From: black@che.serum.kodak.com (Robert Black (x37236))
Subject: Re: Letter to John Robinson
Organization: Clinical Products Division, Eastman Kodak Company
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 17:21:45 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.142929.6621@ac.dal.ca> robinson@ac.dal.ca writes:
>>
[...]
>> 
>>>  Where you, and I suspect others, get confused, is in equating 
>>>hunting with killing.
>> 
>> Actually Mr.  Linan disabused me of this notion several months ago. 
>> After that I thought I knew about the difference, until our Spanish
>> philosopher made another cameo appearance and prceeded to cloud the
>> issue.  :-)
>
>Well, I find our Spanish fellow rather easy to understand.  First, lets 
>look at the quote, to be sure we're discussing the same thing: "One does 
>not hunt in order to kill.  One kills in order to have hunted."  The first 
>part is pretty straight forward.  It states that killing is not the sole 
>purpose of the hunt.  One does not hunt in order to satisfy a blood lust, 
>nor to derive pleasure from watching an animal die.  And yet, killing 
>definately has a place in hunting.  The second part tells us what that 
>is.  It tells us that without the kill at the end, or at least the 
>intention of it, you're not really hunting.  Thus stalking a deer through 
>the woods with a camera, while it has all the elements of hunting except 
>the kill, is not really hunting.  I personally have always found a hunt 
>that didn't result in venison in the freezer somehow incomplete.  It is 
>still very satisfying, but it never feels like it has finished.

Okay, so the Spanish philosopher is saying that you're not "really"
hunting unless you kill something.  So killing is one component of
hunting.  But more than that: it's an integral component of hunting,
such that without it, hunting does not really take place.  And those who
equate hunting with killing are really equating one component with the
whole?

Don't we really just have a terminology problem here? Those who are
allegedly equating hunting with killing (let's call them the "equators")
may be using the term "hunting" to refer to this one component which
they view as controversial, while hunters are using the term to refer to
the whole instead of just one component.  Doesn't some of the
communication confusion really derive from the absence of a word or
phrase which the equators can use to name the component which they
see as needing further discussion?

[...]

>...  I consider 
>people who view hunting and killing as equivalent things very ill informed 
>and worthy of little consideration.  

Why? We've already said that hunting doesn't really occur unless a kill
takes place.  Killing is one component of hunting.  But that's too
simplistic, because without it hunting does not take place.  And you say
below that the killing component and the non-killing component are
inextricably linked.  Why is it anything more than a minor error to
equate a sine qua non component with the whole? Why is it such a
dreadful error to equate the two?

>
>Actually, I don't see that the killing part is controversial so much.

Then take my word for it.  Or ask around.  Without the kill much of the 
controversy fades away.  There are hunters who recognize this.  Here's
a quote from hunter Humberto Fontova taken from the Nov/Dec Sierra Club
magazine, which I quoted in a message to Brian Dixon last March:

*************************************************************************
****	From Message-ID: <1992Mar11.204645.19050@clpd.kodak.com>
***
*********************** Start of Fontova quote **************************

       "... just once, I'd like to see hunters face up to the primal
        instinct that motivates us ... essentially we are killers of
        animals in the most direct way ... what distinguishes us from
        everyone else who indirectly causes animals to die is that we
        take delight in it."

       "...we love to retort to the anti-hunters.  But they do have 
        a point:  If we're attracted by the beauty of nature, surely
        it's just as beautiful without a gun in hand.  If the challenge
        is the key, why not sneak up on a bull elk and take a picture of
        it?  If tradition and camaraderie are the inspiration, why pull
        the trigger?"

       "I've never bought the classic hunting argument about the 
        insignificant part the actual killing plays in the sport.  If
        this were true, there would be no reason for the vitriol we hurl
        at the anti-hunters.  These mushheads aren't out to stop us
        from walking in the woods and embracing nature.  They're not out
        to deny us the challenge of stalking an animal.  They're not out
        to prevent the friendship and the card games at the cabin.  They're
        out to stop one thing:  the killing. ..."

       "...  the one thing that distinguishes a canoeing trip or a nature
        walk from the hunt is the prospect of killing."
	       
       "We like to kill animals. ..."
					   
       [he goes on to discuss some scenarios: (1) about a Texas hunter 
        huffing and puffing to the top of a tower, sitting on a revolving
        seat and blasting away at a grazing deer; and (2) a tycoon in a 
        Land Rover in the African bush, getting out, walking 500 yards,
        and killing a 60 year old elephant pointed out by a professional
        guide]  "I see nothing wrong with any of these scenarios...
        Hunters are simply guys who get a thrill out of killing animals."
		    			    
