Just heard pastor on TV say:
“God defined marriage as between one man and one woman in Genesis.”
Is that a proven fact?
Did God actually write that?
How do you know?
Saying the bible says that God wrote it as the best evidence that God wrote it is what we call a tautology.
Religeous bigots have always tended to make obvious foot in mouth statements just as American hunting bigots have not a mile from here.
So hunters are bigots?
Wow.
That’s call an ad hominem.
You’ve not provided any evidence for your claims about hunters, other than your particular moral platitudes.
That changes no one’s mind.
It’s not even reason.
Children argue in this fashion.
In this way, you’re not all that different from the homophobic fools that comprise the religious right in this country.
How about we just accept that you’re never going to change my mind and give up?
I have my reasons. Others see these reasons as rational. I think they are carefully considered.
You don’t.
I don’t care.
I happen to be an atheist. I firmly believe that consenting adults should be able to marry in whatever combinations they like. I wouldn’t mind having another husband, myself, preferably one who can fix cars.
Nevermind, scratch that. Just remembered that I have a rifle in the closet for varmints like coyotes, and that just *destroys* my liberal atheist cred.
And because you’re an American, you’ve probably shot a few people with it, too!
I’ve et (that’s ‘eat’ in hickspeak for you furriners) everythin’ I’ve ever killed, ‘ceptin bugs, snakes, and trespassers.
‘Yotes done et the snakes.
Dawgs take care of the trespassers.
I, on the other hand, have eaten rattlesnake and enjoyed it very much thanks.
You and Rachel Maddow own guns and it doesn’t get more liberal than that!
Interesting that for merely opposing your point of view on hunting you clearly imply that I must be a “homophobic fool” per se, whereas I think a more honest position would be to focus on the precise issues involved in an argument.
As for evidence just look at what happens when people hunt – animals die which otherwise might have gone on to enjoy their lives and fulfill their natural potential – to continue their species and contribute to life on Earth in general. I do realise that it is hard to argue with someone who thinks her hobby is more important than all of that. But sorry I will still exercise my right to protest.
You made another logical fallacy. That’s a strawman argument.
If hunting a particular species made it endangered, I would be opposed to hunting it.
If hunting generates funds for conservation– and it can be shown that it does– then why on earth would anyone oppose it?
But Scottieeeeee, the little cute aminals go on to ENJOY their LIVES. Even when they’re being chased down and eaten alive by a predator. Even when it’s a bad season and they starve. Even when they get over-crowded and starve. Even when they aren’t conditioned to avoid humans and climb fences and eat pets. Even when they have no fear of people, and therefore no reason to avoid people (which are a lovely source of food, with their pet food and garbage), and end up getting killed just because they are ‘enjoying their lives and fulfilling their natural potential’ in someone’s yard.
We as Americans have become so insulaed from reality that they imagine American values can suffer defeat without any inconvenience to themselves. If it were not for the National Rifle Association likely dog ownership and breeding long would have gone to museums. Most hunters that I know are conservationist as well . We can not pigeon hole people into titles that one assumes this is the total of the entire character and values of vast number of individuals.
I’m not anti-hunting (obviously).
But I’m not particularly a fan of the Republican Party, the religious right, or the NRA.
I might agree with them in certain areas, but it is largely a stochastic phenomenon if I do.
Hunting animals DOES contribute to life on Earth in general. That is rather the point.
I have classified hunters in two groups – the pseudo-hunters (or fast forward or fashion hunters) and the real hunters (conservative hunters). The first group is the bane of our society. They have no norms and values. I am against them and usually willing to pick a fight on any forum.
The second group is actually forming strategic alliances with nature conservation organizations. They want to hunt, which means they want the prey, which means the environment where their prey can flourish, whch means joining hands with conservation organizations. These hunting groups are major funders of land reclamation and forestry regrowth efforts.
The only argument that comes to my conservationist mind on being pro gay marriages is that if everyone resorts to it, world population will decline to sustainable levels. This argument can be an anti-gay rant too. Another, slightly weak, argument comes from the nature itself where no higher animal species is involved in gay mating and gay courtships. Just saying.
Suhail, have you ever heard of a bonobo?
