BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="PaulD" data-source="post: 1653922" data-attributes="member: 11840">I can understand that there can be economic (jobs etc), practical (obtaining food, pest control) and pragmatic (more wildlife friendly habitat) reasons for hunting, but is it morally/ethically justifiable?If you eat meat then I would have thought that shooting to obtain food is morally justifiable (if you’re a vegetarian your viewpoint would probably be different).However here in N Yorkshire the hunters I know are reasonably affluent people who eat some of what they kill but by no means all. As a cost effective way of obtaining food their shooting activities don’t make sense. Typically it seems to involve a day out costing a minimum of £50 (and that’s charging their time at zero) to bring back food which could be bought at a supermarket for less than £10.The only conclusion I can come to is that they go hunting because they enjoy it, and not for the food or for other reasons. In a way that’s fine – there’s a hunting instinct in all of us.But does our enjoyment of a sport give us any right to inflict pain on wild animals?I have had the argument put to me that there is no intention to inflict pain – the aim is for a quick, painless death. I’m not convinced by that because I cannot believe that anyone is such a good shot that they can guarantee a clean kill every time.Peter Scott gave up wildfowling because he saw the painful, slow death of a goose he had hit, but not killed and realised he had no right to inflict that on another creature. He felt that whilst he wasn’t intending to inflict pain it was an unavoidable by-product of shooting.I’ve had hunting people say to me yes there is pain and suffering in hunting, but there’s pain and suffering in nature. A rabbit caught by a fox or stoat won’t have a quick painless death. But surely the fox or stoat has no choice, it’s simply obeying its instincts. People who choose to shoot at, say, wildfowl do have a choice and they wouldn’t starve to death if they decided not to shoot.I realise this is an emotive subject and this is a wildlife forum so it’s a biased audience, but can anyone give me some good moral/ethical reasons for killing animals for sport (ie not related to practical/pragmatic ones like food, pest control etc).</blockquote>

Verification