Idea to ban hunting AND control species oerpopulation

["Melyssa K" Kennedy]

Well, that all makes perfect sense. Better to smell like a hobo than the perfume-sample lady who sprays it in your eyes.

[Llamas]

Well, first as far as deer hunting goes, you never wash your hunting clothes...never. Simply hang them up and air them out. Yes, the clothes can get filthy and such, but that's part of it. Don't use deodorants or cologne of any kind. You can use masking sprays etc.. but washing them in a washing machine with Tide or normal detergent is a no-no. Might as well light yourself on fire and run screaming into the woods. Cause they'll know you're there.

...most hunters I know use unscented soap which is made for hunting gear, wishomie. It's actually recommended by hunters to wash with unscented soap rather than to not wash, because it's body scent that animals recognize the most, and wearing hunting clothes unwashed for too long will cause the clothes to smell a LOT like you. Seems like pretty bad advice for someone who's supposedly a hunter.

[MOTO13]

...most hunters I know use unscented soap which is made for hunting gear, wishomie. It's actually recommended by hunters to wash with unscented soap rather than to not wash, because it's body scent that animals recognize the most, and wearing hunting clothes unwashed for too long will cause the clothes to smell a LOT like you. Seems like pretty bad advice for someone who's supposedly a hunter.

Like I said, normal laundry soap like TIDE. I am well aware there is actual unscented soaps to use but was trying to keep it simple for the sake of brevity. I don NOT wash my DEEEEEEEEER hunting clothes. If you want to, have at it. Oh, thanks for the advice. I'll take it under consideration. You may now go back to being an idiot.

[Static_Martyr]

Both methods are stupid. With sterilization, how are we sure it is not the strong genes that would be beneficial to the species that we are sterilizing. We don't sterilize the genes, but the animal with the genes, you know what I mean. Do they do genetic tests on each animal before sterilizing them? I doubt it. It's just cutting the balls off of the random animal, which is not imitating natural selection at all.

With hunting for population control purposes, the stupid hunters are always looking for that big, strong, healthy animal to shoot when they should be hunting the weak, injured and old, which is what their natural predators would do. By hunting and killing the strongest for trophies, we are removing those best suited for passing on their genes and leaving the weak and sick to breed. Or, we are killing the strong and the weak and sick leftover are just going to wither and die, anyway, so who's left to breed at all?

Neither way is beneficial to the species as a whole, which is what population control is supposed to be about since humans purged natural predators.

You're assuming that humans are bound to actively, deliberately enforce natural selection, which they aren't --- when human select for factors through killing or breeding animals (whether we select deliberately, as with breeding dogs, or incidentally, as with killing deer), it's called "artificial selection" and is a consequence of our heightened cognitive abilities compared to the animals we're hunting/breeding.

That's one of the common misconceptions about natural selection, that it's some sort of ideology. It's not; it's just a description of what happens in nature.

I also think hunting game for actual use is totally fine and natural. I have an issue with hunting for sport (psychos), and people using ridiculously advanced technology which gives the animals zero chance of survival. That's what pussies do. Government-enforced sterilization is a dumb idea. It's a waste of money when there are plenty of other far more useful programs which need it

^This.

How come no one but me has touched on the issue that hunting to control the population would be acceptable if the hunters killed the old, sick and weak?

Because it's based on a false understanding of natural selection as an ideology. Species which cannot withstand selection pressures will die off; this has happened naturally throughout history (in fact, something like 90% of species which have ever existed have died off). It's a fallacy to assume that only those creatures which survived previous selection pressures "deserve to live;" nature doesn't directly select for the strongest/youngest/fastest in every case. In this case, our act of hunting the ones which provide the best meat and parts is simply a different kind of selection pressure --- we're selecting based on our needs, and this affects the animal species incidentally by selecting for the weaker animals that don't provide us as much in terms of fur, meat, horns or "trophies."

