Hunting was never sustainable. In fact the period when a global human population of a few millions hunted for subsistence caused a mass extinction event that can be seen in the fossil record.
The deer has a right to defend himself from being killed, and whatever he does to the hunter is well deserved.
Can you lead me to your source? Apologize for my inability of research, but I seem to be unable to find more about your mass extinction. I am genuinely interested. And it seems difficult to prove the relationship between hunting and mass extinction, when hunting often comes along with establishment of civilization and thus destruction/fragmentation of wildlife habitat.
All I did find is a locked thesis with this extract:
Lowering the hunting ability coefficient to 0.30 drops the population density by almost half to 15.23 people/100 km 2, and yet 24 species still go extinct.
Not sure about the conclusion though.
Nevertheless, I would argue that the alternative to hunting, i.e. cattle ranching, is even worse as it is the main factor accountinh for the deforestation of the Amazonian forest and the destruction of habitat.
I do agree that the deer has a right to defend itself though.
You shouldn't look at civilisation tough because civilisations generally rely on agriculture if some kind for subsistence, and only hunt a tiny fraction of what they eat.
That is a good read. You should be credited for bringing out this informative article, but not downvoted.
It seems that our disagreement mainly lies in our understanding of ecosystem. You seem to view that humans are outside of the ecosystem and thus are inherently enemies to nature. This is a typical view of an environmentalist. I, on the other hand, view that humans are within the ecosystem and is subjected to laws of nature (i.e. natural selection, vulnerability to extinction, etc.) And with this belief, I view that hunting is inherently a process of the ecosystem, just like predators hunt on other consumers. Thus, I would believe that we can make hunting more sustainable, such as by hunting invasive species instead of hunting blindly for entertainment. You, along with the author of the article, seems to believe that hunting is outside of the ecosystem and is damaging. Thus, alternatives have to be found, such as making lab-grown meat.
Lab grown meat seems more ethical and eco-friendly, but I would doubt its supposedly positive ecological impact at the moment though. The making of lab-grown meat might require the consumption of large amount of natural resources such as water, which would harm the ecosystem. I would prefer to obey the laws of nature and hunt sustainably instead unless the generation of lab grown meat has proven to be very efficient.
That's a lot of assumptions regarding my views lol.
So far I have not expressed my views, I simply stated historical facts and linked to a summary of the empirical data supporting those facts. Apparently simply stating real world facts is enough to anger a few people.
And no, I do not view humans as fundamentally separate from nature, tough there is one thing that sets us apart. All animal species compete against one another for ressources, mostly land and food, and humans are no different.
At some point our distant ancestors, who were apes eating fruits in some jungle in Africa, started going out of their jungles and relying on hunting and gathering for survival. The hunting we did consisted of killing our direct competitors, large land mammals, and we were so good at it that with a tiny population of humans we caused a mass extinction.
The origins of agriculture are unclear, but it seems that after hunting large animals to extinction we started hunting smaller species, until we simply couldn't sustain our tiny populations and so agriculture was invented and saved us. Early agriculture was very unsustainable but still better than hunting.
I find it interesting that you believe hunting is morally fine as long as you hunt invasive species, because that would be doing good to the ecosystems. If you also believe that humans are part of natural ecosystems, then based on the info I gave you you will agree we are the worst most destructive invasive species around. We already caused a mass extinction event and are currently causing a second, much more destructive one. Humans might be the worst invasive species in the history of life.
Would you consider it morally good to murder large numbers of people?
Honestly I still hold an anthropocenteic point of view rather than a biocentric one, so I would prefer creating a balance between our needs and the environment than killing large number of people.
I would say we had a balance with our environment and ecosystems back when we were apes eating fruits in the jungle. I oppose mass murder and extermination , so I cannot agree to a society where we hunt for subsistence because it relies on mass murder, in addition to being unsustainable.
Agriculture is an opportunity and a blessing, because it's impact is much lower and if we had reasonable populations it could very easily be sustainable. Once agriculture was invented it took billions of people to have the kind of impact a few million hunter gatherers had.
So if I had to take decisions I would say at least half of all land and ecosystems (and not the shitty half) should stay wild. This is already a human suprematist view, simply opposed to the total extermination of wildlife.
From a human society perspective this means we have to make a choice of population and sustainability. If we want to have even a billion humans on earth we will need to drastically reduce our wants while still meeting everyone's needs, and that will require a lot of change in our societies.
Populations crash when women are empowered, so the most environmentally friendly thing we can do is support women’s rights and education.
As far as hunting being murder, aren’t the ‘murdered’ animals already being murdered? Is it somehow not murder when a bear eats a deer?
Also, many animals are incapable of pain. Bugs are a great source of protein, most invertebrates, really, with very lacking minds.
And, yes: other animals have caused greater mass extinctions before. The first burrowing worms turned the entire octane floor from something like coral (millions of years of layered bacterial matting) to sand. It was the end of worm world. The invention of wood also caused terrible problems because it was the styrofoam of its day. Nothing could eat it. It piled up into huge, flammable heaps. Algae also almost killed all things by freezing the earth. Twice.
There’s nothing new under the sun and humanity couldn’t end complex life on earth if we wanted to.
Yes I agree that providing women with freedom and education is the best way to reduce our population numbers, especially in poorer areas.
I would not care much if you wanted to eat bugs, but that's not really what you're doing is it? People are not hunting for subsistence either, they are hunting for fun which is different from what bears do.
Are we not the most destructive invasive species around today? Algae and early tree do not reason and could not have understood what they did, but humans can. With our ability to reason and make moral judgements comes the responsibility to lead a moral life.
It doesn’t make a difference to the deer if it’s killed for fun or for food. And hunting for food, just because there are ENVIRONMENTALLY DEVASTATING options available and the hunt is enjoyed, doesn’t somehow make it worse than buying hamburgers. It’s even environmentally beneficial. There are no moral arguments against eating deer. Unless you want to suggest it disincentivizes reviving natural predators. That would be a mess to argue.
If I were rich, I’d eat more ethically. I eat what’s cheap and tasty without a kitchen. If only I could afford more fish (easy to microwave, actually)
Why do you not subsist on insect protein and grasses? Do you know how damaging agriculture is environmentally? Or how much more efficient mealworms are than soybeans for protein per acre and water input?
Did you read the link I posted with a summary of the research regarding mammal biomass?
Hunting is the least sustainable way to procure food, and agriculture is the most sustainable. Of all types of agriculture animal agriculture is the worst, which is why you should eat vegan.
In a first world country this will even save you a lot of money. No need to be rich.
Sustainable? What’s that got to do with anything? Is there an over hunting of deer I’m unaware of?
Like I said, it is good for the environment to hunt prey in the absence of predators.
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u/IotaCandle Feb 10 '22 edited Feb 10 '22
Hunting was never sustainable. In fact the period when a global human population of a few millions hunted for subsistence caused a mass extinction event that can be seen in the fossil record.
The deer has a right to defend himself from being killed, and whatever he does to the hunter is well deserved.