http://www.youtube.com/w...x4&feature=endscreen

I just liked this video and I think it illuminates a part of what is missing in how we relate to life and nature and out own place in it. We live in a world of factory farms that are so removed that they don't inspire any sort of reverence for life or the natural world and it's cycles.

I'm not sure that the best way to show reverence for the natural world is going out and killing part of it.

But I'm also a vegetarian, so my opinion probably doesn't count for anything.

Blessings
~ND

The cycle of life and death is a natural part of this world in my opinion. You see it in nature all the time. It is a part of the natural cycle of life. The plants take in the suns energy and turn it into nourishment. Herbivores/omnivores eat those plants and process it into nourishment. The carnivores/omnivores eat the herbivores and also other carnivores and use that to fuel their bodies. The animals and plants die and enrich the earth with organic material that the plants use. Then the process starts all over again.

I believe that it is a perfectly natural thing. But to the topic, this mass farming and GMO/growth hormone use with these plants and animals completely takes away the hard parts that humans must go through to keep themselves alive. I also believe that it is poisoning our bodies and minds. If more meat eaters had to actually go out and kill the animal that they are going to eat I bet it wouldn't be taken for granted like it is. It would give everyone more of a respect for what the earth provides for us. Maybe people would open their eyes more.

We've turned this world plainly into a resource that we take for granted and treat like it is specifically ours to maim and destroy for our own gains. I don't speak for everyone, but the majority of the population treats it this way.

death is just part of life. I think it is our relatively sheltered lives that we live that allow people to sort of turn away from it's reality and imagine that things are not this way. Things in nature die so that other things may live. This is part of natures cycle and I think accepting this is part of growing up, and always has been taught until recently. If we could view all life and it's cycle as sacred and respect it than I think humans could live in harmony with nature. That doesn't mean we don't take life in order to sustain our own, it just means that we do it with respect and with reverence.

I had a problem with it for a long time, which led me to a 7 year span back and forth between vegetarian and vegan..with 2 years of intense raw veganism. Neither veganism or vegetarians feels the best for my body though so there is no reason for me to do that any longer. I have just begun to accept that death happens, it is part of life, part of what allows me to live another day and so I respect it, and respect the animals that I eat. I go to the farm directly to get my meat, I have seen the animals..they are all healthy, freerange and the farm is SPCA certified. They live much much better lives than factory farmed animals..but still I have some sort of calling to be a hunter. I will learn to hunt. I am going to get mu fishing licence tomorrow. I have not fished for years but I am going to start going regularly again..and I am going to learn to bow hunt this year.

Even vegans take life..and vegetarian diets can have impacts on the ecosystem far greater than a local hunter gatherer diet. You can read about it in "The vegetarian Myth".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNON5iNf07o

You should really get into hunting/fishing. I find it very rewarding. It is hard to take a life, but you see it happen out in nature. It really brings you closer to the natural cycles of earth and gives you more respect for the food you get to eat. Catching a fish is very fun too. Hunting is a little bit harder just because seeing a big animal die is a little traumatic. This is what humans have done for years traditionally to stay alive and I believe it to be just as natural as eating plants.

Even when you are out fishing or hunting you see the everything happening all around you in regards to the life/death cycles. You see composted plants and animals feeding the plants. You also see fish eating bugs, ducks eating fish ect...

I think it depends on how you hunt. The cycle of life and death is part of the world but very little of what we humans have and do (especially our relationship with animals is anything like a part of the natural world.

If you want to hunt, fine, but unless you're hunting with the materials you evolved with (your wits and your body), I don't see how you could call it 'part of life.' Nothing on earth evolved prepared to deal with shotguns or projectile weapons of any sort.

Blessings
~ND

Great post jamie. I couldn't agree more. I've hunted for roughly 3 years now, typically using a compound. I'll usually just 'stand hunt', but lately i've been 'still hunting' which is quite a bit more difficult, making sure to walk upwind and walking extremely slow, really tuning into everything around..every sound, crack of twig, etc. Never really considered using a gun, as a bow is a little more difficult in terms of trajectory, wind, holding it steady during pull-back, guaranteeing a one-shot kill, which with a rifle, is much easier. Venison is a wonderful meat source. Venison is high in protein and iron, low in saturated fat, has a host of B vitamins and is as 'free range' as it gets.

I agree that hunting is a natural part of this great cycle we're in. Whether it's from the end of a bullet or arrow, it's still just as natural as a cheetah taking down a gazelle. We as human beings, have evolved a technology (bows and guns), allowing us to do what many other predators do with ease, whether its a bear going for fish, a lion using it's raw power of claws/jaws/physical strength, a cheetah using its speed/power/agility, or we as human beings using an extension of our physical selves with our bows/guns. It's all the same when you get to the bottom line: out in the bush, against the elements, tuning in to the environment, methodically traveling for that kill, in hopes of bringing in food for the nourishment of onesself and/or family.

ok rant done,
much love,
tat

I'm gonna weigh in here and play the other side of the coin.

imo Hunting is one of the most barbaric, ego boosting, self congratulatory, nasty businesses out there...

Granted it is mainly an American pursuit as here in England, (no guns), the most you might bag is a Badger or unGuarded Deer (protected)

Fox hunting was loudly shouted down by the majority of the population and banned. A minority of Toffs and traditionalists were mightily perturbed (Good!)