Look them up. See what they are most closely related to, and then come back to me and tell if 1. they are higher animals? or 2. they engage in homosexual acts?
I can tell you that I’ve never thought of having sex with another man.
I’m just saying…
Hi chervilmeadow.
I have been reading your contributions to these comment sections. I see you have an opinion about hunting and wild animals. That’s it, an opinion. I do not think your opinion is very considered and you certainly do not provide anything but opinions.
You do not provide a fact to back you up, or even state a clear philosophy about the subject although your arguments do tend to the animal rights activists stance. That stance is an emotional stance, not an intellectual one. It is based on the opinion that man have no interactions with nature and that gray area in between made up of domesticated animals should be abolished as well.There is no science behind the animal rights position, only politics.
In this case I think your opinion is of far less value than r-man’s, because he has a broad grasp of zoology and genetics, is extremely well read in this area, and his opinions are always backed up by facts supplied by his peers’ observations and measurements. IMHO, Scottie thinks and writes on a PhD level, unlike yourself, who blows in and states ill-considered opinons.
Specifically, he did not imply you are homophobic, what his words said was that you share the same childlike logic as those who espouse the homophobic position. He was not accusing you of being homophobic, but of using similar, poor thinking skills to ‘justify’ your opinion.
Nevertheless, I really enjoy the anecdotal parts of your posts. It is fascinating to get a personal glimpse of war-time London, and of all the bunnies that are there- when and if you need them! I was born in 1941, so I do not remember the war until about 1944 when it was winding down. I do remember Time Magazine reporting on the Palestinian refugees and feeling so sorry for them, though I did not understand what was going on except they had to leave their homes… sorry, I do get carried away by ancient memories…
You have seen Yosemite, so you have seen the vast empty lands all over the west, where when you step off the road, you are plunged into an wild, untamed, frontier, complete with scorpians and rattlesnakes, coyotes, javalina and bears. All we have is narrow paths dotted with sparse communities through these mighty wastelands; they are far from civilized. The entirety of England would fit inside Arizona and we only have about 5 million people. We have remote communities connected only by roads and now, the internet and phone system, but most of AZ, 9/10ths of AZ, is still empty of people.
Hunting in England and hunting in America are just not comparable in any sense of the word, except you admit you did it, when hungry. We still think of our countryside as a possible larder, too, but have far more riches in game than you did.
cheers!
Kate,
I am an engineer by education and a regulatory compliance person by profession. I am geared towards seeing everything in black and white. Yet I am of the opinion that it is opinions that bring colour in our lives and add to our knowledge base. I wonder what would the popularity of this site be without people expressing their opinions. It is opinions that make debates interesting and more people wanting to join and express their individual perspectives.
If Scottie had kept it a purely scientific site, I am sure there would have been fewer visitors. Again, this is just my opinion. But this can be tested. Scottie will know for sure the statistics on number of people visiting a post gravitating towards science versus a general discussion.
Actually Suhail you are not quite correct saying that “no higher animal species is involved in gay mating” Next time you get the opportunity just watch a tv programme showing a tribe of bonobos doing what comes naturally to them which is gay mating as you have never seen it – if you are respectable like me, and of course they are even slightly closer related to us than even their cousins the chimps. Certainly not the majority choice of activity among us homo sapiens but I understand it helps stop fighting and rivalry among bonobos, which in this respect are very different from the obviously more aggressive chimps.
No one suggests that hunters cannot also be conservation minded etc., but being on the side of the good guys on that issue does not imply its then okay for them to be one of the bad guys on the issue of killing animals for enjoyment – which they evidently do, or can you effectively argue othewise?
Scottie and chervilmeadow, point taken. I will research. One can learn at any stage of his / her life.
1) Hunting; We are omnivorous animals–hunting and fishing are in our nature. Done responsibly and w/o sadistic malice, they are sports–ones very important to a lot of people. If we, as a species, eschew hunting, then to be fair we must also eschew animal husbandry and go strictly veg. But that brings us back around to the fact that we are omnivores. Our dentition, digestive tracts and calorie-dependent large brains all attest to that fact. Furthermore, as already stated, responsible hunters are arguably the most important conservation resource we have. Last but not least, responsible hunters are much more in tune with nature than the vast majority of Homo sapiens var. Urbanensis. Denying our carnivorous side is of a cloth with the anthropocentric practice of so many who feel that we somehow stand apart from and above nature rather then being an indivisible part of it. (Side note: If there were so damn many of us, hunting would have no lasting impact on overall prey population at all.)
