunting is apparently banned in Sweden for just that reason, and my (Swedish) husband was appalled that it isn’t elsewhere. Another case where irresponsible people make everyone else look bad. It would also be harder to take down something the size of a red deer (even being smaller than elk) or moose responsibly, even with a good compound bow. (OTOH, I know a number of people who do ethical whitetail deer bowhunting, not primarily for trophies.)
The universalist hating on hunting and fishing–complete with assertions that everyone is that irresponsible–was one of the things that made me lose pretty much all patience with mainstream animal rights activists.
My brother in law bow hunts every year and brings in white tail deer for meat. He has been a good and ethical hunter for decades.
Do you mean park coursing, which is legal in Ireland? Since 1993, the dogs must be muzzled.
I know several people who were involved in hare coursing in the UK before the ban, and the kill rate is very, very low.
Don’t wish to clash horns with you but Suhail does raise a valid point in as much as the keepers were not honest with the woman about shooting the second animal which doesn’t do their integrity any favours!
What I found most disturbing as an ex soldier and shooter was the way the second rifleman crawled through the barbed wire obstacle. I would not want that clown up my buttocks with a large calibre rifle crawling through wire like that in a non combat situation. Place the rifle on the other side of the obstacle, crawl through, collect rifle and resume the stalk! That way your not going to shoot your number one in the ass or have to explain to his wife how you shot him because you weren’t paying attention!
I certainly agree re dogs being on leashes to protect these animals and understand the necessity of controlling stock numbers on these relatively small estates.
Thought bit a little ironic that the keeper had a distinct limp :)
“NB: Stags are male red deer. Fallow deer and roe deer males are called bucks. This animal rights person doesn’t even know the proper nomenclature.”
I can forgive the dog walker this error as the gamekeeper makes the same error at around 2:30 and subsequently corrects himself.It’s obviously an easy error to make if the expert can do it!
Still cringed watching that second shooter crawl through the fence rifle in hand!
Correction too as the fence was not barbed wire (hell I’m Australian and have trouble with the idea that you can build fences with anything but barbed wire!) but point remains same …not a safe manner for a shooter to cross an obstacle of this type. Notice his binoculars hanging from neck…good chance they will get tangled as well. Shooter swings arm round to free binoculars and BANG….OOPS you right there mate?
[...] The trainer is Roy Lupton, who was also the keeper who shot the three-legged fallow buck. [...]