sick hunters

[JohnC]

I heard the report of this on BBCRadio Scotland. The reporting there was fairly balanced, with someone talking about the reasoning behind albino animals getting targeted in nature. I did feel it sounded unfortunate the "an albino deer seen... hunters queueing..".. headline, but the point was well made that there were no natural predators and hunting was carried out in a controlled manner.

I don't like to criticise as I'm definately not beyond criticism myself... but I would be wary about stating "i think they ought to be shot" and "id rather shoot that German guy than let this deer die."

 

[Doc]

In my experience, hunters respect deer, and far more than other people do.
Most people are ignorant on deer biology and ecology - hunters tend to be well informed. Most people who hit a deer on the roads drive on - hunters stop to be sure there is not a wounded beast in misery.
Most people buy factory farmed meat/eggs from Tesco with no thought of animal welfare - hunters do everything they can to kill deer humanely.
In some circumstances it is legal (but inhumane) to kill deer with shotguns. Who is campaigning against this - Joe Public? No, it is the hunters.


That said, I can understand the OP finding it distasteful to auction off an individual animals life. But shooting deer in general is very necessary in our unstable (ie, predator-deficient) ecosystem.

 

[East Coaster]

People on this thread have been mistakingly calling this an albino. Not according to the Sunday Times.

"The whitecoated roebuck, which experts say is not an albino, is so unusual that only a handfull have been seen in Britain since the end of the second world war".

I'm not against hunting at all and fully understand the reasons for culling etc. I find it exremely distasteful if it is being auctioned off. I hope Scottishwolf is right and the land manager is not allowing it to happen. The point is it's very rare, like tigers, pandas etc and in my opinion should be protected.

 

[Draven]

The point is it's very rare, like tigers, pandas etc and in my opinion should be protected.

Well no, it's still a deer, not a distinct species, so it's nothing like tigers and pandas, which are gone forever when they're gone. It's a product of a genetic abnormality, and while I don't think that's reason enough to shoot it, I don't think that's reason not to either! More against nature to pledge yourself to protect it, given that if there were predators, it probably wouldn't reach its first birthday.

Pete

 

[locum76]

In my opinion there is more than enough manky brown deer for all to shoot.

Maybe it would be nice for us to have one of these rare phenotypes to go and ogle for a change. It might be interesting to see what happened if it bred too. Presumably the white deer has a double recessive gene for a white coat if its not an albino. there is a reasonable chance that if it bred, it would beget white offspring too. how good would it be for the estate to have a herd of white deer.

Or folk could just queue up to shoot it because its different.

if the guy has £6k to waste, perhaps he could put it toward deer stock management somewhere and go and blitz the lot. :AR15firin

 

[Rob Tangtent]

Is this april 1st or some other wind up? You sound like a confused peta groupie with your irational animal centred value system, like its "ok" to kill those weird hunters but this deer is special . Arent you a freak for wanting to kill people? I dont know where you live with your "mom" but round here there are lots of deer, way too many, they cause road accidents, and damage trees and crops in fields. They have no natrual predators, I dont have a problem with them being shot. If someone is trying to make an issue of an unusual albino one thats up to them, I dont see its any of your or my business .

fairs fair but m8...
i dont know anyone that is 14 and lives on there own.
maybe when you were a kid you lived in the middle of a forest on your own, but please dont assume everyone is ancient.
and also this isnt an albino, its a really rare creature that only comes up once in a blue moon. also this annoys me because paying 6000 to show off a deer is ridiculouse.
and when i said i would rather the hunter wd die i didnt meen i would go and shoot him myself.
i have nothing against hunters. but i strongly disagree with people that kill to show off.
i think you should take as much resources as possiable from your deer.
please think before you make such dumb assumptions

 

[dogwood]

Well no, it's still a deer, not a distinct species, so it's nothing like tigers and pandas, which are gone forever when they're gone. It's a product of a genetic abnormality, and while I don't think that's reason enough to shoot it, I don't think that's reason not to either! More against nature to pledge yourself to protect it, given that if there were predators, it probably wouldn't reach its first birthday.

Pete

I'm a hunter, but when I encounter something unique and special -- a buck with especially spectacular antlers, etc. -- I happily let it go. I *want* it to live.

Yes, that flies against the trophy mentaility, but I'm *not* hunting for trophies.

And that's a big part of the point in my mind: trophy hunters ARE dangerous to the gene pool because they seek the strongest and the most robust and most unique and then take them out of the pool.