2) Homosexuality: Traditionally any human population is naturally going to consist of, roughly, 12 to 20% homosexuals (that does not include naturally occurring transsexuals, aka Hermaphrodites, who often get enforced gender assignment at birth.) We are also most certainly not the only species to engage in the practice. Among monogamous species alone, animals such as geese often produce same-sex pairings–pairings that last for the life-span of the two participants, despite the fact that in terms of reproduction it is detrimental to the species. In polygamous species such as the aforementioned Bonobo, it is even more common, although in that case it is more properly called bisexuality. In any case, it is nobody’s business what two (or three, or five) consenting adult human beings do in the privacy of their own home, and in the majority of cases it harms nobody else. If two people bond and pledge their troth to each other, what matter what gender (or mix of genders) they may be? With 7 billion individuals and counting, the practice is most certainly not detrimental to our species survival. Why shouldn’t the long term ‘spouse’ of a gay man or woman have the same conjugal rights under civil law as we straights? To deny them these rights is a violation of the very civil institutions we hold most dear–its discriminatory. As for religious denial of a gay “marriage” that’s perfectly acceptable (though rather contradictory on many levels) provided the religious institution/organization involved does not receive government support.
Very well argued massugu. There are about half a billion people in India who live entirely on veg though ;-). .
Hey Suhail–that’s their choice and more power to them. My own daughter is a vegetarian, as are many of my friends. It doesn’t work for me. My body is evolved to digest animal proteins–it has a lot of trouble with veggie proteins such as those from soy beans, peanuts and wheat to name a few. I suspect that by now those Indians have ‘selected’ for vegetarianism. While I might applaud universal vegetarianism as a Darwinian means to help reduce the global population, I tend to balk when I’m included among those culled (I know kinda two-faced ain’t I?) |;^)
The bottom-line, again, is that homo-saps are entirely too fecund and w/ the exception of the Chinese government, refuse to responsibly limit same. In terms a field biologist might use, we have exceeded the carrying-weight of the land. If there were only, say, 7 million of us, and assuming that we hunted only for ourselves, we could catch cod, shoot elk and bison, etc., etc. to our heart’s content, and it would have no appreciable effect on the species’ numbers. But 7 billion people use up a lot of resources. I read one estimate to the effect that for the entire population of China to achieve an “American’ standard of living will require the raw resources of 2 additional planet earths. Know of any new planets available for a good price?
Peter,
Nice job. Keep up the good work. For every one person disagreeing with you, you may find one agreeing.
Btw, we have to put a fight against ruthless hunters for 50 more years. I am sure we will have Holodecks by that time and then all the hunters will be able to live all their lives there chasing prey just like Hirojens.
Live long and prosper.
Sorry, another post addressed to Peter got posted here.
I have tried to be a vegan(?), but failed miserably too. Pork my system never accepted because of growing under religious compulsions and I am able to avoid beef as much as possible. But man o man when I see fish and Chicken Tikkas, I can wolf as much as I want lol.
Hi Kate,
not sure what to say to that except I see you borrow very heavily from the words and philosophy of retrieverman, who I believe is a lady incidentally. Maybe I have a simplistic approach and can best express myself on the animal rights discussion in more emotional terms than say a dedicated killer of wild animals – there I go again making emotive remarks I mean hunter. Hunter is a word with different associations going back to the time when our ancestors hunted to survive.
We don’t in most cases need to hunt to survive these days I hardly need mention, so why would someone hunt in 2012? Mixed motives probably: enjoying a day out in the countryside either alone or with companions, but also the thrill of the kill, let’s be honest. Okay maybe you are hunting as a hunter might say – “sustainably”, in other words not actually endangering the species – although there may be babies at home in the den now consigned to a painful lingering death. There I go being emotional again, sorry.
If there is no room in the course of debate to be emotional then okay that is the way you see it, I’m guilty as charged. Actually most things in which I engage in discussion can be addressed dispassionately but this is one issue which evokes a passionate response not just from me but from many.
