Persistence Hunting

[COEngineer]

if we don't place a perfect bullet that nearly instantaneously kills the animal did we just act unethically? but it wasn't intentional. but you did pull the trigger, that was extremely intentional. but i didn't mean to hit it there! but you pulled the trigger, and maybe you should've practiced more. so was it intentional? was it unethical?

these things happen way more with bows, way more with muzzleloaders. is the higher propensity of suffering thereby unethical in these methods of take? some may argue yes and perhaps have a point

overall, i think there are many practices in hunting that are far more worrisome as far as ethics are concerned.

There is little disagreement that bows and muzzleloaders are more likely to cause suffering and therefore could be considered less ethical. And yes, people who don't practice with their chosen weapon are less ethical, IMO. And yes, there are worse things than persistence hunting, but I don't like the idea of setting the bar to just above the lowest rung.

 

[COEngineer]

I disagree with the premise that the weapons we use don’t intend to cause much suffering. They cause much suffering as a function of our promotion of fair chase, decreased efficiency, and desire to harvest the meat. There are endless kinds of other methods we could imagine that would minimize suffering, but it’s illegal to use them. We are stuck with balancing the intentional suffering we induce whenever we promote other aims.

I had to read this several times to understand your point, but I think I see what you're saying. If we want to minimize suffering, we would use remote-controlled, laser-guided munitions. But then that would just be killing, not hunting. Good point.

 

[npaden]

I'm not sure we really understand how an animal feels pain and suffering. There have been several accounts on running forums of runners who go out for a run with their dogs early in the spring on a warm day and the dog ends up dying of heat exhaustion. Often these are dogs that are in decent shape and have run longer distances, they just can't disipate the heat with their winter coat still on when an unseasonably warm day comes along. The insane crazy thing is the dogs aren't being drug along in terror or anything of the sort. They are willingly running beside their human until they can't run anymore and then die. I'm sure it wasn't pleasant but the crazy thing is the dog could have stopped running at any time. It didn't realize it was getting to the point of seriously harming itself and the human running with it didn't either.

I would imagine it would be similar to the antelope being run down. It is going to be thinking stupid human isn't as fast as me, I'm going to just run away when it gets close right up to the point it falls over and can't go any farther.

 

[noharleyyet]

Well, since we've arrived at dispatch mitagition, please redirect to the .257 BeeMag thread.

 

[Northwoods Labs]

So his strategy is to run down pronghorn, which could take a very long time, in 100 degree heat? Boy, not sure if that meat would taste good.

Ethical or not, being able to eat what you kill is a major, major part of hunting to me-so I guess I'm going to take a hard pass on the whole persistence hunting thing.

 

[Poke 'Em]

Does it really matter what the meat would taste like as long as he eats it?

 

[Bigjay73]

I’d submit that the suffering of the predator needs to also be taken into account in these kinds of dilemmas. To me, the more that the suffering is shared between predator and prey, the more “fair” the chase is, which thus impacts how I’d assess the ethics. None of it is black and white, but rather many shades of gray.

I’ve really enjoyed the discussion on this and the various viewpoints.

Solid point. If we watched a wolf run an antelope for 20 miles, we'd say" nature is brutal, but it's nature's way". Is it different just because the animal is different? Ill have to ponder this point of view.

 

[npaden]

Not exactly the same because they used a group of runners instead of just one guy but just watched this on Amazon Prime this evening.

https://www.amazon.com/Fair-Chase-Kristopher-Houghton/dp/B074TZ4BDM

Inspired by the book "Born to Run," ten distance runners from around the world attempt to chase down the fastest animal in North America and-through efforts both moving and humorous-prove that running was the first real human weapon and the key to our species' survival.

It discusses some of the theory behind persistence hunting. A bit of a slow go, you might want to just skip to the end and watch the last 20 minutes or so.

 

[MarvB]

There are degrees of terror.

@COEngineer must have met my Ex

that being said, interesting discussion...other than a few studies measuring heart rate and lactic acid buildup dies anyone know of anything that has truly provided an analysis of the levels what we (humans) call fear as it relates to animals? I mean when I jump a deer and it bounds off only to start browsing again in 100 feet, was that “fear” or did I just startle it and it was more so a response action?