True hunters and fisherman are conservationists that love, respect nature. They are people that love the outdoors, nature and the challenges to compete with them without negative effects, on the contrary they survive under conservative protection.

Preservationists and city slickers, townies and bunny/tree hugging liberals know zero about nature and caught up by soft human emotions to preserve without knowing the damage that expanding development does. They are sentimental ignoramuses, that go with the protesting flow of misconstrued knowledge.

Big game survives because of hunters. Today hunting is reserved for the very rich and so is fishing for salmon and trout and big game fish in exotic places. The hunters give huge benefits to impoverished people in the form of meat and jobs. Without that the game would become scarcer and eventually die and be wiped out completely.

Fisherman today normally release their catch, the odd trout, salmon or sea fish can be kept if so desired for a gourmet treat every now and then. That never interferes.

I release most of my fish but keep the occasional trout for my wife who delights in eating them.

Big game hunting, I used to do in the palmy days of Rhodesia ,on the other hand is far beyond today of affordability. I enjoyed in my very young days and seen the dangers of hunting, buff, leopard and lion. I don't have a lust for that anymore and it;s just as well as I cannot afford it.

Hunting "Dagga Boys" was the greatest rush of all. They are the old tough discarded leaders of herds that are frustrated and very dangerous and they have no further use to the breeding stocks as they have kicked out and are just seeing the last years of retirement years without no release but anger.

https://youtu.be/3yOUQTRXW8k

Seb, I am not a fan of anyone who hunts wild animals, either for the fun of it, or just because they can afford it.....

I have been offered many of these expensive hunting trips, but I have politely declined each one

I am not naïve to what happens with our meat and all of the other products that we eat every day, but to hear people brag about shooting some helpless animal, from over 100m or 500m away..... saying hey, "I got that lung shot"......or even worse...… "We had to track it for a few hours, because my shot was a bit off":......makes my blood boil.

It takes no real skill at all, to shoot a large stationary, non threatening animal from a distance of 100m - 300m..... no skill at all..... in my honest opinion.... that is a coward.

I guess the main problem that I have with it, is that this type of hunting is not limited to the old breed stock..... in many instances it is the young mothers and fathers that are killed for some morbid human satisfaction, and babies are left to die on their own because of it.....

I do understand the concept of culling the old breeders and such, but I can't understand how a aged lion cannot see out the rest of it's life naturally, without someone wanting to put it's head up on a wall somewhere...…or the fact that that Lion was specifically bred to be shot.

Then you have these despicable human creatures that allow Lions to be hunted by shooting them through a wire fence...…

Imagine this guy..... flying half way around the world, to point a gun through a wire fence...… aiming at a defenseless stationary Lion......pulling off one shot...… flying back home......then waiting for his trophy to be delivered..... hanging his trophy up in his man cave, and then proceed to brag to all his mates about how he scoured the savannahs, tracking wild animals for hours and days at a time, and that this was the result of his 5 day wilderness hunt...… a head from a Lion that was killed in some built up enclosure....

Yeah..... it makes my blood boil

Ja, I get your message, it's not entirely wrong because you will always get those with no ethics but in the true context of obeying the ethics I don't find anything wrong with purists that stick to the code.

It's always unfortunate in life you get others that distort the values and principles that set the wrong opinion.

People don't bother to understand and get the wrong information...it's just weak, lazy, emotionalism without the effort to find out.

There's a huge difference in life between wisdom and learnt knowledge. You can get knowledge through universities and false knowledge by newspapers and the masses but true knowledge comes from the university of life, ie experience and being there...if you understand my mail.

I do hunt still, but only wing shooting for greywing francoln (partridge) in NE Cape Highlands. There are more of them now than there were 20 years ago because the farmers look after them (less fire breaks etc) and nothing can beat an old fashioned partridge pie or stew.

There are rules and ethics to the hunt which involves a lot of walking, positions and dogs.

Rainbow Chickens breeds ,anemic, poisonous chickens, raises and slaughters chickens that are cooped up and live a hellish life yet millions eat this crap without thought.

Ethical hunting is moral in this context. You cannot group man's activities under one heading.

I don't hunt and I don't kill for sport. I don't like killing, but has done it when necessary in the past.

Hunting has an ugly side to it, but the positives far outweigh the negatives. 

Like any other kind of farming, some unintended "eggs" get broken, singling out hunting is naive in the extreme. Even vegans and vegetarians leave dead creatures in their wake. Animals and plants dies daily to keep humans going.

"Like any other kind of farming, some unintended "eggs" get broken"

There is a huge difference between genuine unintended "eggs" being broken with the sport of hunting..... and a man made billion rand / dollar industry, which specifically breeds our big 5...... purely, and only,  for overseas caged hunting, but yeah, I get your point

"Ethical hunting is moral in this context. You cannot group man's activities under one heading"

100% agree Seb…. I'm just pointing out that, as with most things that go wrong in this world.... people always try and bunch it in amongst something that is socially acceptable, to try and hide or minimise the bad aspects of it

One thing most people in the conservation industry will tell you is that if you remove hunting from the equation, you'll have a hard time replacing the conservation funding that it brings in.

