Making the kill

[Cromm]

Did you stuff and hang the refrigerator on the wall afterwards???
I still stand by the fact, that the bow and arrow is one of the best weapons in the world. It's just the fact that you have to put hours of work into it to be good, I think that is what put people off. As with a gun, be it a plinker or a big fella, you can sit in your Jeep all day and shoot at stuff without to much energy....IMO.

 

[British Red]

You can shoot at stuff with a bow all day too!

Taking the right prey, in the right way, cleanly, safely with compassion takes time, irrespective of the tool. Any skilled hunter I know will tell you that making the shot is always the easy part. Knowing the terrain and where to make a safe shot, understanding the animals habits - where it is likely to be and when, using fieldcraft to get close undetected, thats the skill. Making a good shot is a skill too. I've been shooting rifles for thirty plus years and I still need to improve. I wouldn't dream of taking an animal with a bow - because I lack sufficient skill.

But they are all just tools. The hunter makes the kill

Red

 

[Mikey P]

or you shoot it through the face and mutilate an animal that will run and die slowly.

Upon examination the arrow had struck the shoulder blade and penetrated to the lungs, as the deer ran the broad head shredded him internally.

Are these not similar scenarios? In both cases, the deer has died in great pain. That's certainly not what I understood the idea of a clean kill to be all about. I don't wish to criticise unduly, as the result is the same in all cases, but I think the issue is surely that the animal needs to be killed quickly and with the minimum of pain and suffering?

What we seem to have proven is that, regardless of the type of weapon used to make the kill, or the country where the deer is hunted, it is possible to cause unnecessary suffering to an animal. Surely, only the most reliable quick kill method should be used?

To take this to an extreme, if the idea is just to find a deer and kill it, why don't we just stomp on their heads like those lads in the Bournemouth area did a month or so ago? In a survival situation, we just need to kill it and eat it. But, none of us on this site are in a survival situation when we go hunting, are we?

We have already discussed the problem with bow hunting in that it seems that the penetrator is not designed to dump its energy into the target unless it hits a bone or something solid. With a properly designed bullet, the kinetic energy is dumped into the target as the round mushrooms or tumbles. Yes, you do get exit wounds occasionally but most of the energy has gone into tissue destruction in the target already.

With the arrow, it seems that it is far more likely to travel right through the target due to its shape and the fact that it does not expand or tumble (is there an expanding arrow head design?). This is not efficient, especially if no major arteries or organs are hit.

So, from an ethical point of view, it would appear that a correctly used rifle is a more humane way to 'kill' a deer. Hence, I'm guessing this is why bow hunting is illegal in the UK? Does anyone else know the real reason behind this?

Discuss.

 

[British Red]

Hmm,

I understand the point you are making Mike, but I'm not sure I agree about the ethical dimension. To me a clean kill is about placement only. A correctly placed broadhead will kill an animal far more cleanly than many slaughterhouse techniques and with less distress to the animal. Bow hunting can also be used in places where it would be unsafe to use a rifle, with lower disturbacne to other wildlife etc.

Bow hunting was banned in the UK only recently (by the WCA). I suspect because its harder to regulate, this does not mean, to my eyes, that bow hunting is, per se, cruel. As always its in the hands of the hunter and the tool has its place.

I have never bow hunted and doubt my skill to do so, but I can see its place. A broadhead would be far more likely to "drop" an animal cleanly creating I suspect a wider wound channel than even an expanding round. A good heart / lung shot with either will do the job.

Red

 

[thebeatmeister]

There's gems of info in that lot. Thanks everybody. I think my mind thinks along the lines a survival scenario only. Survival is survival at the end of the day and there are very few things that you can't practice, hunting with a bow in this country maybe one of them but having a little theoretical knowledge would go a long way IF you ever find yourself in that situation. It maybe a 1 chance in 30 million that i would ever find myself in a situation (particularly in Britain) where i was having to consider killing for survival but in those circumstances i'm more likely to be making and using a bow from local materials than reaching for the .308 rifle i just so happen to put in my pocket....! Because i've only had experience with a bow this would probably be the tool of choice. Illegal or not they'd have to except that i did it out of necessity or throw my bottom in jail either which way at least i (and possibly my other half an daughter) am still alive.