And what you say here is strange to me:

Doing absolutely nothing at all to an animal population that is exploding and has a limited habitat fringed by human society would be as cruel and hunting them for sport. These animals would eat their food resources more quickly, then eat the food resources of other animals or feel too crowded and venture out onto the roads and invade people lawns, where they would be shot and killed or kill a human, anyway.

You're saying that allowing natural selection to happen naturally (i.e. let them affect their ecosystem in such a way that it drives them to extinction) would be "cruel," but that we should actively choose how we artificially select them, in the interest of mimicking natural selection? That doesn't make much sense to me. Also:

We are talking about hunting for population control, or, at least, I am. This means there are NO natural predators to kill the prey.

If you're hunting for population control (which implies a concern with numbers, not artificial genetic tinkering of a population), then it shouldn't matter whether you kill the strongest or the weakest. The simple act of killing them systematically is considered a selection pressure, and those capable of surviving that selection pressure (assuming there are any, which there almost certainly are) will naturally adapt to it and the population will stabilize that way. From the angle of population control, the type of deer that survive are really not that important, so long as they are adaptable.

In an environment where hunting the strongest animal is the norm, being a strong animal becomes a hindrance due to the new selection pressure; and so being smaller and weaker, which was a hindrance under previous selection pressures, becomes a great aid to an animal trying to survive under the new pressures. So there will still be plenty of deer, there will just be fewer of the big and buff ones in the more actively-hunted populations as decades go by.

[bighead384]

Moto, you're a typical conservative jackass who is unable to think critically when your talking points are challenged. Your first few responses to me are LOADED with assumptions. If my idea is unfeasible, then so be it. But if society progresses to a point where the majority of people think like me (vegetarians), than I don't see why we couldn't spend much more money on sterilization efforts while phasing out hunting.

[Alison]

Moto, you're a typical conservative jackass who is unable to think critically when your talking points are challenged. Your first few responses to me are LOADED with assumptions. If my idea is unfeasible, then so be it. But if society progresses to a point where the majority of people think like me (vegetarians), than I don't see why we couldn't spend much more money on sterilization efforts while phasing out hunting.

I find there's no point even arguing about this stuff with a lot of hunters, because they type abuse in all caps and call you a "townie" who knows absolutely nothing about hunting because they presume you're from the "big city" where nobody knows anything about anything. I can't even count how many times people have told me they would track me down and hunt me Saying that, there are a number of people who can argue reasonably.

A lot of people I know would go hunting or would support it, as I'm in with the horsey crowd, and there's a history of hunting in my family. So, I wouldn't consider myself to be a complete hunting ignorant, but unfortunately if you even mention that you are against hunting, people just make huge and many times inaccurate assumptions.

["Melyssa K" Kennedy]

unfortunately if you even mention that you are against hunting, people just make huge and many times inaccurate assumptions.

I never even said I was against hunting and people made assumptions. People make assumptions if you simply disagree with them.

[MOTO13]

The fact that BH is a veggie just takes anything he (assuming he) says out of the equation regarding hunting. BH is to hunting what Charles Manson is to comedy. A vegetarian...makes me laugh, but we all make choices I guess. Ok, go ahead and ban hunting. I just want to see you scamper into the woods and chew the nuts off that badger with your sterilization process.

["Melyssa K" Kennedy]

Sometimes, you actually make me laugh, Moto.

[bighead384]

The fact that BH is a veggie just takes anything he (assuming he) says out of the equation regarding hunting. BH is to hunting what Charles Manson is to comedy. A vegetarian...makes me laugh, but we all make choices I guess. Ok, go ahead and ban hunting. I just want to see you scamper into the woods and chew the nuts off that badger with your sterilization process.

It seems like your problem is simply my vegetarianism. You haven't pointed to a flaw in the enactment of what I proposed: dramatically increased, state-funded sterilization efforts. I know my solution wouldn't be very agreeable to non-vegetarians, but I was hoping that people would focus on analyzing my proposed solution from a perspective of effectiveness and feasibility (even if they disagree with the vegetarian philosophy). Also, I know my proposition wouldn't go over well today, but society is dynamic and maybe someday, we will move closer to what I have in mind.