Are we cruel?

[boomhowzer]

I didn't grow up hunting and I'm pretty new to hunting in general, so its hard to understand the moral and ethical questions that come up when you're talking with people about it. I guess I don't really have a framework to go on because I didn't grow up thinking about it and arguing with people over it, so now I like to talk to experienced hunters about their opinions and ethics.

I was talking to my neighbor the other day, he's been hunting in our area his entire life, mostly gun, but sometimes with a crossbow during archery deer season, and he told me point blank that going out into the woods with homemade archery tackle intending to kill an animal is downright cruel. His argument was that a homemade bow can't be shot accurately enough and with enough force to cleanly kill an animal.

I patently disagree for a variety of reasons, but those are my reasons. I want to know what you guys/gals reasons are. Or maybe you agree with him in some way and want to share that as well?

[Digital Caveman]

Show him what your weapon can do, maybe he just doesn't appreciate it's lethality.  His broadheads probably do take a lot more power than yours, A razor sharp two bladed broadhead takes very little force.  There was an article about this some time back in PA, 'Broadhead Smoke and Mirrors'  I forgot who wrote it or when it was published. 

[Parnell]

I’d say it’s a good thing to question.  My perspective?

It’s all about individual accountability.  New bow makers and especially stone point makers shouldn’t be in a rush.  Make sure the bow, point, and personal shooting requirements is up for what is being asked.  Am I taking a maximum of 12 yard shot or are my skills genuinely less distance than that, consistently?  Do I have the discipline to hold off on a longer yard shot if my skills aren’t there?  Staying within reasonable personal boundaries.

Knapped points are more difficult to get “hunting quality” than bows.  Yeah, many points could do the job but does the point pass the “will this slice my finger open if I scrape it across it” test, that is often written about in articles?  Some may say it doesn’t take that much quality...but, am I doing my own due diligence to uphold personal integrity?

Your neighbor saying “cruel” is the wrong word.  Nature can be far far more “cruel” than poor hunting decisions.  Responsible vs. Irresponsible skills are the question.

I’ll stop there!

[Digital Caveman]

I'm sure it would be irresponsible to use your bow at the range he uses his crossbow, your whole hunting setup will be for stealth at a much closer range, he may not understand that.

[Pat B]

A gun kills by shock, a bow by hemorrhage. I know guys that have shot through a feeding deer. The deer will flinch then go right back to feeding until they bleed to death. Very little trauma. Unless you drop a deer in it's tracks with a gun there is lots of trauma and pain.
 The archery weapon one uses isn't what causes the "cruelty". It's the nut behind the string and his/her ability to make a clean kill.

[mmattockx]

His argument was that a homemade bow can't be shot accurately enough and with enough force to cleanly kill an animal.

I only rifle hunt (so far), but he is full of it. I have seen enough animals wounded with rifles to know that it is up to the operator to use his tools properly, regardless of what that tool is. No, a bow won't kill as quickly and cleanly as a rifle, but it isn't horrible, either.

I have had people argue with me that hunting in general is cruel. They often change their tune when you explain how nature works and how humane hunting is. In Alberta the average age a deer lives to is around 3 years (according to government estimates). Their options for dying are getting hit by a vehicle, starving to death in a hard winter, dying from a disease like CWD, being torn apart by predators or being killed by a hunter.

Being shot doesn't seem so bad when you look at the choices available.


Mark

[JW_Halverson]

Add these two anectdotes to your arsenal:

1) If rifles are so much more humane, why did I spend a weekend tracking and following a wounded antelope that some slob had shot at an unethical range just so I could put it out of it's misery?

2) If primitive archery is so cruel, why did my trophy mule deer buck with an arrow through both lungs stare at me for only 20 seconds before returning to trying to breed a doe and expiring in less than 3 minutes from the shot?

In both cases the whole issue comes down to proficiency and judgement. EVERY shot has to be made with proficiency and precision. Failure to do so is a failure of judgement and no amount of modernization will make up for pi$$-poor judgement. 

