for a non-hunting animal rights advocate
Part Three
By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)
Taking up arms, or not, was now a serious moral dilemma. So…back to Google and YouTube to see how one might go about shooting a few pigs. After watching just a couple of video clips I realized it might be a good deal more exciting than I at first imagined:
and maybe, just maybe, a gun much more powerful than a .22 rimfire would be a good investment.
After coming across the following video homage to horrible shooting,
with 12 missed shots and the hog still running, I noted the need to find some people who shot a LOT better than that – so I wouldn’t end up like the guy in the latter frames of that video, or the folks in the following videos:
But where? Even if I were still an active hunter, I would have no interest in shooting feral pigs. Who would?
That thought was still on my mind when I went to Tractor Supply for bags of corn and supplemental feed for my backyard deer herd. The guy waiting on me had the “hunter type” look so I said: “A friend wants me to drive down to North Carolina and shoot some wild hogs for him. I need at least one more shooter, any idea where I would find anyone with an interest in such a thing?”
Before he could speak an excited female voice blurted out from behind me: “Oh God, yes! I would go! I’ve been dying to go hog hunting!”
Huh? I turned to see a very attractive, long-legged, 20-something woman – a Tractor Supply employee I had briefly chatted with before, of the type I would have tried to recruit as a model in my younger fashion-photographer days. Completely befuddled, I just stared at her.
“Are you serious?” I finally managed to ask.
“Heck yeah! And I have two girlfriends who would love to go. And they are really good hunters.”
“They would actually want to go hog hunting?” I asked. “What woman wouldn’t want to go hog hunting?” she said. “It’s the hottest thing out there. Nobody wants to shoot a deer. They’re just too cute.”
Back home, and back to Google: “women wild hog hunting.” I discovered countless numbers of videos with names like “wife goes hog hunting for first time” and “hot chick feral hog knife hunt,” and I learned there is apparently an endless supply of young women – many of whom could have been in Playboy in another era – eager to shoot hogs and pose with their dead carcasses.
What on earth has happened to the world I grew up in? When I was in my 20s, my 50-something aunt was the only woman I knew who hunted, and that was only so my uncle wouldn’t go off to “hunting camp” by himself for weeks at a time.
In my world today, my wife and I keep “catch jars” throughout the house so when we see a spider or a bug we can safely capture it and take it outside. My wife even supported my decision to take a baseball bat and stalk a guy trying to illegally hunt deer on our property with a crossbow. (We live within the city limits in a strict no-hunting zone). So maybe I could hit her with this idea: “How about me taking three 20-something hunter chicks to North Carolina for the weekend so we can kill a bunch of hogs and save a lot of deer?” Hmmmm…maybe not.
Meanwhile, my research revealed there is actually a women’s hog hunting team:
and tourists are eagerly going to Texas to shoot wild hogs from helicopters:
In the face of this this burgeoning “thing” that hog hunting has become, and since the exploding population of feral and wild pigs is destroying ecosystems and putting native species at risk, can I really make a moral argument against my joining the fray and shooting a few miscreant swine? Not really. But I can plead the case of a conscientious objector who believes in shooting only in self-defense, and I can make an argument of practicality: we simply can’t muster enough people to shoot enough hogs to make a difference. We need to use more effective techniques.
Many states tried to control wild hog populations by declaring year-round open season – and the populations grew faster than ever. Why? Because hunters seized on the year-round hunting opportunity, trapped hogs, and relocated them to places they had not yet overrun, and made a smallish problem a sudden disaster. Why state game departments didn’t foresee this happening, especially after watching it happen in several states, is beyond me, but only now are most states passing laws against such ill-advised relocating of hogs.
For now the best method of control is probably “corral” style traps:
although when I see the panicked animals trampling each other and bouncing off the wire grates in terror, I have to wonder if quietly stalking and shooting them in the head wouldn’t be much more humane. When I do the math, however, it would be like trying to disarm everyone in Chicago or Miami: truly mission impossible.
Hopefully someone comes up with some sort of swine birth control that can be sprayed from the air or added to their watering holes, as that seems the only real hope of controlling the situation.
Until then, hog hunters will be doing their part and seeing their efforts as noble – and they may well be right – but I won’t be amongst them. I will be upgrading to a more powerful handgun to carry when I take my son fly-fishing in areas with wild hogs, but only for self-defense, not offense.
It’s sort of the same logic I apply to owning a weapon: I don’t carry a gun to go shopping, but I do keep one for home defense. If someone has an awful day, and in a bad moment they start a pointless confrontation over a parking spot, they don’t deserve to be shot for it. However, if they kick in your front door at 3 a.m., in my opinion they sort of do deserve to be shot over it: one act is instinctive, one is calculated. Regardless the damage, I can’t justify shooting an animal just because it is following its instinct to eat.
