AMax

That's plain cool

So if it was not fun and you couldn't use the meat you would still hunt because you care about the balance in Nature so much? If your answer is honest I am really impressed.

Well the whole point was to identify the ultimate reason

A passion for hunting could be driven by many different reasons. But what's the most important, ultimate reason why you hunt? Ed to add thanks for voting

The discussion is heating up I cannot sit here any longer because of work. To summarize my points again: I do believe that people hunt because it is fun. Not trying to suggest that the vast majority of hunters do got give a damn about the environment, but I do not think that the hunters are driven by the will to keep the mother nature in balance. Repeat, it is FUN what drives most hunters. Not the good will to save the Nature or starvation. Been there seen it. Now, lets see that we gonna get with new poll

I do. You hunt because it is fun. Isn't it the ultimate reason?

Even though your comments are made in quite aggressive style I will reply anyway. Yes I have. Long enough to realize they suffered from the wounds. I choose not to post any details here. If you do not understand what I am talking about, then you probably do not know enough about hunting. If you do understand what I am talking about, I would be happy to share the details in PM. They need to be controlled on some rare special occasions. My thoughts about hunters using animal population control arguments to justify their hobby are already expressed in previous posts. Nope. Dynamics of animal populations is not my major area of research. Do you mind identifying these agencies and providing a list of solid references to SCIENTIFIC literature so I can study the topic better? And by the way, do you mind sharing your opinion on two Nature articles I sited above?. The second article I sited clearly suggests that hunting does not affect the size of fox sub population in England. Do you mind presenting any opposite examples supported by SCINTIFIC evidence? Ed to spell

If you ever chased a wounded animal for hours you know what I am talking about. Yes, there are "clean" shots, but there are "not so clean" shuts too. While hunting with my dad (who I must say is pretty good at it) we lost a number of wounded animals including wolves and foxes. Tell me they suffer less than a slaughtered cow I started this argument because I truly believe that "control of animal populations" is a plain BS that hunters use to justify their hobby. If you have some evidence against this statement – please post it.

Oh ... there is one more. Again in recent Nature article and this time right on target. Fox hunting in Britain. Unique Identifier 12214224 Authors Baker PJ. Harris S. Webbon CC. Institution School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1UG, UK. s.harris@bristol.ac.uk Title Effect of British hunting ban on fox numbers.[see comment]. Source Nature. 419(6902):34, 2002 Sep 5. Abbreviated Source Nature. 419(6902):34, 2002 Sep 5. Local Messages ONLINE & CURRENTLY RECD AT SOUTHLIB Abstract Pressure to ban the hunting of foxes with hounds in Britain has fuelled debate about its contribution to the control of fox populations. We took advantage of a nationwide one-year ban on fox-hunting during the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in 2001 to examine this issue and found that the ban had no measurable impact on fox numbers in randomly selected areas. Our results argue against suggestions that fox populations would increase markedly in the event of a permanent ban on hunting.

Lets say. someone starts a post that all republicans in US are idiots. Then the other person replies that all democrats are idiots. I decide to clarify the point for myself and do a Google search. What kind of result I am going to get? I just wanted to see if your strong point is supported by SCIENTIFIC evidence. Here is one example from Nature magazine (one the top scientific magazines) Unique Identifier 14668862 Authors Coltman DW. O'Donoghue P. Jorgenson JT. Hogg JT. Strobeck C. Festa-Bianchet M. Institution Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK. d.coltman@sheffield.ac.uk Title Undesirable evolutionary consequences of trophy hunting. Source Nature. 426(6967):655-8, 2003 Dec 11. Abbreviated Source Nature. 426(6967):655-8, 2003 Dec 11. Local Messages ONLINE & CURRENTLY RECD AT SOUTHLIB Abstract Phenotype-based selective harvests, including trophy hunting, can have important implications for sustainable wildlife management if they target heritable traits. Here we show that in an evolutionary response to sport hunting of bighorn trophy rams (Ovis canadensis) body weight and horn size have declined significantly over time. We used quantitative genetic analyses, based on a partly genetically reconstructed pedigree from a 30-year study of a wild population in which trophy hunting targeted rams with rapidly growing horns, to explore the evolutionary response to hunter selection on ram weight and horn size. Both traits were highly heritable, and trophy-harvested rams were of significantly higher genetic 'breeding value' for weight and horn size than rams that were not harvested. Rams of high breeding value were also shot at an early age, and thus did not achieve high reproductive success. Declines in mean breeding values for weight and horn size therefore occurred in response to unrestricted trophy hunting, resulting in the production of smaller-horned, lighter rams, and fewer trophies.