Maybe we in Britain tend to get more emotional on that subject than you Americans. May I tell you that when a bill was being presented in our houses of parliament to ban hunting with dogs, primarily fox hunting, the great majority of the British public supported this ban wholeheatedly and the bill was passed by all political parties.
My support for this bill was influenced by my own everyday experiences. You see several times in the year the local hunt passed by our house in the country – and even entered our garden – dressed in all their red finery to the chorus of baying hounds and loud hunting horns. This was very colourful but every so often the hounds would catch a fox in the full view of villagers and local children. It would cry out, look terrified and then get literally torn apart in front of us all, blood everywhere. Cubs would sometimes be seen subsequently crawling about disorientated before they would either be rescued by a sociery set up locally for the purpose and be nursed to health if possible or more often it would be too late. Imagine what impression would be left on the minds of young children in particular (but us adults too). No one outside these hunts would have any advance warning when a hunt would be coming through the village
So you can see, Kate, where I am coming from on this.
Okay I know that a rifle fired out of view of members of the public is a slightly different matter, but that is not much comfort to someone opposed to the concept of hunting for pleasure inb principle.
That’s all I have to say on the subject – for now!
They call me Peter, incidentally.
Chervil; How many of those foxes ended up on the dinner table? Hunting (and fishing) does indeed serve both purposes you mentioned. But here in the New World, it also still puts a lot of meat on the table. I’ve never trophy hunted and don’t have much use for it, but I have hunted for game. Its good eating, its much better for you than all the corn-fed, hormone laced, livery-tasting Angus you find everywhere and its certainly no more reprehensible than banging a pig or a cow in the head with a sledge hammer.
BTW: are you a Vegan? If so, I respect your choice, if not, I think a little introspection is in order. In any case, death is part of the cycle of life, carnivores and omnivores bring that death to prey species daily and have done since life first evolved on planet Earth. We are omnivores. We don’t have to (and shouldn’t) be unnecessarily cruel about it, but killing for food comes as naturally to us as it does to a dog, a coyote or a tiger.
“We don’t in most cases need to hunt to survive these days I hardly need mention, so why would someone hunt in 2012? Mixed motives probably: enjoying a day out in the countryside either alone or with companions, but also the thrill of the kill, let’s be honest.”
I hate this argument, because I absolutely DO KNOW people who MUST hunt to survive. A limit of deer lasts longer and is cheaper than buying meat from the grocery store. If they could not hunt, they could not eat.
“Okay maybe you are hunting as a hunter might say – “sustainably”, in other words not actually endangering the species – although there may be babies at home in the den now consigned to a painful lingering death. There I go being emotional again, sorry.”
Hunting, at least at this point is time, is *required* to keep prey species sustainable (at least in white tail deer). There’s too many of them, they’re overwhelming the environment. To borrow a phrase, they exceed the carrying weight of the land. Also, deer season takes place during the mating season. There are no babies wasting away in a den, because they haven’t even been conceived yet. It is my understanding that this is how most hunting seasons are scheduled.
Marriage existed all over the world long before anyone had ever heard of the Jews, much less the Christians. Marriage is about as Christian a practice as celebrating New Year’s Eve.
As someone who has had something of a classical education, I am always amazingly offended by people claiming Christians invented strict monogamy. Laws against adultery were severe literally everywhere, though of course, only for women (Hebrews only standing out in regards to severity; they killed were other cultures banished). Sorry if this is a bit tangential, but it irks me that people invent this idiotic narrative of world history and ancient culture just to make their religious text seem more note-worthy.
I always thought King Solomon proved that even in that context, it wasn’t always one man and one woman!
Hi Peter.
Why do I feel slightly hostile that you think I borrow my opinions, thoughts, even words from R-man? Not at all, I have had my theories or at least hypotheses, for decades, and never found many who knew what I was talking about or cared; but in this circle of posters, I find kindred souls. Not to say he isn’t a helpful source of links! He does know more about genus and species and other things like that, than you or I. He is kind of like an online professor with office hours, if you know what I mean. In any case, so what?
You certainly are emotional rather than intellectual. You tried to provoke my emotiom with your condescending comment. An appeal to emotion is a logical fallacy, so that cuts out most of your arguments back at me- most of which were mere emotional reactions, rather than a measured, thoughtful reaction.