The point of protecting rarity in my mind is that it helps to provide needed diversity in the gene pool. Let the largest and the smallest and the most unique live and harvest the ordinary. The world is a better place that way.

As others have pointed out, there are plenty of normal deer to hunt. The notion of someone deliberately hunting this one so that he can have the pleasure of saying he removed it from gene pool is kind of grotesque: "It was special, and I killed it..." Ughh....

The problem isn't hunting. The problem is trophy hunters.

 

[Rob Tangtent]

I guess your heart's in the right place, but deer are killed all the time, for a variety of reasons. It was on a stalking estate, good chance it would get shot whether it was a white deer or not, so I hardly see how it makes a big difference, the guys just making extra money off of it. How 'bout we pity the guy who's daft enough to shell out 6k to shoot a single deer? Tbf I also think the stalker himself said that he wasn't into trophies - IIRC.

To be honest, I personally would call it delicious the deer over most other names. I love a bit of venison, and I agree that this is just a PC media jumping onto something that just ain't that big a deal, it's just a stalker making extra money off a deer on his estate. Wouldnt be surprised if it got poached by someone else first anyway.

For the record, I was 14 not too long ago, and from experience I can say quite safely that the sooner you get past the "you shoot it I shoot you!" mentality, the better off you'll be fella!

Pete

PS: Natural selection is against it, too.

ok i agree with this
and i didnt meen that im completely anti hunting infact i think its important to hunt,
but that is on the one idea that you take as much resources as possiable. so you use what you take from the deer.
not to shoot this creature just to stuff and show off to your friends.
and dont take literally what i said about the "you shoot it, i shoot you thing"
just that guy must be so...
foreget it i cant explain it properly

 

[Rob Tangtent]

i see where the guy is coming from. yes I understand deer need to be hunted (and recently bought a whole one meself for the freezer But I cant stand the mentality of wanting ownership over something. "ooh I want to shoot that because its different" Its like when I see articles like "worlds biggest pig shot" or "worlds biggest crocodile shot" great, one less thing for the rest of us to enjoy in nature because one man (and yes usually a man) wanted ownership of it himself.
I remember seeing a programe in america once on taxidermy. They have whole competitions of it. This guy and his kid went out and shot a deer then spent literally weeks getting the taxidermy of it exactly right . then the judges come round and say "beautiful, very life like, it looks totally alive!"

Well I can't help but think they missed something!
And as for having a go at the opening poster for his `strong` opinion , Ive always noticed how touchy hunters are at any critisism of their sport. calm it down guys, just because somebody disagrees does not make them an animal rights extremist (PETA)

thats exactly what i ment.
thats how i ment to say it

 

[dogwood]

fairs fair but m8...
i dont know anyone that is 14 and lives on there own.

Rob, 14 is a great age and I applaud your passions and willingness to defend it. I'm happy to see teenagers around here and no matter what, please don't let a strong response to your post chase you away.

You have to live in the environment that we adults are handing to you and we've made something of a mess of it. So your voice and the voices of your generation need to be heard.

 

[Draven]

I'm a hunter, but when I encounter something unique and special -- a buck with an especially spectacular antler, etc. -- I happily let it go. I *want* it to live.

Yes, that flies against the trophy mentaility, but I'm *not* hunting for trophies.

And that's a big part of the point in my mind: trophy hunters ARE dangerous to the gene pool because they seek the strongest and the most robust and most unique and then take them out of the pool.

The point of protecting rarity in my mind is that it helps to provide needed diversity in the gene pool. Let the largest and the smallest and the most unique live and harvest the ordinary. The world is a better place that way.

As others have pointed out, there are plenty of normal deer to hunt. The notion of someone deliberately hunting this one so that he can have the pleasure of saying he removed it from gene pool is kind of grotesque. It was special, and I killed it...

The problem isn't hunting. The problem is trophy hunters.

I totally agree with the trophy hunting, and I'm also against the idea of taking the biggest strongest buck you can find. But killing an animal which, as I said, would be killed off by predators before long due to a genetic abnormality is completely different IMO. I wouldn't shoot it either personally, but I'm a softy at heart. I don't have a problem with other people doing it.

ok i agree with this
and i didnt meen that im completely anti hunting infact i think its important to hunt,
but that is on the one idea that you take as much resources as possiable. so you use what you take from the deer.
not to shoot this creature just to stuff and show off to your friends.
and dont take literally what i said about the "you shoot it, i shoot you thing"
just that guy must be so...
foreget it i cant explain it properly

IMO you're making far too much of a leap by implying that it will just be stuffed and shown off. They might not use the furs in the same way as someone who didn't want a trophy, but it doesn't mean that the deer is wasted, there's still a whole lot of deer there, and I don't see good reason to assume it will all be chucked away. IIRC it hasn't sprouted antlers yet either, and again IIRC the stalker doing the auction said he wasn't interested in trophies anyway.