Well. I am not trying to act like I know better but I have a PhD degree in biology and have taken a class on dynamics of population in college. Since you have such a strong opinion on importance of hunting on control of sub populations, do you mind identifying the source of information? Ed to spell check again

Oh there is doubt about that. However, I am a bit surprised that injection of new blood into isolated animal sub populations is what regular hunters do. The fact that sometimes there is indeed a need to maintain the interpolulation crosses (to prevent inbreeding) does not justify 99.9% of hunting. C'mon. I have grown up with hunters, I have known many hunters and I have heard this "we need to kill some of these wolves because if we don't, the situation will get out of control" bulshit to many times. Let me repeat, I strongly believe that the ultimate driving force for most hunters is FUN rather that a will to help mother nature to maintain the balance.

I am not trying to make idealistic suggestion that the animals in slaughter houses do not suffer. My points are: 1) Hunting for food is unnecessary because the vast majority of human population can always buy the meat in stores and those who starve do not hunt. 2) Many kinds of animals popular for hunting (foxes, wolves ect) cannot be used for food. 3) The argument that hunting is absolutely necessary for maintaining a balance in animal populations is completely overstated. 4) The actually reason that drives the vast majority of hunters is FUN (I am talking from personal experience here) All the other arguments are just pathetic excuses. Edit for spelling

I still do not get the gene pool argument. Lets try to dissect the problem using a simple model. Lets say we have 5 families of foxes derived from five different pairs of parents in county A and 5 families of foxes derived from five different pairs of parents in county B. Counties A and B are completely isolated (migration is impossible). Are you saying that by eliminating some of these animals in county A you will help to avoid inbreeding problem?

Hardly (though I assume you knew that) - but what's the harm in hunting for their own meat as opposed to buying it at the grocery store? Someone is going to kill something, do feel better having the meat processing plant do it for you? - Jim Meat processing plant does it better, quicker meaning that the animals do not suffer. I have seen and participated () in to many challenging chasings of wounded animals to believe in quick death. Plus ... you dot not normally eat foxes, wolves and many other animals people hunt.

I'd like you to tell that to many of my friends who do, in fact, hunt for food. - Jim I did hunt for food on several occasions. It was a long winter near polar circle, we were isolated from the main base because the roads were covered by several feet of snow and we were running out of supplies. I imagine your friends are in similar situations.

Typical argument, I hear this a lot. I imagine how every hunter on the planet gets up in the morning and prepares for a hunting trip seriously believing that he's about to go on mission to save the mother nature from terrible disasters caused by lack of balance in animal populations. Is that the case?

Sport that requires killing. So lets say, I buy some land to build a ranch. And then I say: "there are too many wolves around, they are really hazardous for my ranch" So killing some of them is perfectly justified. I am a geneticist. Can you elaborate this fir me? So if I kill a person, will it be a good argument that the death was clean and quick? I had a teacher who taught me how to hunt. He believed that it is about fare competition between you and the animal with animal having a chance to win by escaping of killing you. Modern hunting is far from that. I started to hunt using my own rifle when I was 14. Together with my dad I have participated in bear and wolf hunting. It was a lot of fun, challenging experience, but at some point I realized we do not kill because we need food or because the animals threatening our life. We kill for FUN. The modern hunting is not about competition, it is about killing for fun.

We could'nt do that. That would be cruel. But we could use them for hunting polititians an animal rights people Do you think killing the animals for fun is not cruel in general?

The concept of critical mass is as easy as landing on Moon. What makes the whole project challenging is tiny technical details

Oh cloning is easy ... I clone brunettes all the time

Oh yes. There is one special kind of brownies that smells particularly well

So basically the most important parts of the drill are (correct me if I am wrong): 1) Upon receiving a bailout signal, make a quick decision which parachute to deploy. This depends primarily on exit altitude. I would go for reserve between 1K and 2K and for a main if I am higher than 2K and the plane is still flying stable. The logic behind deploying a main canopy is not just saving a reserve pack job but increasing the chances of having a good landable parachute (reserves do malfunction). I would go for a reserve if the emergency happens at higher altitude but the plane is unstable and is loosing the altitude fast. These are personal choices made taking into account the opening characteristics of MY main canopy. All this can be practiced on the ground using a real plane. 2) Communicating with the others during the exit and exiting quickly to prevent jams. Can be practiced on the ground too 3) Deployment and traffic management to avoid collisions. This is something we suposed to do on every skydive. 4) Finding a place to land as quickly as possible. Again, this is something we supposed to do on every skydive.

PM sent

Thanks Ivan! Good staff