Shooting a duck a goose (or even a duckgoose), or any other native or domestic animal with a target arrow is irresponsible and unethical. It is also, more likely than not, the act of a child and not a hunter.
Having said that, the so-called ‘spate’ of five such attacks reported today by Phil Hickey (PerthNow, August 26th, 2013 here) is anything but a reflection of a growing weapons mentality within the community, as the Greens and the Antis would have the public believe. Rather, it is a perfectly predictable response to a recent ‘spate’ of movies featuring heroes/heroines of such prodigious ability that they can shoot the wings off a fly, or nail bouncing tennis balls to a wall.
In my day it was Dennis the Menace with his trusty shanghai in his back pocket who reigned over a period of bulbul and sparrow slaughter of Biblical proportions. Society ‘banned’ the shanghai and went on its merry way, safe in the knowledge that the slaughter had been halted.
Like hell it had!
Kids simply started carrying backpacks, in which to conceal their shanghais along with an impressive arsenal of clay balls, marbles and ball-bearings each with its own specific target or killing properties, and the hunt continued.
Boys, and occasionally even girls, will be boys!
Unlike the arrow incidents that have featured in the press of late, a bird shot with a shanghai falls to the ground with no telltale projectile protruding from its body. The casual observer sees only a dead or injured bird, whose injuries are indistinguishable from those sustained in an encounter with a windshield or window, the pellet having long-since disappeared into the grass.
No doubt the Antis will cry-out for regulation or even prohibition of bows, but how does one regulate books, trees, reeds, feathers and string? I had a bow when I was a nipper, and it was a pretty effective little demon too as I recall, but I didn’t buy it from a sports store, I made it myself, just as I made my many trusty shanghais....oops, sorry, "bait casters".
Banning or attempting to regulate the use of bows as a response to a relative handful of acts by over exuberant kids would be an over-reaction of quite stunningly self-indulgent proportions. So what’s the alternative...do nothing? Well yes almost, although as a first course of action we could show a little respect for our youth by acknowledging that despite the existence of a world of pressures encouraging them to kill and maim just for the hell of it, the overwhelming majority will choose not to.
The Australian community – hunters and archers among them – already promotes responsible and ethical animal welfare principles, and has done since way back before Adam played fullback for Jerusalem. This should continue, but it should continue with some perspective...
- The Australian population (21mil approx) is greater than it has ever been,
- Bow and arrow are readily available and cheap in all states and territories,
- There is a profusion of video games, movies and even cartoons glamorising violence, including violence with bow and arrow,
- The capacity for the public to capture images of impaled wildlife has never been greater than it is today,
- The national media is lucky to come up with 2 dozen cases of arrow-shot wildlife annually, and
- One notorious 20klm stretch of the Snowy Mountain Hwy alone claims 400+ eastern gray kangaroos annually....and that's just the 400+ that stay put when they're rundown. Who knows how many more continue into the scrub to die slow agonising deaths just out of site?
Decreasing the speed limit on the Snowy Mountains Hwy to 60klm per hour around dawn and dusk when car/kangaroo encounters are most common would increase both human and kangaroo response times considerably, thus saving countless lives.
But while the Antis would not be inconvenienced in the slightest if bows were banned, they would be astonishingly inconvenienced if the time it took them to get to and from work [sic] doubled. Thus, bows should be banned, but road-kills, while deeply regretted, are an unfortunate fact of life.
But while the Antis would not be inconvenienced in the slightest if bows were banned, they would be astonishingly inconvenienced if the time it took them to get to and from work [sic] doubled. Thus, bows should be banned, but road-kills, while deeply regretted, are an unfortunate fact of life.
The Antis will say that I’m wrong, on all counts. They’re a notoriously contrary lot....though I’m sure they would not agree.
Anyway, I'll get outaya way now....
Antis do not have issue with road kills as they are, for the most part, accidents. Who is going to slam into a 6' roo and trash their car for pleasure?). The anti's have an issue with people hunting animals FOR PLEASURE, like the prick who shot this duck, they did it for kicks. If you want to make some headway, devise an argument that refutes hunters enjoyment of hunting (killing). This is why anti's harp on about 'professional shooters' because there is the inference there that they are doing it for money, not pleasure. Just trying to help steer your arguments for the greater good of us LAFO's.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback. I know the antis object to people killing for kicks - frankly, so do I - but I don't think that's the issue here. The issue is the hype around improper use of the bow and arrow, as if there's some kind of threat to native fauna demonstrated in these isolated events. My post was not intended to suggest that hitting a roo is like shooting a duck. I was simply putting the ratio of reports of 'cruelty' inflicted with the bow * arrow vs other accepted forms of mortality into some perspective.