For the record I know you weren't literally going to shoot the guy, but it's still something you should avoid saying.

Pete

 

[BigShot]

I think it's a bit odd to assume that someone taking this so they can have the head as a trophy means the rest will go to waste.

While I don't share the view that hunting for sport is desirable, I've got no real issue with those who do for a few reasons.
1> My morals are my morals, theirs are theirs. That doesn't mean neither of us can be wrong, just that one shouldn't trump the other just because one "protects poor defenceless animals" (to quote a particularly gut-wrenching animal-rights argument) and the other kills them.

2> Hunting of deer is a very important part of ecosystem management. Since "we" (historical) removed all the apex predators from the British Isles "we" (present and future) must take their place and prevent them from over-populating the areas they inhabit to the detriment of all else.
If someone who is tropy-hunting holds the gun and gets a thrill from the kill and the trophy, it is no different to a person doing it purely for work or ecological reasons. One makes people a bit more uncomfortable than another but that's life.

3> Hunting is, in this modern, estate-based sense, little more than another form of farming. Be it fur or feather, when most trophy hunters go to an estate to stalk or shoot every scrap they kill (possible exceptions made to those damaged beyond saleability by shots taken at too-close range) enters the food chain, be it human or animal.
It is essentially an outdoor slaughter-house where the animals are spared the stress of being transported, in trucks, to an abbatoir.


Granted, some of us might find the concept of hunting to get trophies disturbing, and what better reason not to hunt for trophies? But some people do like having an animal's head nailed to the wall, and some of them might want a white (or albino when one crops up) one up there for whatever reason.

There's nothing wrong with an estate trying to make a few extra quid out of the "unusual" trophy to be collected for those willing to pay for it.



My opinion?
At very least let it go through at least one or two breeding seasons while sexually mature - a chance to pass on the genes to future generations - and then shoot it if you absolutely must.
I'd rather the opportunity to see one myself, but knowing how elusive the things are at the best of times I know my chances are slim anyway - those estates aren't petting zoos that's for sure.

 

[locum76]

Rob, 14 is a great age and I applaud your passions and willingness to defend it. I'm happy to see teenagers around here and no matter what, please don't let a strong response to your post chase you away.

You have to live in the environment that we adults are handing to you and we've made something of a mess of it. So your voice and the voices of your generation need to be heard.

yeah totally... help us obewan tangtent you are our only hope.:borgsmile

 

[Rob Tangtent]

i gotit... dont post anti-hunt stuff on a forum full of hunters

 

[dogwood]

I totally agree with the trophy hunting, and I'm also against the idea of taking the biggest strongest buck you can find. But killing an animal which, as I said, would be killed off by predators before long due to a genetic abnormality is completely different IMO. I wouldn't shoot it either personally, but I'm a softy at heart. I don't have a problem with other people doing it.

Pete, I don't know enough about the deer you have in the UK to know whether it's really simply an albino or something else.

I don't feel it's a foregone conclusion that it wouldn't survive in the wild (assuming there remained a predator population in the UK -- let's hope you'll reintroduce wolves someday...)

Over the year I've seen plenty of odd animals thriving as adults that we might think would perish. Plenty of albino animals live well into adulthood (and OK, plenty get killed too.. )

Example: in snowy climates or those filled with white rocks, a white deer has a better chance of survival. So maybe this is an important recessive trait.

Under any circumstances, the only reason to hunt this deer (and pay a lot for it) is pure trophy mentality. There can be no other explanation.

And I do feel that trophy hunting is unethical hunting and dangerous to the environment. It should be discouraged (fat chance!!!!).

But then I'm weird about things like that...

 

[dogwood]

If someone who is tropy-hunting holds the gun and gets a thrill from the kill and the trophy, it is no different to a person doing it purely for work or ecological reasons. One makes people a bit more uncomfortable than another but that's life.

Bigshot, you and I are on exactly the same page on deer hunting in general.

But, I feel trophy hunting is *extremely* different than ordinary hunting. A trophy hunter specifically targets the best and the strongest and the most unusual and lets the ordinary pass.

This is the opposite of normal natural selection and it inevitably means the gene pool is weakened after successive generations.

