Home › Forums › Campfire Forum › "a safe and painless death"
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Thought you all would be interested in a comment I received on one of my youtube videos a few days ago. Most of the “anti” type comments are idiotic rants but this guy seems intelligent.
Roderick:
I totally understand the food source , use of hide etc. Personally I find it very sad. It takes way to long for those animals to die. Isn,t a placed head shot with a reasonably high powered rifle more respectful . Than again I was told that shooting the brain isn,t a guarantee to a safe painless death If A human gets a bullet in the brain he is finished I assume an animal brain is just as sensitive to foreign matter , Especially a bullet.I think modern day bow hunting is a macho man happening Extremely barbaric and primitive way to kill for food. I do totally respect bow hunters skill It is not to be taken lightly.Have a good day .
My response:
HI Roderick, thank you for your reasoned, but ultimately ill informed, thoughts. And also for the opportunity to hopefully clear up a misconception or two. First let me say that you seem to empathize with wildlife and that’s a good thing – too few of us do these days. But your description of “a safe painless death” sounds a lot like what goes on in a slaughterhouse to me. There, it’s all about efficiency. You run a cow into the shoot, kill it with a device that shoots a pneumatic rod into its brain, and off they go down the assembly (or disassembly) line and eventually to a fast food burger joint on the other side of the world. Would you consider that “respectful”?
The time it takes an animal to die isn’t so much a matter of the weapon used, but placement of the shot. Last November I shot a deer with my bow that was dead within 10 seconds from an arrow through his heart. Likewise, an arrow through both lungs will kill very quickly and, some would argue, painlessly. I tend to liken an arrow to a scalpel and a rifle slug to a hammer. Use each of those tools on a finger and see which one hurts more… A rifle will also kill quickly given a good shot.
I may be overstepping a little, but I’ll take the risk and read between the lines of your comment. You seem to think that in the absence of human hunters that wildlife would live a peaceful life; a kind of Bambi like existence. Having spent my life in the woods, watching, learning and living close to nature, I can tell you firsthand that this isn’t the case. Nature is unforgiving. Whether it be a rabbit caught and eaten alive by a hawk, or a mule deer starving on a degraded winter range, death in the wild is rarely swift or peaceful.
Again, thank you for your thoughtful comment and opportunity to respond. But, I’ll take it one step further and challenge you to read my book which you can find on Amazon or my website. Heck, send me an email with your address and I’ll send you one for free.
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Clay,
Fine response. I know I’m in the choir, but I have to chime in. I’ve only killed one deer with my bow, but many with rifles. The archery kill was far more peaceful, if you will, than pretty much any of the rifle shots. Unless the deer was spine shot, every deer shot with a rifle bolted and ran, even is only a short distance. The doe I killed with the bow continued to walk at the same pace and simply fell over. Comparatively speaking again, their was no damage to meat with the bow, just a slice through the heart, instead of a mass of destroyed “hamburger.”
Thanks for your good words, dwc
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Roderick did seem to have at least a modicum of sense and English writing ability.
The other thing, more from a bio-physical viewpoint, is that hydrostatic death from a bullet, rips, tears and sends shock waves destroying tissue, which puts most animals into panic flight. I’ve had deer, shot with an expanding rifle bullet, where the heart was severed totally from the pipes, and that deer still ran flat out 125 measured yards…before toppling over.
On the other hand, razor sharp broad heads kill from hemorrhage. A sharp instrument will slice painlessly thru tissue, more like a bee sting.
The blood loss reportedly causes unconsciousness and a quiet death. Most deer I’ve bow shot reacted to the “sting” or the impact on a rib, etc. All have died within sight. Some continued to feed or mosey along till they wobbled and fell over stone dead. Talk about a peaceful death…
I’ve not been broad head shot, but until dead deer /bear/ hogs talk, none of us will know beyond the biological realities of blood pressure shut down and loss of consciousness and clean cuts causing less trauma than gun shots!
I’d say that the entire concept of ‘ safe and painless” death is borderline utopian thinking. I too have seen coyotes drag down animals, wolves on videos, then eat the still struggling animal while it’s still alive till shock sets in or blood loss eventually causes a very protracted and hideous death.