 

[Pict]

Mikey P,

The first case you refer to, rifle head shots, my point is that this is the reason you never take a head shot as there is a high potential to create a ghastly wound that us unlikely to be fatal. Sorry I wasn't clear in that. I don't know anybody personally that attempts head shots on deer.

The second with the shoulder blade strike is an example of what can go wrong even when you are doing everything right. My brother happens to be a phenomenal bow shot and hunter. He has taken four or five deer a year with traditional bows for the last 20 years.

I am a firm believer in ethical hunting and if anyone said that bowhunting should be banned because it causes undue pain and suffering to the animal I would say that person has never been involved in bowhunting nor seen a bow kill. Any solid hit that penetrates the lungs will result in a dead deer very soon. Any hit that strikes a deer from the diaphragm back will result in pain and suffering and a very long track of a wounded deer. It does not matter if it is a rifle or bow that you use the process of killing a deer is the same, heart and lungs. Actually deer often run much farther when hit with a rifle because the shot startles them and they run like mad until they pass out.

Seriously, as a lifelong hunter, and dedicated target shooter, if the thought of inflicting pain on an animal is too much for you you should avoid hunting. You pass on bad shots and only take the good ones and you train hard to be able to make a humane kill and hone your fieldcraft until you can make a shot from close range and most of the time it all works well and you make a clean kill. Then there's that day where everything is lined up and all is well and then something, a twig, a gust, a sudden startle of the animal causes the shot to go bad and you have a badly wounded deer on your hands. This has happened to every one of the very best bowhunters I know, and some of them are published in that field. Killing is violent and painful to the victim, end of story. Mac

 

[Cromm]

Very sound words Pict.

 

[Chinkapin]

Food for thought: Tests conducted on original Native American bows were conducted by someone once and they averaged somewhere between 15 and 20 lb. pull.

When you consider that this was more than adequate with a well placed shot, you can only conclude that a 50 or 50 lb. modern fiberglass bow is well beyond sufficient.

On the other hand, there is no accounting for the absolutely stupid shots taken by some hunters. A few years ago, while quail hunting, I encountered a deer with an arrow sticking out of its hind quarter, about 3 or 4 inches to the left of the tail. That shot had to have been taken on a deer moving directly away from the shooter. There was NO hope of a clean kill on such a shot. I accidently walked up on this deer and it did not see me right away. I was close enough to see the wound and it looked terrible, and I'm sure the deer just eventually died of an infection. Idiocy is hard to regulate.

Cromm: No, my wall was already crowded with old toasters, microwave ovens, tin cans, and other "trophy's." However, if I had stuffed it, i would have most likely stuffed it with beer.

 

[Oblio13]

I do most of my hunting with rifles, but I've taken a few whitetails with a bow. My goal in either case is usually to puncture both lungs, which means waiting for a more-or-less broadside opportunity. An animal so hit will almost always run a few yards but leave an easily-followed blood trail. There's a bit of room for error because a shot too far back that hits the liver, or too low that hits the heart, will be fatal equally quickly. A shot too high that touches the spine will drop an animal in it's tracks.

Mammals can function for ten or fifteen seconds with literally no heart or lungs, just on the blood left in the brain. A deer can cover quite a bit of ground in that much time. Only a hit in the upper central nervous system, i.e. brain or upper spine, will produce an instant kill. As Pict explained, such shots are risky and difficult because the targets are small without much margin for error, and animals have a tendency to move their heads and necks abruptly.