DeleteThere are a couple other options, And they came up at the club shoot last weekend, a fellow archer kept saying it was "pro-active" when you condemn actions, and was trying to advocate the "proof of membership" before purchasing arrows (my person thoughts are kinda bwhahaha waste of time). To me this is far from good enough, If we as a community should be actively out there asking youngsters if they want coaching, we should be prepared for the inevitable silly questions, but remember, from a beginner there is no real silly questions. To me this is what society has lost, the instinctive help that used to be often there when we saw someone doing something we new was wrong, Now days its "NOT MY PROBLEM" and that shits me to tears. If you love your pastime, go and find a kid that may be a bit "wild" "quiet" or just a regular normal (cant find many tho, lol) n teach them the proper way... the reason for my feelings on this, I can imagine myself as a Kid in todays society and I really would have problems, and if I had never got good guidance I would not be where I am now.
ReplyDeleteIn response to 'Anonymous' - It is not unethical, immoral or illegal to enjoy, or to gain pleasure from hunting. The more important distinction that requires to be drawn from acts such as this, is the distinction between sociopathic behaviour and non sociopathic behaviour.
ReplyDeleteSociopaths make up 2-3% of the population, their emotions are not in the ' normal' range. They are the group of people who are largely represented in statistics for 'intra-species' predation ( rape, murder etc)
A quick look at the mass killings in Australia, you will see they are all committed by sociopaths/ psychopaths. They are a very small % of the population and yet they do the greatest harm.
Their behaviour is typically identified in childhood and often expressed in cruelty to animals.
At this point, we don't know the motivation of the individual who shot the duck. It could be that their action is a motivated by sociopathic behaviour, it could just be a normal kid doing a stupid thing.
The act of shooting the duck was illegal. The act of shooting it with a field point was also immoral. No hunters I know would call it 'hunting', none I know would support this act and none I know would have engaged in it.
Hunters do not need to devise an argument that refutes the enjoyment of hunting.
We can however use examples like this duck to educate the public about the moral and ethical difference between a 'hunter' engaged in 'hunting' and the individual who engaged in this act.
In that process, we may also educate the individual who committed the act to realign their moral compass.
Bullseye, Andrew! And I agree, we do not need to develop convincing arguments refuting our love of hunting, but that's not the line the antis push. Rather, they claim it is a love of killing that motivates shooters/archers to hunt, and that I believe we do need to refute with clear commentary on the nature of hunting as opposed to killing.
DeleteA very well researched and very critically peer reviewed study in the US put the average hunting time invested in harvesting each deer at approximately 240 hours. The time it takes to kill something amounts the a nano-second when the trigger is squeezed or the string released. It is why we are drawn to the activities that account for the other 239.999... hours that we need to communicate clearly to the public e.g. the practice, the gear tuning, the tracking, the camping, sitting quietly and still in the wilderness at daybreak for hours on end observing our surroundings and the animals we share them with, the preservation of traditional skills etc... to me as a hunter, this is all part of the hunt.
We will never change the position of the Antis – that’s immutable core values baggage they will never shed – but we can educate the people who are yet to form any firm opinions about hunting (i.e. the vast majority of 'the public') in order to prevent them from developing firm opinions that oppose our culture and practices.
Of course the Greens and the Antis strive daily to do the same, but with the opposite outcome.
Andrew I am going to pull you up on a few facts there although I agree with the jist of what you are saying. Firstly sociopaths & psychopaths are to very different animals all though both described as a personality disorder one in a bipolar condition the other an environmental condition. A Sociopath is the result of their upbringing ie environment where as a psychopath is born like that.
DeleteAlso the percentages of each in society are much higher than you have described. In both cases there a varying levels of the condition ie the higher percentage of each live a relatively normal life and only the upper 1-2% of Psychopaths or Sociopaths actually cause the massive damage such as serial killing and or mass murder rape etc.
What is more likely however is that you will find many executives,politicians and leaders suffer from mild psychopathy ie born like that and many historical leaders were the same. However it is very unlikely to be the case with sociopaths.
The behavior of cruelty to animals is actually more related to the diagnosis of Psychopaths and is just a possible outcome or rather a pointer in a long list of that diagnosis. Animal cruelty itself can and is done by many other people as well.
Ivan Milat & Martin Bryant are Psychopaths were as the killers of Janine Balding for example are Sociopaths. John Travers in the Anita Cobby murder was a Psychopath where as his friends were Sociopaths.
Another point would be that although a sociopaths emotions are often damaged by their environmental conditioning that does not mean that they feel any different about things than normal people they have just learned to deal with it differently, however a Psychopath will be lacking the empathy to understand the emotion to its fullest this being the result of their bipolar disorder, ie born with it.
Sorry to jump on your explanation as i said I agree with your point, I just think you have confused the Sociopath v's Psychopath part of the explanation as what you are describing fits more the Psychopathy.
I do however totally agree that in stead of crapping on like the anti's seem to want to instruction and guidance would more than likely serve this person more by helping define a moral code i.e. don't shoot native unless you are allowed to and have the correct tools (in this case a bird blunt on the arrow)and learn to chase down and humanely kill you game as quickly as possible so that it does not suffer. And of coarse the other hunter code items.