Beyond my overall non-hunting ethic, there are two aspects of hog hunting that irk me: 1) people make it out to be some big, brave, macho/machoess? pursuit, when the risks are actually quite low – if you know how to shoot, which you should, if you are a hunter; 2) in places like Texas, with lots of hogs, people go out and shoot 20-50-100 or more hogs at one time, and apparently just leave them to rot. Something about that doesn’t feel proper, no matter the species and what damage it is doing.
In the end, this story illustrates why I quit hunting, and why I despise the myth of the noble, hard-working farmer just trying to survive, and why I just don’t want to be affiliated with either at any level. That’s why I’m a vegan. We have this horrible hog problem, which will ultimately wipe out dozens if not hundreds of native species, because farmers raised hogs and hunt clubs imported European/Russian boars, and both were too cheap to put up adequate fencing to keep their animals under control – and they created a plague for others to sort out and pay for. And then, when game departments finally noticed the problem – about 30 years too late – the hunters exacerbated the problem by illegally trapping and stocking hogs in new areas. Farmers, hunt clubs, people who farm and hunt, should be taxed based on the cost of the long-term damage they cause – just like coal and oil companies and other polluters should likewise be taxed on the residual damage they cause – instead of on the dollars of business they create.
Part Three
By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)
Taking up arms, or not, was now a serious moral dilemma. So…back to Google and YouTube to see how one might go about shooting a few pigs. After watching just a couple of video clips I realized it might be a good deal more exciting than I at first imagined:
and maybe, just maybe, a gun much more powerful than a .22 rimfire would be a good investment.
After coming across the following video homage to horrible shooting,
with 12 missed shots and the hog still running, I noted the need to find some people who shot a LOT better than that – so I wouldn’t end up like the guy in the latter frames of that video, or the folks in the following videos:
But where? Even if I were still an active hunter, I would have no interest in shooting feral pigs. Who would?
That thought was still on my mind when I went to Tractor Supply for bags of corn and supplemental feed for my backyard deer herd. The guy waiting on me had the “hunter type” look so I said: “A friend wants me to drive down to North Carolina and shoot some wild hogs for him. I need at least one more shooter, any idea where I would find anyone with an interest in such a thing?”
Huh? I turned to see a very attractive, long-legged, 20-something woman – a Tractor Supply employee I had briefly chatted with before, of the type I would have tried to recruit as a model in my younger fashion-photographer days. Completely befuddled, I just stared at her.
“Are you serious?” I finally managed to ask.
“Heck yeah! And I have two girlfriends who would love to go. And they are really good hunters.”
“They would actually want to go hog hunting?” I asked. “What woman wouldn’t want to go hog hunting?” she said. “It’s the hottest thing out there. Nobody wants to shoot a deer. They’re just too cute.”
Back home, and back to Google: “women wild hog hunting.” I discovered countless numbers of videos with names like “wife goes hog hunting for first time” and “hot chick feral hog knife hunt,” and I learned there is apparently an endless supply of young women – many of whom could have been in Playboy in another era – eager to shoot hogs and pose with their dead carcasses.
What on earth has happened to the world I grew up in? When I was in my 20s, my 50-something aunt was the only woman I knew who hunted, and that was only so my uncle wouldn’t go off to “hunting camp” by himself for weeks at a time.
In my world today, my wife and I keep “catch jars” throughout the house so when we see a spider or a bug we can safely capture it and take it outside. My wife even supported my decision to take a baseball bat and stalk a guy trying to illegally hunt deer on our property with a crossbow. (We live within the city limits in a strict no-hunting zone). So maybe I could hit her with this idea: “How about me taking three 20-something hunter chicks to North Carolina for the weekend so we can kill a bunch of hogs and save a lot of deer?” Hmmmm…maybe not.
Meanwhile, my research revealed there is actually a women’s hog hunting team:
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| hog dawgs pictures |
In the face of this this burgeoning “thing” that hog hunting has become, and since the exploding population of feral and wild pigs is destroying ecosystems and putting native species at risk, can I really make a moral argument against my joining the fray and shooting a few miscreant swine? Not really. But I can plead the case of a conscientious objector who believes in shooting only in self-defense, and I can make an argument of practicality: we simply can’t muster enough people to shoot enough hogs to make a difference. We need to use more effective techniques.
Many states tried to control wild hog populations by declaring year-round open season – and the populations grew faster than ever. Why? Because hunters seized on the year-round hunting opportunity, trapped hogs, and relocated them to places they had not yet overrun, and made a smallish problem a sudden disaster. Why state game departments didn’t foresee this happening, especially after watching it happen in several states, is beyond me, but only now are most states passing laws against such ill-advised relocating of hogs.
For now the best method of control is probably “corral” style traps:
although when I see the panicked animals trampling each other and bouncing off the wire grates in terror, I have to wonder if quietly stalking and shooting them in the head wouldn’t be much more humane. When I do the math, however, it would be like trying to disarm everyone in Chicago or Miami: truly mission impossible.
Hopefully someone comes up with some sort of swine birth control that can be sprayed from the air or added to their watering holes, as that seems the only real hope of controlling the situation.