Anyway, I've been consistently amazed at how effective sharp broadheads are. A well-hit animal bleeds out in seconds and a blind man could follow the trail.

 

[Pict]

"Mammals can function for ten or fifteen seconds with literally no heart or lungs, just on the blood left in the brain."

A friend once tracked a buck he shot with a .30-06 for a full 100 yards. Upon gutting it he found the heart had been pulverized.

From speaking to people who have been shot, I don't think the animals experience much pain in that amount of time. Some comments I've heard, "It felt like a punch", "I was running forward and my leg went out and I fell" "The shot startled me and I turned to see if anyone got shot, then realized it was me". All of them said the pain came later. Mac

 

[gregorach]

I could be wrong here, but my understanding is that in many cultures, traditional subsistence bowhunts would involve stalking the quarry multiple times, possibly over the space of several hours or even days, taking multiple shots until the quarry either bleeds out or drops from exhaustion. Hunting ethics are very different when it's the only things keeping your kids alive.

 

[Toddy]

Even those who had to hunt this way, and one would expect their experience would improve their kill rate, did not always succeed.
I know of at least one site in the UK where a deer carcass was excavated from where the deer had died in what had originally been carr wetland.
Analysis showed that the deer had been shot, the flint arrowheads had shattered inside and then the beast had started to heal. Estimates put it that several weeks later it was shot again, and again managed to escape, but later died of these wounds.
Seems very few hunters are quite as good as they think they are Probably why they took to rifles so promptly when given the opportunity.

Medieval tapestries and illuminated books give huge amounts of detail of hunting techniques and quarry. The beaters on the moorlands of Scotland and Yorkshire are just continuing a very long custom. Hunting with bow and arrow was always considered a close quarters sport.......even from a horse or elephant back.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Pict]

From a hunting standpoint it isn't about power but movement. Think about what it takes to "Make the Kill".

Spear - The hunter must be standing in a broad left foot forward stance to launch the spear after having brought it back first then thrown forward.

Atlatl - The dart is lighter trading velocity for mass to achieve penetration but the motion of the hunter is still very similar to the spear, he only has the mechanical advantage of a second forearm to propel the dart.

For both of these the moment of "powering up" the weapon for the kill involves a great deal of motion that must have spooked game. This would make stalking or hunting from ambush very difficult. It is not surprising that many cave drawings portray such hunts as group affairs in which the game was chased. A lone hunter would have a very hard time making the shot.

Bow - A bow, trading even more velocity for mass, can be "powered-up" simply by drawing the arm backwards away from the prey, a movement that from the prey's perspective is very hard to see. This can be done as the animal is approaching and his vision is momentarily blocked. The charged up weapon can then be held for some time until release at the right moment. From a hunters perspective this opens up a far wider range of tactics, stalking and ambush become much more energy efficient than chasing down an animal and cornering it.

Firearm - A firearm comes chemically "pre-charged" and has a much greater effective range than a bow. The only movement required is to aim and squeeze the finger. The extended range decreases the skill necessary to stalk close and allows an ambush shot from much farther out. This equals a much higher volume of effective shots that can be taken.

If the objective is simply to eat game it is not surprising that native peoples from the North American Indians to modern South American tribesman have switched over to firearms as soon as they became available, it is just a far easier way to hunt. Mac

 

[Goatboy]

Evening All,

Maybe slightly to the side of the topic, but it's how I see hunting.

Have any of you ever been in a slaughter house? I have and it's a horrible and nasty place... animals sense the death and it's not a good way to go. The smell and anticipation scare the bejesus out of the animal, the stunning often doesn't really do the job, the animals are more likely to be torpid through fear. The killing isn't often clean ( and I believe with the fact that animals are often killed in the halal method now to meet Jewish and Muslim requirements - ie their throats are slit - rather than the old quick bolt to the head ).

