Is shooting ducks for sport cruel?

[DanielDBates]

Readers, please take time to vote in this poll, but don't expect the true results to be published unless they favour the anti reporter.

http://www.prestontoday.net/frontpage.aspx

You should see the poll options mid page just to the right.

Currently it is 51% cruel, so it's clear the antis have being emailing this poll around their fluffy bunny circles.

Cheerts.

 

[avalcalab]

You're quackers!

 

[Tia]

I voted and it seems the tables have turned. The result at the time of me voting was 51% said no and 49% said yes.

Do people really shoot ducks for sport........silly me I thought they shot them for the dinner table! Well they do around here anyway.

 

[brighteyes]

Over here, they raise extraordinarily large numbers of ducks on little ponds and then, come the hunting season, they all stand round the ponds and shoot at them. Not very sporting, I think, but pretty much guaranteed at least a dozen for dinner! I imagine they have a good life - short as it may be. The same sort of thing goes for the pheasants. Gamekeepers rear masses of them, and they too are blasted out of the sky in the name of sport. One just hopes it's a quick death for all of them.

It is to do with maintenance of our coppices and countryside which would not be carried out were the shoots to cease - or so I was told.

I live in a duck and pheasant shoot area and it sickens me, but I'm guessing I have an over simplistic view.

A friend used to go off in the middle of the night with his decoy duck and 'quack whistle' to lie in freezing wet conditions on the marshes, waiting for ducks to fly over at dawn. Much more sporting if you ask me and almost certain to be beans on toast for supper.

 

[Ereiam_jh]

What's your view on cruelty vs conservation. Do you think that conservation benefits can outweigh animal suffering?

 

[brighteyes]

I do hope so.

I'm not a killer by nature and would be much happier if the ducks were given a bit of a chance. My p.o.v. about the whole hunting thing, really.

I think sport should work both ways. Shooting ducks off a pond is a bit biased towards the shooter don't you think? I wouldn't get any satisfaction from the proverbial sitting duck scenario if I took the urge to be a hunter! I think, go clay pigeon shooting and get a humanely despatched ducky or two as a parting gift after the session! You still have to maintain the countryside for the ducks and pheasants and pay the gamekeepers.......

I could get into a lot of trouble (well, why not!) by saying I'd be perfectly happy to take pot shots at offenders let loose in wooded areas on day release from prison, for such misdemeanors as child abuse, muggings and injury to innocents. Tack theives and horse rustlers would have to be 'freed' in less wooded areas or open moorland and I'd be allowed to pursue them mounted and with as many hounds/dogs as I like! The ones which got away would be only too happy to go back to prison and serve the ones who didn't right. They wouldn't die quickly as I'm probably a useless shot. That doesn't seem to worry the antis vis a vis fox control though, does it!!!

 

[Ereiam_jh]

If I was on death row I'd rather a sporting chance with you and your hounds to the humane cerrtainty of lethal injection.

 

[avalcalab]

What is this morbid world you inhabit? Try to think happy thoughts for a change.

 

[GinaB]

Shooting ducks if it's being used is fine but when it's shooting for the fun of it and just leaving a carcass then it's not right. My uncle regularly goes shooting pheasants, ducks, pigeons, geese, you name it, he'll probably shoot it! Yes he does get enjoyment from it but all birds are eaten whether by him or his friends and any left over are frozen for future use. He's also heavily involved in conservation. It's not all fun and games.

 

[Ereiam_jh]

Try to make sensible comments for a change.

 

[Onyxia]

I could get into a lot of trouble (well, why not!) by saying I'd be perfectly happy to take pot shots at offenders let loose in wooded areas on day release from prison, for such misdemeanors as child abuse, muggings and injury to innocents. Tack theives and horse rustlers would have to be 'freed' in less wooded areas or open moorland and I'd be allowed to pursue them mounted and with as many hounds/dogs as I like! The ones which got away would be only too happy to go back to prison and serve the ones who didn't right. They wouldn't die quickly as I'm probably a useless shot.
......................................................................................................................
Now THAT idear I like- would need to make it in an enclosed area though, so no chance of them getting away!

 

[Clodagh]

In Australia they banned duck shooting for sport. About 2 years later the overpopulated ducks started dying through salmonella poisoning, so the government now pay people to cull them. I suppose that makes sense to someone. As long as no one enjoys it, its OK!

 

[Ereiam_jh]

RS would definitely approve of the Australian Governments tactics. It's the enjoying killing animals that is the problem, so have a law that makes no mention of the enjoyment.

 

[alona]

Not all gamekeepers raise ducks in their hundreds, some actually use their skills and their knowledge for flighting wild ducks on evenings. I would add that some estates and gamekeepers have enlightened views on management of game, their land and their shoots. Our estate has no field without field margins, a massive variety of small birds and a pair of buzzards that are accepted. Barn owls can be seen morning and night hunting, and still we have a family shoot where half of the estate is run as a wild bird shoot.

 

[mrdarcy]

It's not something I would ever take part in and I do find it hard to understand how people get enjoyment out of an activity that ends up with a living creature dying...

BUT...

If the ducks are shot for human consumption then it's a lot less cruel than the factory farming and subsequent slaughter of broiler chickens. At least the ducks get to live a natural life until their quick dispatch.

 

[smilincow21]

Call me stupid, but the only "real" way to kill ducks is shooting them. It happens with pheasants, and all shot birds are used for human consumtion. It isn't realistic for gamekeepers to go crawling through undergrowth, sneaking up on them and wringing their necks! At the end of the day, killing animals for our consumation has been around as long as us as humans, and its life! By breeding more ducks, we get more food, so long as the foxes are kept at bay. Look back at centuries ago, when guns wern't around. We used bows and arrows. I would much rather using guns as apposed to bows and arrows, as a more humane alternative!
A_A, a wise choice in choosing hounds over death row, after all who wouldn't at the risk of being licked to death by a pack of hounds! lol!