For me, it is a million times worse than eating meat. Yes, I get it isn't to everyone's liking to eat meat and do see their point to some degree that it is still taking a life, however for the vast majority of cases, the animal was reared specifically for food and there are controls all the way through that chain. To go out and simply shoot an (often rare) animal purely for the hell of it... nah.
Compare the billions of animals raised every year in cramped and insanitary conditions with no quality of life at all, to a handful of more glamorous animals. Controls? Do you know how much meat is marked "Halal" these days? That means no stunning. Controls allow a chicken an amount of living space about the size of an A4 piece of paper.
It sounds like these are pretty gross individuals, bearing in mind they dumped the carcases, they are obviously not responsible people. I assume its some Christmas selling sideline of Goose breast. Some years ago there used to be a bloke often wandering the park early, big stick, wellington boots and wearing a suit, wading around at the edge of the lake, in the tall rushes. He also carried a sack. He was oriental in appearance.
Still more controls than heading out into the wild and shooting something for the hell of it. As for Halal, I'd ban it tomorrow, but then I'd get called a racist.
I was listening to a programme on the World Service last night and it was about elephants in Botswana. Botswana has an over population of elephants and allows trophy hunting. After the photos have been taken (don't know what happens about the tusks) the carcass is conveyed to the nearest village for meat. The conservation argument is that this, as it removes the largest elephants from the herd and disrupts the social structure.
But with the trophy hunter pictures we see, that's often a controlled and organised hunt. They have excess animals which they would need to cull anyway, and the trophy hunters pay a ridiculous amount of money which helps to support the remaining animals. And in the wild, the animal always has a chance to get away. And the hunter has a good chance of shooting himself in the foot (or worse).
If you don't want to go to the effort of plucking the whole bird skinning the breast and removing the breast meat is the way to go, my mother did it with pheasants and young pigeons.
They do have a chance to get away, to some degree - I am yet to see any animal that can outrun a bullet though. So you are actually OK with trophy hunting because it supports the remaining animals, but cannot bear a cow or pig being farmed for food, with the money from that going on to breed and raise other animals? Seems a rather odd position to me.
I see the killing of animals as a necessary evil. Something I don't like, but if there is a good reason, such as food or over population, then someone should do it as quickly and humanely as possible. Farm animals should have as good a life as possible before being killed as close as possible to where they were reared. Just how I see it.
The money from farming goes to breed and raise more animals to suffer their whole lives. Consider this situation which has been in the news recently: Controversial Norfolk pig farm plans rejected " hundreds of complaints have been lodged about smells from the farm, with Stow Bedon Parish Council warning of "foul odours, ammonia pollution and dangerous particulate waste". That's from the villagers living nearby. What about the pigs themselves? They are breathing in that ammonia all the time, probably sitting in it too causing skin burns. Plus the waste from the farm is likely contaminating nearby water sources. Pigs have the same level of intelligence as dogs. They are not naturally dirty animals; when given the opportunity they will designate an area as a latrine and always go there. I've not said I'm OK with trophy hunting - I wouldn't do it myself, but I don't understand the outrage from people who are causing the suffering of millions of animals every day. It's like people who eat cow and pig but are horrified at the idea of eating horse or dog.
It all goes very wrong with intensive farming, meat and meat products should cost a lot more than they actually do. If animals were reared properly it would, and people would at least value it and eat less and waste less. It would probably taste better as well.
And therein lies the crux of it - that applies also to vegetables. Supermarkets are the root of the issue, pushing farmers to farm intensively with next to zilch profit margins... their gambit this week is bags of veg for 5p - - who do we think is losing out there? Not the supermarkets, that is for sure. They've also inexplicably dropped the price they are paying for dairy, but going by the absolute rip-off prices I've just seen in M&S, the only beneficiary there is the supermarket profit line. As a general rule, I source my meat from a butcher that uses select farms in SW Scotland, and whilst yes, it does cost more, it is worth it for a) the quality and b) knowing that it isn't intensively farmed. And yes, you really can taste the difference. Similar can be said for our milkman - proper milk in glass bottles, proper cheeses, cream, eggs and so on. Slightly more cost, a lot less waste balances it out.
They said on the news that vegetables have gone up in price, especially sprouts because of the dry early season, but both Tesco and Sainsbury's have them on offer at 15p for 500gm.
And all that is doing is both caning the farmers by squeezing what little margin they might of had away, and also stiffing independent grocers who simply cannot compete price wise.