Just because one buys meat in a supermarket, does not mean that it was not killed by humans- of course it was. The kindness of slaughter house killings is often under discussion for its apparent absence. Why is one kind of killing acceptable to you – If you still eat meat- and the other, more conservative, more traditional, and FAR more ancient method of one-on-one killing one’s meat not acceptable? My children learned how to kill, gut, and defeather chickens and they really appreciated it when they eat them, to this day and swear those homegrown ones tasted the best, EVER! More than once, the topic of discussion was what the best, cleanest, safest, or least traumatic method of killing a chicken is. No one ever used guns on chicken or domestic fowl!!! My children also killed and skinned a few bunnies, which are a fantastic alternative to chicken, you must admit. And it was fun to learn how to tan and preserve the hides. Of coursed, the ‘dogwolves’ ate every bit we did not use.
What the law is in England – especially about fox hunting, has little to do with US. Maybe some of those genetically Anglo, wannabee Brits in Virginia still fox hunt, but it is largely an irrelevant issue here, so even your bloody example of foxes being torn apart in front of children is another appeal to emotion.
Children who eat meat should learn how it is killed, and should care. That makes me think of one or our foremost animal scientists, Temple Grandon, of whom I am also a fan, who pragmatically accepts slaughterhouses, but strives to make them as painless as possible.
Adios amigo, I too have no desire to continue sparring with a reasonless creature.
Cheers!
HI massugu
I hope I wasn’t just dissing having opinions, but rather, emotional, unthought out opinions with no appeal to reason. That certainly doesn’t mean the discussion has to get so dry no one follows it!
In fact I love it when people take the jargon out of science and use laymen’s terms. I see this blog, and some others, as doing just that. I enjoy the broader subject matter than just dogs, too. These discussions of species and mixes of species are especially illuminating and I think Scottie is using cutting edge ideas and scientific work in his posts. I am sure he is among the “layman” leaders of a trend in new ways of thinking about species and genetics in dogs. That makes me a fan.
Massugu, you ask how many foxes ended up on the dinner table. Well we had a popular saying in reference to the fox hunters, “The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable”. However its all over now and few people seem to miss the hunting culture any more.
Kate, the obligation to decently protect animals destined for consumption is an important but separate issue from encouraging and protecting wild nature which is not threatening anyone. I would agree with killing a rat in the barn but not a deer in the forest.
My family used to make money off selling red fox fur.
Fox fur doesn’t contribute to climate change.
raeganw,
you are mixing species a bit; I was not referring to the deer as they don’t use dens where cubs would die when mum is killed. Our deer are all protected except for hunting under strict licence. No one hunts our little two foot high muntjac but some horticulturalists are getting restless as the number of muntjacs rapidly increases. The biggest agent of control of everything on our narrow twisty roads is the ubiquitous motor car. The amount of roadkill is phenomenal which is why those species which exploit this free bonanaza proliferate.
It’s a pretty big jump from “English fox hunting is unethical” to “all hunting is unethical.”
I don’t see how being hit by cars is more humane than being shot. I saw a white tail deer hit by a car on the highway last month. It was horrific.
I saw one, too. It was a bloody mess thrashing around on the road, terrified, but unable to get up. Meanwhile, the car’s engine was still running and the driver appeared to be semi-conscious.
If your cute little muntjacs weighed several hundred pounds, you’d rethink the notion of using cars for population control. (Unless you are driving Rolls Royces, I suppose. But then you’d have to wash the blood off the Rolls. Come to think of it, I can’t think of any problem for which “Hell, just run over it with a car” is the solution. But I digress.)
Somewhere here you’ve excepted rats. When you bash mum-the-rat with a shovel don’t you leave poor little – sob – ratties to starve? Or do your dear little dogs take care of those? Baby rats are cute, you know. Check under the hedges where they like to play. But be quick about it; they are cute for just a few weeks before they turn into adult vermin.
Vermin. How do you define “vermin”? Can you still hunt vermin with dogs? Do you trap or poison? (Such pleasant ways to die!). Do you have a sanctuary or a park for vermin?
