Ridecamp: Re: [RC] Hunting Season

"Why are human predators unnatural????? I have killed and eaten my share of
venison - seemed like the most natural thing in the world to me.
Scott"


The romanticized ideas of the "balance of nature" are again prevalent in our
society. I watched a TV show on Mammoths yesterday. One of the
paleontologists expressed remorse that the best evidence now indicates that
hunting by paleo-humans may have caused the extinction of Mammoths about
10,000 BCE. Another paleontologist expressed doubts that it was moral for a
Japanese scientist to try to clone one. His reasoning was that if a
scientist did clone a Mammoth, it would never be able to live free like it
was "supposed to".


As I see it, man has been a predator for many many years. The Clovis point
gave paleo-humans the ability to feed their families by killing large
animals. The result was a bunch of animals became extinct. I certainly see
no reason to be guilty for something that happened that long ago.


Yes we have a duty to manage the resources of this planet as good as we can.
It is the best thing for our species in the long run. Active management is
very different from a romantic idea that we can "let nature take its
course". Of course, all but 20 million Americans could move somewhere else,
so our ecosystem could gradually go back to what it was in 1492. Somehow I
don't see that happening.

Of course, those who stay will have to give up technology, including the
horse.  They will also have to promise to burn the prairie periodically  and
kill the proper number of Bison.  The Indians were always predators, there
just were fewer of them.
Ed

Ed and Wendy Hauser
1140 37th Street
Hudson, WI 54016
715.386.0465
sisufarm@xxxxxxxxxx



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