Hunting the largest and the best can do a lot of damage fast.

Here a specific (albeit extreme) example: when the whites were attempting to weaken the Native American population by killing off the buffalo, the largest and strongest were targeted first. They made the largest hides for sale (if they bothered to take the hide, often they just took the tongue) and killing the largest buffalo took the most food from the Indians, etc.

When effort to revive the buffalo population in the US started, all we had left were the smallest examples. And even today after nearly 45 years of active management we still have buffalo that are smaller than those observed 150 years ago.

Trophy hunting is pretty dangerous to animal populations because it does go contrary to natural selection.

 

[firecrest]

I disagree about the whole "agaisnt natural selection" stuff and "its a freak"
Rubbish! Nothing is agaisnt natural selection, this is merely a process of unfolding new ideas. If the idea flies that individual lives to pass on its genes. its only humans that react with prejudice "that isnt NORMAL!!"
Consider this...
we had a lot of snow this year. And this deer has lived into adulthood with a white coat Hmm....bit of rocket science needed here.....

I mean isnt that supposed to be how natural selection works? that animals most fit for their environment pass on genes? Its nothing to do with it looking like other Roebuck. Next winter is set to be more severe than this one apparently. There might be snow for 3 months. If this deer is allowed to live its offspring will be more adapted to englands recent environment than the regular roes!

 

[firecrest]

Bigshot, you and I are on exactly the same page on deer hunting in general.

But, I feel trophy hunting is *extremely* different than ordinary hunting. A trophy hunter specifically targets the best and the strongest and the most unusual and lets the ordinary pass.

This is the opposite of normal natural selection and it inevitably means the gene pool is weakened after successive generations.

Hunting the largest and the best can do a lot of damage fast.

Here a specific (albeit extreme) example: when the whites were attempting to weaken the Native American population by killing off the buffalo, the largest and strongest were targeted first. They made the largest hides for sale (if they bothered to take the hide, often they just took the tongue) and killing the largest buffalo took the most food from the Indians, etc.

When effort to revive the buffalo population in the US started, all we had left were the smallest examples. And even today after nearly 45 years of active management we still have buffalo that are smaller than those observed 150 years ago.

Trophy hunting is pretty dangerous to animal populations because it does go contrary to natural selection.

another example is that some African Elephants are born with tiny, or absent tusks, being that these arent targeted by hunters.

 

[Draven]

Dogwood - if the deer were somewhere where there was a lot of snow, then it would be better off than here (again, in the scenario where there are natural predators) but I honestly don't think it would have lasted that long here if there was something other than humans to hunt it; it would stick out like a sore thumb! On an animal with no thumbs. If it did survive, it would be dumb luck! IMO of course.

Firecrest - its existance isn't against natural selection, but insisting it must be protected is against natural selection. Natural selection allows less able animals to get killed by whatever means, or at the least not reproduce, while ensuring that the strong and able flourish and breed. Hunting the biggest, strongest buck you can find is against natural selection, as is insisting that something unsuited to the environment is protected just because it's special. At the very least, it ensures that natural selection doesn't have the chance to dictate whether it's well suited or not. I don't see how snow for three months out of 12 (which I doubt we'll get anyway) is enough to warrant a white coat - that would just mean that it would be a bright white deer in the brown and green for 9 months. I think majority rules...

Pete

 

[BigShot]

Dogwood - fair point there.
In that respect then yes, there is a definite difference between stalking for ecological reasons and for trophy. One plays the role of predator (weak, sick and infirm quarry) and the other goes for the most impressive set of antlers (for example).



Rob Tangent.
This forum is not full of hunters. Some people don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, some really do dislike hunting (which is why the "Fair Game" section exists - so those who don't like hunting don't have to constantly seen and ignore the threads dedicated to it).

Besides, didn't you say you were pro-hunt but anti- wasting the animal?
Or are you actually anti-hunt after all?

The fact (I think) is that most people on this forum have a fairly mellow view of things. They appreciate, from choosing to be as close to it as possible, that nature is very much one thing eating another. They appreciate that in some areas, thanks to the elimination of apex-predators, humans need to control populations to prevent damage. Some even accept that some will want to kill for sport and that there's room for them in a humane society which values animal welfare - hence "a different form of farming" as mentioned earlier.

That doesn't mean they are hunters, or even pro-hunt for that matter.

Generally the point is, if you calm down a bit in your approach and refrain from the PETA / ALF rhetoric that says you'd rather see a person dead than an animal, you'll get a better reception and calmer responses.