Hunting myths and reality

Hunting and wildlife management in the United States are strongly influenced by hunting interests, committed to perpetuating hunting and trying to persuade the public that hunting is not only necessary but also noble. Sort the myths of hunting the hunting facts.


 

Deer need to be hunted because they are too abundant

 "Overabundant" is not a scientific word and does not indicate an overpopulation of deer. The term is used by both hunters and state wildlife management agencies in an effort to convince the public that deer should be hunted, even if they are not biologically overcrowded and although the deer population remains artificially inflated.
 If the deer ever overpopulates an area, its number will naturally be reduced through hunger, disease and lower fertility. The strong will survive. This is true for all animals, and that's how evolution works.


 

Hunters paid for wild lands

 Hunters in the United States claim that they pay for wild lands, but the truth is that they pay only a small part of them. About 90% of the lands in our National Wildlife Refuges have always been owned by the government, so no funds were required to buy those lands. The hunters have paid approximately three tenths of a percentage (0.3%) of the land in our National Wildlife Refuges. The state lands of wildlife management are partially financed by the sales of hunting licenses, but are also financed with funds from the general budgets of the states, as well as funds from the Pittman-Robertson Act, which come from a special tax. on sales of firearms and ammunition. Pittman-Robertson funds are distributed to states and can be used for land acquisition, but these funds come mainly from non-hunters because most gun owners do not hunt.


 

Hunters keep deer population at bay

 Due to the way in which state wildlife agencies handle deer, hunters keep the deer population high. State wildlife management agencies earn part or all of their money from hunting license sales. Many of them have mission statements that explicitly say they must provide recreational hunting opportunities. In order to keep hunters happy and sell hunting licenses, states artificially increase the population of deer by clearing forests to provide the edge habitat favored by deer and leasing land to farmers and demanding that farmers cultivate preferred crops for deer.

Hunting reduces Lyme disease

 Hunting does not reduce incidents of Lyme disease, but pesticides against deer ticks have been shown to be very effective against Lyme disease. Lyme disease is transmitted to humans by deer ticks, but Lyme disease comes from mice, not deer, and ticks are spread to humans primarily through mice, not deer. Neither the American Lyme Disease Foundation nor the Lyme Disease Foundation recommend hunting to prevent Lyme disease. In addition, even if Lyme disease were transmitted by deer, hunting would not reduce Lyme disease because hunting creates an incentive for state wildlife management agencies to increase the deer population.

Hunting is necessary and takes the place of natural predators

 Hunters are very different from natural predators. Because technology gives hunters an advantage, we do not see hunters who focus on small, sick, and old individuals. Hunters look for the biggest and strongest individuals with the biggest antlers or the biggest horns. This has led to an inverse evolution, where the population becomes smaller and weaker. This effect has already been observed in elephants and bighorn sheep.
 Hunting also destroys natural predators. Predators such as wolves and bears are killed routinely in an attempt to increase populations of prey animals such as elk, elk and caribou for human hunters.


 

Hunting is safe

 Hunters like to point out that hunting has a very low mortality rate for non-participants, but one thing they do not consider is that a sport should not have a mortality rate for non-participants. While sports such as soccer or swimming can have a higher injury or death rate for participants, soccer and swimming do not endanger innocent people half a mile away. Only hunting endangers the entire community.


 

Hunting is the solution for factory farming

 Hunters like to point out that the animals they eat had a good chance of survival and lived a free and wild life before being killed, unlike their farm counterparts. This argument does not take into account pheasants and quail that are bred in captivity and then released at pre-announced times and places for hunters to shoot. The animals used to store these state-owned hunting grounds have little chance of survival and were bred in captivity, just as cows, pigs and chickens are raised in pens and stables. While it is true that a wild deer lives a better life than a pig in a gestation, hunting can not be the solution for factory breeding because it can not be climbed. The only reason why hunters can eat wild animals on a regular basis is because only a very small percentage of the population hunts. If 300 million Americans decided to start hunting, our wildlife would be decimated in a very short period of time. In addition, from the perspective of the rights of animals, regardless of the type of life that the animals carried, the slaughter can not be human or justified. The solution to industrial cultivation is veganism.