Well handled, Clay! I’d think that while your response was upstanding and non-emotive, those with the perspectives shared by Roderick, tend to be narrow minded about the fact they ARE narrow minded!:shock:
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Yes. And so true is the analogy of broadhead vs. bullet with scalpel vs. hammer!
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Seems like this guy might on the verge of becoming a nature hunter. He talks about understanding using an animal for food, but struggles with killing animals. Same as most of us I’m sure.
Most death in the wild is out of sight. I have seen carcasses of ungulates killed by cougars that had cleanly separated the 2nd and 3rd vertebrae. That would be considered fast and clean (and the way I would choose to go). But I’ve also seen where wolves have chased a doe as she staggered for hundreds of yards leaving blood-stained saplings along the path. That’s not clean or fast. Truth is most people don’t see or contemplate death. We, as hunters and naturalists, see, interact with, even contribute to death in the woods. So it is on the forefront of my mind every time I see a road killed animal, watch a forest get logged, or a new road paved. Its tough to be awake sometimes.
Good luck with the comments Clay. And thanks for putting your head on the chopping block for the rest of us!
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Well said Clay.
Edit: And well done to guys like Roderick as well. He makes it clear he doesn’t have any first hand experience, he’s just asking questions and voicing reasonable concerns like any normal, decent person. How else is someone who is ignorant about an issue going to learn about it?
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Clay Hayes wrote: You seem to think that in the absence of human hunters that wildlife would live a peaceful life; a kind of Bambi like existence. Having spent my life in the woods, watching, learning and living close to nature, I can tell you firsthand that this isn’t the case. Nature is unforgiving. Whether it be a rabbit caught and eaten alive by a hawk, or a mule deer starving on a degraded winter range, death in the wild is rarely swift or peaceful.
Excellent.
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Doc Nock wrote: …I’ve not been broad head shot, but until dead deer /bear/ hogs talk, none of us will know beyond the biological realities of blood pressure shut down and loss of consciousness and clean cuts causing less trauma than gun shots! …
I spoke with a fellow who was shot through the chest with a broadhead and lived to tell the story. He carried the broadhead around with him and showed it to me. It was a Thunderhead if I recall.
Anyway, he said he didn’t feel a thing. As soon as it happened, he knew something was wrong, and the next thing he remembers is waking up in the hospital.
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This reminds me of a similar response from author David James Duncan, when asked how he could be a follower of Buddhist teachings, and also an avid fly fisherman, since “fishing is cruel:”
“Fishing is cruel indeed. Eating is cruel, often as not, for those of us who don’t digest sand and gravel live off of other life-forms. It is also “extraordinarily cruel” that this interview is being powered by electricity that is wiping out migrating salmon and dumping mercury and sulfur on North America’s waters and children and pregnant women. And it is extraordinarily naïve to think that anyone is going to want to protect ecosystems and natural processes about which they have no firsthand experience or knowledge. Read “Last Child in the Woods” by Richard Louv or Gary Paul Nabhan and Steven Trimble’s “The Geography of Childhood” on the separation of children from nature, and you might find it more reprehensible to sit here staring at a screen, or to drive a car, or to watch network TV, than to take a child fishing on a wild river.
The fact is, those who have actually saved rivers and fish species have tended to be the fishermen and women who love them. Those who saved wetlands have most often been duck hunters. And so on. There is a mystery here that has to do with the words “love” and “sacrifice.” This mystery has served the world well. Jesus caught, killed, cooked, and served fish to his disciples after the resurrection. I can’t tell you how at peace this leaves me about my fishing.
Lord Byron felt as you do and condemned fisherfolk in his poetry. He also infected a large swath of Italy with gonorrhea. Fingerpointing is dangerous for all of us — me most of all!”
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Well done Clay.
Not to belabor the issue but Roderick’s assertion that a human brain shot is dead is in fact wrong. Brady is an example all know. A friend of mine was shot right between the eyes and survived–did take some months of recovery.
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I hope he gets your book. I enjoyed it.
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