Now take an ethical hunter... something we first world countries can enjoy. The animal has a natural free life, isn't aware that the hunter is there - if they're good - , the hunter wont take the shot if he's not sure ( where the first world able to fall back on other food-stuffs comes into effect ), they take the shot and if all has gone well the animal falls dead with no stress.

Which would you prefer? I know what meat I'd rather have in my freezer!

GB.

 

[rapidboy]

Evening All,

Maybe slightly to the side of the topic, but it's how I see hunting.

Have any of you ever been in a slaughter house? I have and it's a horrible and nasty place... animals sense the death and it's not a good way to go. The smell and anticipation scare the bejesus out of the animal, the stunning often doesn't really do the job, the animals are more likely to be torpid through fear. The killing isn't often clean ( and I believe with the fact that animals are often killed in the halal method now to meet Jewish and Muslim requirements - ie their throats are slit - rather than the old quick bolt to the head ).

Now take an ethical hunter... something we first world countries can enjoy. The animal has a natural free life, isn't aware that the hunter is there - if they're good - , the hunter wont take the shot if he's not sure ( where the first world able to fall back on other food-stuffs comes into effect ), they take the shot and if all has gone well the animal falls dead with no stress.

Which would you prefer? I know what meat I'd rather have in my freezer!

GB.

very well said

 

[Pict]

I would agree with all that. The bottom line, deer die and then they are eaten. They may be eaten by opossums, crows, and microbes or they make be eaten by me. I think they're tasty too.

At least here in Pennsylvania white tailed deer are a byproduct of human agriculture and development. We paved the valley floors with food crops and left ample forested hills and woodlands everywhere in between. We created the perfect habitat for deer and their population exploded. In many areas they actually walk up and browse on ornamental shrubs and vegetable gardens outside our houses.

We don't call it a deer harvest as a euphemism, our deer population really is the direct result of agriculture. Mac

 

[Bravo4]

From a hunting standpoint it isn't about power but movement.

Not exactly the kind of "movement" you were referring to, possibly off-topic, probably you've all seen this already, but....it is a bushman in the bush practicing his craft :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wI-9RJi0Qo

 

[Big Geordie]

Hi Guys,

I've been to a couple of stone age hunting sites in Nevada, where they used to drive their prey into prepared channels in the rocks so that hidden hunters would be closer & fire concentrated arrows/ spears at close range. This very much bears out what Pict says about the nature of hunting without firearms.

This would also be a team activity, with probably a few getting away with wounds. The pictographs don't show it but I suspect the older / weaker hunters would have been given the job of following up the walking wounded too.

Great thread
G

 

[dogwood]

We don't call it a deer harvest as a euphemism, our deer population really is the direct result of agriculture. Mac

And also the result of de-predation, which is a significant problem in the US.

The situation Mac describes in Pennsylvania is fairly common in the US -- there are vast portions of the country where deer over population is such that they *have* to be thinned. (That's less the case in California where I live and deer numbers in various parts of the state have been falling -- I have yet to see a convincing argument for why that's happening here.)

For what it's worth, I've hunted deer with rifles, black powder rifles and bows (and once pigs with spears -- very intense). I feel that bows are as effective as anything else when the shot is well taken. As Mac and others have said, placement is everything.

Depending on where you're hunting, bows can even be more ethical. Here's why: when I've hunted in places where you can get a LONG rifle shot -- I've found hunters with scoped rifles taking excessively long shots they had no business taking and gut shooting deer. You can't do that with a bow.

And as Chinkapin indicated, bows hit plenty hard. The journals of Lewis and Clark describe Mandan natives shooting right through the center of mass on big plains bison.

Interestingly, some have argued that stone points actually provide a faster take down vs. steel points. However I don't believe it's legal to hunt with stone points anywhere in the US other than maybe Arkansas, which allows you to hunt with atlatls, which is pretty cool!

 

[Cromm]

Hi,
Good info.
Dogwood there's lots of place you can hunt with stone points in the US, they just have to be to a certain size.....