In times, long ago, when no farming or corner shop butchers were around...yes it was a necessity.
Now it only serves to pump up your ego and release some adrenaline/endorphines.
I find the whole notion pretty sick.

Now if a giant Bear is charging you down and you are in fear of your life...so be it.

Other than that...leave the poor, hungry, defenseless creatures of this lovely world Alone...!
They have a hard enough time surviving against the ravages of nature and the tyranny of vehicles without some BiPed with a Gun or Bow taking it's precious life just for the sport of it...

Just an opinion of course.
Venting over...time for a beer...

"In times, long ago, when no farming or corner shop butchers were around...yes it was a necessity.
Now it only serves to pump up your ego and release some adrenaline/endorphines.
I find the whole notion pretty sick."

Corner shop butchers? Do you understand the lives that most of those animals live, and the destruction that farming has done?

Sustainable hunting and gathering is far less destructive to life than agriculture has been.

Your post could be taken apart very easily with real facts on what model has actually done more damage, caused more suffering and ended more life needlessly. I dunno cyb I just cant take you seriously.

..and why are you talking about this being for the "sport of it"? Did you even watch the video or read this thread? Sport hunting was portrayed a very negative thing in that video. I guess anyone providing for their family hunting and gathering as an alternative to the death camp environmentally devastating agriculture/farm system is just doing it for sport?

I hope you live up to your own words and only buy all of your food right from local polycultured food forrest "farms", otherwise you are just another uneducated hypocrite here with unrealistic ideas about the world and what sustainability is.

Yeah, and only feeds a fraction of the people.

I disagree. We've evolved to use tools. That's how we got where we are. If it wouldn't have been for meat eating and tool usage, you and I wouldn't be here today.

"If you want to hunt, fine, but unless you're hunting with the materials you evolved with (your wits and your body), I don't see how you could call it 'part of life.' Nothing on earth evolved prepared to deal with shotguns or projectile weapons of any sort."

Humans have evolved brains that allowed then to do things like control and manipulate fire and find wood and build bows and spears. It is entirely natural and we have been living and evolving this way for a long long long long long long time. This is just who we are and this is who we were as wild nomadic hunter gatheres living in the forests and plains and deserts alongside all the rest of the wild animals. This has always been a part of life for us. Accept it or live in denial of this fact. It is your choice.

If you think that that is not a natural part of life, than how do you deal with living on an agriculture/farm system that is based on hybrid plants and animals that cant even exist in the wild anymore, living on slash and burn cleared land that has to be mono-cultured to even grow many of those things? Do you as a vegetarian only eat heirloom wild plants grown in polyculture food forrest farms? That would be the only model that is even close to how nature actually is.

So many people get overly emotional about sustainable hunting, while at the same time completely desensitized to the mass environmental devastation (that dwarfs sustainable hunting/gathering) that their own reliance on agriculture causes.

How do you suppose we eat? Just let the farms do it for us. Be lazy and let these giant farms that stuff the animals full of growth hormone spoon feed us. I don't hunt for an adrenaline rush, I do it to feed myself.
If you don't think that's natural, go watch some nature videos and you'll see that animals kill each other for food all the time. And it's usually even more brutal when it's not a human doing the killing.

I find it insulting when every hunter gets generalized into the "Trophy sport Hunter" category. There are a lot of people who eat meat and hunt because they want to do it for themselves. There's nothing wrong with it, and I believe it's better that just eating the farmed animals.

I can relate to being in the open air and harmonising with nature and the cyle of life.

Sometimes in the summer i get on my dirtbike and go way into the mountains to a secluded spot. I take no weapons with me and just use my hands to catch my prey by tickling wild brown trout. If i ever managed to catch anything i would return it safely back into its habitat as i don"t really like the taste of trout.
I usually pack some cod fish fingers and baked beans from the supermarket which i cook over a campfire. I also have a Dutch oven for when i decide to take oven chips with me.
It is very empowering.

Hug - Sure, you can catch a poor defenseless trout by tickling it under the anus, but let's see you try it with a grizzly bear, big man. And how do we even know that those cod fish are being humanely de-fingered, unless you've performed the procedure personally with respect and a general anaesthetic?

You're a real son of a bitch, my friend. Pick on someone your own size.

I agree, that after realizing how shitty most livestock animals are treated by our system, it actually seems to me more ethical to eat wild animals who have lead a good life. Of course, it has to be healthier, too. But that's only if one is a meat eater in the first place. I can understand completely why someone would choose to avoid the whole issue and be a vegetarian.

Hunting for food is one thing, but many in this country love to go kill for the sake of killing. They'll shoot coyotes, groundhogs, squirrels, birds, anything. They just kill it and leave it. That is truly sick, and I've never understood it.

Now, birds and groundhogs are another story. All bets are off with those fuckers.

Art, trout tickling is not about brawn. It is an art based upon guile and deft of hand. The fact that i have not perfected the technique is by the by. However there are bears in my mountains and if push came to shove i am not above adorning myself with a loincloth, perhaps woding myself up and manning up to any vicious Pyrenean mountain bears that come my way.
And the codfish that i buy in the supermarket has a sticker on the packet that says it is sustainably sourced and anal freindly to boot! (but i am prepared to admit that my association of the subject of de-fingering codfish with anuses is very telling about the way my mind works).

What happened to no cursing and being respectful. Does trav really expect the rules to be taken seriously when the mods go around insulting people and breaking the rules?

EDIT: Certain mods

Just because your opinion is different doesn't mean he is a "son of a bitch"