While I hate cruelty to animals more than most things, I am also forced to admit that rather unintentionally breaking a few eggs, its more a case of wanting to make an omelette and having to break them.

Hopefully, there is a better solution on the just beyond the horizon.

Some folk just have a blood lust. It's part of their make up. They enjoy killing. Anything. Everything. Taking the life of some harmless, innocent, defenseless creature from 500m out gets their rocks off ... and any old excuse will do. 

They do it because they can ... not because of necessity ... the sight of a dead animal thrills them. It give them a boner.

I saw a man shoot an Ibis just for the hell of it. 

To see the glazed over eye of a beautiful antelope is heartbreaking.

It's not for me and fuck all those who think it's a fun outing.

Ethics? There's nothing ethical about it.

I see absolutely no fun in it at all

If it is done out of necessity, then fine...… but just for a fun day out..... what the fuck man

The caged hunting is even worse, and to see how excited these fuckers get after shooting a locked up caged in fully grown Lion, is just so incredibly hard to see...

Then you get these other sub human species, who hack off the Lions paws for medicine...…. no words can describe the anger and hatred  I feel towards these people

I did my fair bit of fishing when I was younger and have no problem with it, but how is catching and killing a fish ethically different than killing a deer with a rifle?...or eating a steak, a burger or fish and chips ? What is the ethical difference between an abattoir and caged hunting?....battery chickens? The list goes on.

Eradicating ants, flies and rats from your home? And what alternatives are there?

Dra ad, you ever seen the Paul McCartney's quote about fishing? 

Here it is...

"Something inside me clicked. I realised, as I watched him fight for breath, that his life was as important to him as mine is to me."

No I haven't, thanks. It illustrates my point perfectly though...and I eat crayfish, perlemoen en allekruk too....cycle of life doesn't always seems fair...boils down to eat or be eaten?

Fair points indeed all around

Maybe we are not too sensitive with ants, flies and fish being killed because there are literally millions or billions of them in the world.

Not that that should make any difference at all to the physical act of killing, as with Db's point, but maybe that is what makes some of us less sensitive to them being killed.

We also don't really get to hear or see them suffer as we would or do with Lions, Giraffe, Antelope etc etc..... A incorrectly placed shot could take hours to finally kill some animal.....

As I said, fair points all around, and that is a very cool quote from Paul McCartney which has quite an impact, once it is read  

I could never kill an animal, I leave that to those that can to provide me with my steaks!!!

Same here... just couldn't get myself to do it

Not sure how you look something dead in the eye and then pull that trigger.....

Clearly it is easier for others to do...…

I held both my dogs in my arms while the were injected never to wake again...and I had to kill a duiker with my bare hands...I hit it with my car and injured it badly...not nice, but it needed doing.

 I won't kill for sport or fun, but we must learn to be prepared for the worst and being a hunter is not only about killing...it's about being prepared to do what it takes to provide. It's a tradition our country was built on and part of our heritage.  I can't fault anyone for doing it, but it should be as clean and painless as possible. 

Some must die so others can live. Understanding that is important to know...

When I was in the army doing national service and based in the Kruger Park in my 2nd year I had to shoot a cow that was crossing the Limpopo from Zim as it had foot and mouth.

But I shot it from the top of a mountain so it was miles away. It was the size of my thumb nail in my R4 sights.

I had sent my troops down to shoot it but they kept missing it in the thick vegetation, so I grabbed my rifle and shot it.

The troops I still had up there with me after that nicknamed me sniper. They were all Shangaans and real characters.

"Some folk just have a blood lust."

Now look who's talking....well ain't that funny!

The majority of human history has seen us having to hunt.

A few hundred years doesn't shift the evolutionary needle in any direction for a creature with a plus 50 year lifespan.

While we don't have to hunt anymore, it's understandable that people still do and appear to become bloodthirsty during. It was probably a state or mindset that was selected for. IE without it you'd be a less successful hunter and provider and your genes would die out.

I've certainly experienced a shift in mindset when I've hunted. Even while tracking, if you take a step back, you find that your excitement levels are well above what they should be considering that all you're doing is looking for the animal. For me it was notable. 

I suspect that people exposed to hunting at a very young age burn the relevant neural pathways onto a brain that just can't wait to learn how to hunt already.

I'm not arguing for it. Just saying that one has to compensate for the nature and history of one's species when you have these discussions.

Indeed Plum very strong instincts.

Very few need to hunt for food it’s now just a sport and those that kill for sport are strange people which includes half my family back home who are farmers and big game hunters!!

But each to their own, it’s just not for me.

My proudest hunting moment was as a laatjie when I accompanied my uncle and older cousin on a hunt on my grandfathers farm. The boys were flush the kudu out the bush and as they came over the ridge I shouted ‘there they are, there they are’ - which chased them away. Innocent but what a result!!!

Dr Ian Player said this in an interview before he passed away :

https://youtu.be/xiA7ABBfyPQ

Ian (Gary's brother) did more for wild life especially the White Rhino than any body ever.

‘Hunting can also help save rhino’