There is no doubt a .50 caliber Barrett with $4,000 worth of top of the line optics will cleanly and efficiently kill a deer at one mile. Duh. EXCEPT if you hand it to me. I have never shot one before. I have no knowledge of extreme distance shooting and could not figure out the shot if you gave me two hours to work out the details with the shooter's dope book and a Seal Team Six spotter behind my shoulder. That's just bad judgement. Likewise, if I handed my best bow and a set of arrows with surgically sharp arrows to your neighbor right now he likely couldn't hit a deer at 15 paces.

But this is the fallacy that has created a $3.2 Billion dollar worldwide archery tackle industry (2020 figures/Global Archery Equipment Market (2021 to 2026) - Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecasts - ResearchAndMarkets.com) "Archery hunting is difficult" and the industry is here to sell you an "edge", an advantage, a leg up on everyone else. Just buy...Buy...BUY!!! Deer die just as easily now as they did when Otzi filled his belly with his last meal of chamois meat. They have not evolved infrared eyesight, amphetamine fueled hyper reaction times, or cut resistant armor over their vitals. A primitive bow and arrows works as well as a Gilman Keasey 1920's yew American flatbow, and as well as a 1950's Fred Bear fiberglass recurve, as a 1970's first generation fiberglass limb primitive compound, or a top of the line Matthews V3 with new patent-pending Centerguard Cable Containment delivering optimal cam timing while the all-new Nano 740 damper controls post shot noise and vibration.

....but only if you have put in the time and effort. You do not buy proficiency and judgement with money. You buy it with TIME.

[boomhowzer]

Good stuff guys, thank you for sharing your perspectives.

My neighbor has never seen any of my bows or arrows, and its possible he's never seen any kind of traditional archery tackle in action. Hopefully I can show him what they can do someday.

I've never killed a deer before, so I have no large game experience to speak from, and I didn't want to challenge my neighbor's beliefs, but its hard for me to imagine it being 'cruel' to take a bow and a set of arrows made by our own hands out into the woods and become a predator in search of prey. It seems like it would be the most humane way to hunt an animal because we don't have the unfair advantage of gun powder, telescopic laser sites, and all manner of unnatural accoutrements made in a factory on the other side of the world. We are facing the animals one on one, the animal's wits against ours. Its so pure that way, there are no outside influences. Its just taking the absolute best weapon you can make out of the materials available in the forest and hunting the animals that live in the forest. What can possibly be wrong with that?

I almost feel like if any part of hunting is cruel, guns are the cruelest part. I don't quite understand the mechanics of 'shock' vs. 'hemorrhaging' kills and I don't know if a gun can kill a deer faster than a bow, but guns are just so loud. They completely disrupt the serenity of the wilderness so not only does the animal being hunted get completely freaked out (whether you've hit it or not) but everything within 150 yards craps its pants. A bow hunter doesn't make a peep, so the people and animals in the area can go about their business without having to clean out their drawers every time someone wants blast a hole in something.

Even worse, all that noise eventually forces the animals to become nocturnal and/or avoid all human contact, so its almost impossibly to get close to any game. Isn't that cruel? Forcing entire species of animals to completely change their lifestyle and basically go into hiding every year because we insist on using an unnecessary amount of fire power to harvest them? And what about the other hunters? Isn't it cruel to them too? To spend 5 days blasting away at everything that moves and then not being able to see any wildlife for the next 9 months?

Now I'm all fired up. And maybe complaining about gun noise isn't valid in a discussion about cruelty. I just feel like a home made bow and a home made arrow bringing food home to feed our families is one of the oldest and most profound developments human kind has ever made, and to call it 'cruel' is to finally relinquish that yes, we have finally lost all our connection to nature, and all that is left is the unfettered advancement of technology toward the goal of making hunting easy.