Sounds to me as though you are coming from a tradition in which hunting was a sport for the aristocracy, a crime for the poor (unless they wanted to eat rats). You rationalized your hatred for upper class privilege as “cruel” to animals. What you meant, but could not say, was that it was cruel to you, which it was.
When you came to establish equality of privilege, you couldn’t very well legalize “cruelty”. You’d painted yourselves into a corner. You had to prohibit hunting. Which causes you all sorts of inconvenience. It means you contradict yourself when you except rats, an animal whose only crime is to be living somewhere that you claim as your private domain.
Two wrongs do not make a right. Why don’t you just admit you were wrong and begin to think our way? If you define hunting as not necessarily cruel, then you are open to a new means of population control, a new sport for people, employment for your valuable gun dogs and a whole new industry catering to hunters, writing new game laws and regulations, etc. The animals are going to die one way or the other.
I must have been too vague, sorry, but believe it or not people don’t actually aim their cars at animals in the road. I don’t always know whether the individual looking upset at the creature just crushed by his or her car is wet eyed for the animal or at the loss of no claims bonus. So it is an accidental agent of control – was the meaning I was trying to convey.
I don’t think you’d like it in this little country one bit desert windhounds not least as we can’t legally set dogs on people – or even shoot trespassers. How restrictive is that!?
There you go again with the ad hominem attacks. Why are you under the impression that she attacks human beings?
Because our good friend Weevil doesn’t understand the concept of ‘joke,’ namely that I made one about feeding trespassers to my dogs upthread. I don’t actually feed trespassers to my dogs.
Though I’d make an exception for Weevil. Dogs gotta eat, you know, and I hate to waste good meat.
I live in a Castle state, sweetheart. (Google it.) Even the local sheriff stops at the end of the driveway.
Peter,
Please see my post addressed to you but posted in response to massugu somewhere above. Nice work. Please keep it up.
chev, will you please stop derailing threads? You have spread this on most of scottie’s recent posts. Stay there, please.
On the quote: The bible allows many wives, concubines, and rape victems should marry thier rapeists. Not to mention getting a child out of your brother’s wife if he has none. The last twi of those seem worse than two consentin adults enjoying themselves, imo
To chevrilmeadow-
I respect your choices. I respect that you do not hunt or eat meat. Even if I do not totally agree with you…..I eat some meat, I raise a few sheep and goats, I milk my goats and enjoy many treats made from their milk. My goats are raised on a natural diet, no antibiotics or hormones. I also slaughter a few each year. I eat their meat, my dogs get every piece I do not eat. I always treat then well, they live a good life. Everything must eventually die. I do not take it lightly that they give their lives in order for my body to continue on and use the protein it needs to properly function. I respect them. It really is a beautiful cycle of life that has been set up for all living creatures. This is how it is meant to be. Some creatures were created or evolved to eat only plant matter, other creatures are to eat them. It is the cycle of life, of the planet. I do not hunt for pleasure, actually I do not hunt at all, but will gladly accept moose meat from friends who have hunted to feed their families.
On the subject of your country….I am not sure where exactly you live, but I am horrified at the thought of living anywhere where I could not protect my LIFE against a trespasser that intends to rape, murder or steal from me! Where I live it would take police at LEAST 30 minutes to respond to a call, it takes just seconds or minutes for a CRIMINAL to hurt or KILL me. I for one am glad I can protect MYSELF in the country I live in.
If this recession gets much worse, pitbullmojo, we will all be out hunting even the local cats and dogs . Swans have begun disappearing from the Thames over here and some eastern european visitors have been questioned by police – no its true. These visitors were not to know that the swan is next to sacred here and officially they are all owned by the queen – so she can eat them of course and may do so.
By the way, does that nom de plume indicate ownership of a pitbull? If so, don’t try to get it into the UK as they are taken in by the volks polizei and destroyed here by law. Never mind,say the lads, you can wind a staffie up to take its place any day.
And thanks for warning me not to ask the way by knocking on your door anytime soon, given that you, like so many in your country, appear well armed and not necessarilly sober 24/7. and that’s only if the ubiquitous pibull doen’t get me first. I am joking – honestly.
Oh. America isn’t in recession.
But Britain is.
Thanks to David Cameron’s austerity policies!