Until then, hog hunters will be doing their part and seeing their efforts as noble – and they may well be right – but I won’t be amongst them. I will be upgrading to a more powerful handgun to carry when I take my son fly-fishing in areas with wild hogs, but only for self-defense, not offense.
It’s sort of the same logic I apply to owning a weapon: I don’t carry a gun to go shopping, but I do keep one for home defense. If someone has an awful day, and in a bad moment they start a pointless confrontation over a parking spot, they don’t deserve to be shot for it. However, if they kick in your front door at 3 a.m., in my opinion they sort of do deserve to be shot over it: one act is instinctive, one is calculated. Regardless the damage, I can’t justify shooting an animal just because it is following its instinct to eat.
Beyond my overall non-hunting ethic, there are two aspects of hog hunting that irk me: 1) people make it out to be some big, brave, macho/machoess? pursuit, when the risks are actually quite low – if you know how to shoot, which you should, if you are a hunter; 2) in places like Texas, with lots of hogs, people go out and shoot 20-50-100 or more hogs at one time, and apparently just leave them to rot. Something about that doesn’t feel proper, no matter the species and what damage it is doing.
In the end, this story illustrates why I quit hunting, and why I despise the myth of the noble, hard-working farmer just trying to survive, and why I just don’t want to be affiliated with either at any level. That’s why I’m a vegan. We have this horrible hog problem, which will ultimately wipe out dozens if not hundreds of native species, because farmers raised hogs and hunt clubs imported European/Russian boars, and both were too cheap to put up adequate fencing to keep their animals under control – and they created a plague for others to sort out and pay for. And then, when game departments finally noticed the problem – about 30 years too late – the hunters exacerbated the problem by illegally trapping and stocking hogs in new areas. Farmers, hunt clubs, people who farm and hunt, should be taxed based on the cost of the long-term damage they cause – just like coal and oil companies and other polluters should likewise be taxed on the residual damage they cause – instead of on the dollars of business they create.
| Copyright © 2020 by Paul Clark |
thanks for info on something i never would have known about. and i very much appreciate where you wound up on your thinking/philosophy.
ReplyDeleteSorry I read this the other day but had to run. The guy I told about before that hunted with a bow and arrow showed me the scar on his leg from a charging pig that was dead when it hit him. Great story, Paul. What did you or your friend do about the pigs?
ReplyDeleteI'm an exterminator, so I understand what the woman is saying about exterminating a pest. But true hunters have always despised anyone who would shoot from a vehicle. It's not "sporting". This seems to have been lost some time back, after I too quit hunting. These days you'll see a pickup truck with a raised, pivoting captain's chair with somebody's fat grandma in camos with a .223 AR strapped into it, riding down the firebreak roads in the state parks. That's not hunting, it's slaughter. Shooting single animals from a helicopter is no different, and no less despicable. It won't help, all it does is let some goob get his rocks off shooting something. I'm with Ed: what did you do?
ReplyDeleteBefore I get to the fate of the hogs, let me say thank you for the interest and the comments. Feral hogs is a topic I never would have learned anything about if not for this somewhat bizarre happenstance; I am glad readers found it interesting. Watching the hunting videos and learning about women hog hunting teams feels like a peek into some bizarre alien world that I feel like I sort of need to be aware of, but I don't know that I really want to understand. It is what it is.
ReplyDeleteHunting wild hogs with a bow and arrow takes skill and guts; that definitely qualifies as "real" hunting. As I said in a previous post, if I had opportunity to hunt true European wild boar with a spear--as my Scandinavian ancestors did--I might actually have a go at it. To me that would be a fight that would be at least fair to--and possibly favor--the boar.
As for riding around in trucks and ATVs and helicopters spraying bullets from semi-automatic weapons and leaving wounded or dead animals to rot: despicable is a kind word. I was trained with single-shot weapons in an era when the rule was "if you can't make the shot, don't take the shot." Back then people used to argue about tree stands giving hunters an unfair advantage, and now thrill seekers are using helicopters and weapons that are one notch below a machine gun? I can call it a lot of things, but I can't call it hunting.
So about the fate of the hogs on my friend Lee's farm: when he first heard about them, a neighbor reported "a dozen or so" with some big hogs and some smaller pigs. By the time I went by to have a look, there were enough to turn a 1/4-acre pond and surrounding 3/4-acre of grass into a one-acre mudhole. So as tempting as it was to take three 20-something, very attractive, self-described "hunter chicks" to North Carolina for a weekend, I realized that by the time we got there I would probably need a sizeable team of trained snipers rather than some aspiring young huntresses. And when I found out a bunch of guys from Georgia had leased the farm next door for hunting purposes, and had been seen coming in with two flatbed trucks with mysterious crates on board covered in tarps, I knew the situation was hopeless. So the hogs are still there, possibly doubled in numbers by now, and other than using corral traps--and possibly shooting the guys apparently bringing them in illegally--I have no clue what anyone can or will do about it. Not my fight, as they say, and all the more reason not to be a hunter, at least as hunting is apparently practiced in this day and time.