[Morgan]

This is my opinion and only that. Don’t persecute me for it guys.
Short answer is yes. We are cruel, as is nature.
Killing anything that feels pain with any weapon is cruel. There is a concept that animal lack a real perception of pain or ability to have feelings, this perception is false. I am not a bunny hugger, peta sympathizer, or vegan. All that said, I know our place in the food chain. I also believe in taking what you need and do so as humanely as possible. My dad made our living in the winter from money selling hides, not much got wasted off the trap line. Hides got sold and meat was eaten. 90 percent of our meat was wild game and fish, other 10% was a hog and at times goats that we would butcher each year. Hunting season opened when dad left the house and he preached to hit deer in a big bone, shoulder or hip, if using a large caliber rifle, and head when using a .22. I never saw a deer shot that didn’t hit the ground right then till I was a grown man. Bow hunting wasn’t an option for me growing up. If the decision was made to take an animals life, there needed to be as small of chance as possible that the game leaves to suffer over a bad shot. This is why I don’t bow hunt for deer. I would be sorely upset and feel very bad over a bad shot. Pretty sure I wouldn’t feel too awful over a hog simply because of the problems they bring. I want to hunt with my bows, can’t bring myself to it. It is all cruel, one isn’t better than another, and like was said earlier, the wood bow is just as viable a hunting weapon as it was 1000 years ago. That said not all wood bows are that viable weapon even if the draw weight is in the accepted range.

[Hawkdancer]

Be responsible- be sure you know your weapon - and your limits!  The hunter has to respect the game, and his/her abilities!  Hunting is no more or less cruel than sending animals to a slaughterhouse house!  At least, the Hunter has made meat in the original way.
Hawkdancer

[Morgan]

Be responsible- be sure you know your weapon - and your limits!  The hunter has to respect the game, and his/her abilities!  Hunting is no more or less cruel than sending animals to a slaughterhouse house!  At least, the Hunter has made meat in the original way.
Hawkdancer

This. Well said

[Pappy]

Nothing cruel about it, it's the circle of life, Good Lord gave them to us to use, as long and you treat it with respect and use it to feed and cloth you and you family nothing cruel about it. JMO  Killing for fun or sport on something just to hang on the wall is a whole other subject to me. I tell people that they have been using this stuff for thousands of years so it has to be effective, also it's a personal thing, I don't tell you , you are wrong for what you think or how you do it or what you use so Please don't tell me I am wrong for how I think,what I use or how I do it. Either way you are taking a life and should be respect that.
 Pappy

[Mesophilic]

I saved the pics from the aftermath of a mountain lion deer kill in my neighbor's yard, for this very reason.

Nature is much more cruel than any ethical human hunter could ever contemplate.   Notice the word "ethical".

This deer was raked with claw marks all over, disemboweled in several places,  and then choked to death.  As long as I give it 100%, no animal will die in such a horrible manner by my hands.

[paulc]

Seems to me, if anyone is going to eat any kind of meat they have to be okay with causing some amount of  suffering in another being.  To claim that the deer or whatever you shot with whatever weapon didn't suffer is just silly-unless you blew its brains out.  The idea that an animal won't suffer applies, it seems to me, to the vast minority of kills.  A gun (ie long distance) helps us insulate ourselves from that reality, a grocery store even more.  There is also the silly idea that animals if left to their own die fat and happy in their sleep. 

For me, killing the animal myself allows me to take direct responsibility for the suffering I benefit from.  And I can take steps to minimize that suffering.   I can honor the animal and its experience when I stand over it, or fail to collect it for whatever reason.  The book Dominion, can't remember the author, has a great bit on hunting, also how we as people apply value to that animal there but not that animal over here-and how irrational it is.

And in truth I have not been in a real hurry to actually take a shot with a bow in part because I am not sure I will be okay with being that close to the suffering I inflict...I was a vegetarian for a long time and frankly might go back to that after my first bow kill 

fwiw Paul

[Digital Caveman]

You may want to finish off the venison first, but I know what you mean. 

Not sure how I would handle something like that,  Depending on who I learn hunting from, my first deer will quite probably be rifle killed within 40 yards, may be the best of both worlds, idk.  It wouldn't be primitive, but I would learn deer patterns, not to mention how to get the deer from the woods to the skillet cleanly.  (The buckskin would be in great shape to). 

My first small game on the other hand will almost certainly be with an arrow.