************************ End of Fontova quote ***************************

Overlooking Fontova's predilection for bluntness, at least he's
perceptive enough and honest enough to realize that the kill IS the
controversy. 


>  Most
>of the stereotypes of hunters (I find stereotypes good indicators of what is 
>controversial) revolve around poorly educated individuals who either a) shoot
>anything that moves, b) drink and shoot anything that moves or c) revel in 
>the killing.  While there are people who call themselves hunters who behave 
>this way, the vast majority, of course don't fit this picture.  As well, 
>some of what I've read here has led me to believe many of you consider the 
>killing of an animal as something that is painful to the animal.  It can 
>be, if done inncorrectly.  But from witnessing the two procedures, it would 
>be my guess that a majority of sufferring occurs in farm yard and 
>commercial slaughtering, much more so in fact than occurs in hunting.  I 
>have no numbers to back this assertion up with, but I have seen (and 
>heard!) pigs being butchered, I've heard tell of cows being butchered by 
>people who witnessed it first hand, and I've seen animals killed live and 
>on video by hunters.  All of that information leads me to believe the 
>assertion is correct.  Add to this the fact that a high population just 
>prior to winter translates to a high winter kill (by slow painful 
>starvation) and that other predators (coyotes, wolves, big cats) kill more 
>slowly than man, and I think death at a hunter's hands is, short of dying of 
>old age, is the least painful and traumatic death for the animal in most 
>cases.
>
>So, I think that what is controversial about hunting is a) that we walk the 
>woods armed, and that this makes some people who are especially insecure 
>feel threatened; 

Where did you get this bizarre notion?

b) people who've not participated in hunting and have no 
>first hand knowledge of it, imagine incorrectly that being killed by a 
>bullet or an arrow would be painful; c) as seems to be demonstrated below, 
>some people feel that animals and humans are equally entitled to life, 
>liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

You forgot d) some people have recognized that in order to claim rights
for humans, any rationale invoked, to be logical and consistent,
necessarily includes some rights for animals. 

>> 
>> But when you take the life of a conscious, thinking, feeling, living
>> being which has moral rights and which may coexist in a complex social
>> structure with others having rights, then you are committing a
>> morally-significant action, whether you choose to realize it or not. 
>> And if you choose not to realize it, then it falls to others to speak
>> for the voiceless ones. 
>
>This is another serious problem I have with the AR cause.  I would have 
>much less difficulty with the above paragraph if you were trying to disuade 
>me from hunting human beings.  It seems here that you are putting humans 
>and other animals on the same level so to speak.  This is a concept whose 
>validity I question.

No, it's not putting them "on the same level so to speak."  Rather it's a
case of recognizing that where there are ethically relevant similarities
between human and nonhuman animals, then if the interests of humans are
factored into ethical considerations so also must those of animals be
factored into ethical considerations and in a consistent manner.

>> 
>> Additionally, if you were in the US, you would be killing something
>> that at least partially "belongs to" others, since the Supreme
>> Court has ruled a long time ago that wildlife is a national treasure
>> belonging to everyone.  (I don't know if this is true in Canada.)
>
>Yes I know.  That's part of the reason one must pay a fee.  One must give 
>back some of what one takes.  If it belonged only to me I could go out and 
>kill it any time I decided to.  But I really don't see what this has to do 
>with anything.  Wildlife may well be a national treasure, but unlike 
>treasure it is not fixed and static.  It is a dynamic thing.  Hunters have 
>been instrumental in nurturing and promoting the growth of that national 
>treasure and they've been so successfull that it is necessary to trim it 
>down to make sure it doesn't overflow its chest, so to speak.

Seems like an odd way to define successful.

>> 
>>>  As much as I would 
>>>like to correct this misunderstanding on your part, I don't think I can.  You 
>>>see, I almost suspect its a deliberate misunderstanding, and as such, not 
>>>correctible.
>> 
>> First, don't give up so easily.  Secondly, would it clarify these
>> discussions if we divided "hunting" up into its two components: (1)
>> animal-killing, and (2) everything else?  You can select a word for 
>> the second component.  Then maybe it will be more clear which aspect
>> of hunting is relevant at a particular point in any discussion.
>
>It would except for one thing.  The two are inextricably linked. See above.

And how does that prevent us from having different words or phrases for these
two components?

---
Robert Black 
black@serum.kodak.com  - The ONLY email address that MIGHT work.
These views are not necessarily the views of my employers.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals