The Killing of Animals in its many aspects

[Brigliadore]

Originally posted by godwulf
If you encountered a 9-year-old boy in your neighborhood, shooting stray animals with a beebee gun, what would your reaction be?

If I encountered something like this I would give the kid a stern talking to. Maybe even scare the shit out of him if I could. Its not just because he is shooting an animal, its because studies have shown that children that abuse animals grow up to be adults that abuse people. If I come across someone who is shooting stray cats with a REAL gun, well while I may not approve of it I am a little more ok with it because god willing the animal will die right away. But shooting an animal with a BB gun more then likely wont kill the animal, its just going to leave large welts all over the animals body and thats just not cool.

I, like Kitsune think that hunting is ok as long as you eat the animal you killed, and as long as you attempt to kill the animal with the first shot so it doesn't lay there in pain.

One time several years ago we were driving through this little podunk town in Utah and we stopped for gas. There in the gas station was a mountain lion stuffed and mounted on the wall behind the register. While I wasn't real happy with it, I wasn't angry that someone had killed a mountain lion till I looked below the animal and discovered about 10 photos of the "hunt". This man had taken about 12 dogs with him and the photos showed the dogs chasing the lion, cornering the lion, taking turns attacking the lion, etc. Several of the photos showed a clear shot this man could have taken to put the lion down, but instead he wanted to take photos of his dogs mauling this poor animal to death. Thats not sportsmanship, thats cruelty and thats where it crosses the line for me.

For me it all comes down to this; Its generally OK to kill an animal so long at it is put down swiftly and as painlessly as possible.

But thats just me.