Got your drift Suhail, eat chicken but not pork or beef. You seem to have made a possibly sensible dietery decision there according to he experts who say chicken okay red meat carcinogenic – arguably. Can I suggest one addition to make you live forever – eat plenty of fish, preferably oily fish – and don’t smoke – even the ‘good’ stuff.
Ah chervilmeadow, brilliant observation, I do own a pit bull, a few actually. They would welcome you with open paws and even show you where the valuables are were you to enter my home while I was away or here. Its the komondor that you need to be cautious of. She comes from many many generations of dogs bred to guard, the pit bulls have not.
I am quite sober. I do not smoke anything either nor do I take pills. I am betting you and I have much in common actually. I love animals, hate cruelty and suffering of animals or humans.
As far as losing your way and asking for directions at my home, I would gladly help you. I would not just shoot someone that knocked on my door, I have some sense. Now if one were to be trying to pick my locked door with me inside and they did not leave when I yelled at them through said door to leave me alone and leave my property that would put me on guard, for my LIFE. I would call the police. If this attacker then broke through my door or window it is my BASIC HUMAN RIGHT to defend myself if police have not arrived, is it not? A truly innocent person just asking directions would not be breaking down a door right?
I think I would not try to take my ‘pit bulls’ into your country as I know they are not welcome there. Why would I want to take my family members to a place where racism against them is allowed, because of the way they LOOK not the way they behave???
I do enjoy this exchange wevare having. I really think you and I have more in common than you know
“They would welcome you with open paws and even show you where the valuables are were you to enter my home while I was away or here.” I love it! That’s been my experience w/ pitties as well–they’re pushovers.
Now you really have me worried retrieverman, so sister can you spare a dime?
Like the thirties, the forties in Europe were no honeymoon either. Lucky we had our spifires to hold back the luftwaffe when we were entirely alone in the fight against Hitler. Now imagine me singing “God save the queen” as I eat my last slice of bread!
I meant SPITFIRES of course and we also had a useful plane made of wood and cotton called the hurricane which partadoxically shot down more heinkels than did the the spit. But we don’t talk about that..
I got sidetracked here. In response to the original blog posting. I know not why people have to use bits and pieces of the Bible to defend their stance on gay marriage. The bible in fact tells you to do many things people nowadays find awful and they do not do them. Some examples have already been given.
I personally am not offended or affected by ones choice in a partner.
Trouble is Kathy we have to be pragamatic in our approach to other species (and nations ,but that’s something else) The thing with rats, since you came back about them, is that they tend to spoil foodstuffs in the barn with the diseases and toxins they carry on their bodies and in their urine and droppings. You also have to be careful the one you are trying to deal with does not turn round and bite you – or your dog, as the bite is poisonous too.
Rats carry a waterborn disease called Lymes which can be fatal to swimmers and canoeists, the list goes on..
One also has to be careful as to the choice of killing method: if you use blood thinning pellets then the rat who eats the stuff will need several meals of them and will gradually die in agony. As it is dying from poison it will itself be toxic and dangerous to other life forms, such as, in this country, a red kite or buzzard, a dog, cat, badger or fox etc etc. So the best method may be some form of metal trap, presuming you don’t have a small jack russell terrier.
Obviously I hardly need to emphasise that rats around the home and farm must be dealt with. One would not necessarily go out into the fields and woods to kill rats and you would have to overcome your natural aversion to killing any creature. Actually I doubt if you were being serious pleading for the rat on the mat so to speak – I sense a joke but it’s hard to be sure with some Americans as you are not all big on irony I notice.
It comes down to not harming animals which are not harming me and mine, respecting the right of ALL relatively harmles animals, the great majority, to live undisturbed and for me to take pleasure in seeing and hearing them or just knowing they are around. And if we can sometimes give another species a hand to help it thrive then consider it our privilege to do so – and certainly don’t kill them for ‘pleasure’ or convenience.
Another embarrassing typo – it’s PRAGMATIC.
Wow, from God, to hunting, to veganism, to ‘pitbulls’ to WWII all in one fell swoop.
Some people are born trolls.
I think he lives under a bridge somewhere.
You know what we do with trolls in Texas, don’t you?
Make them have a gay marriage with Obama as the justice of peace?
SSS. Shoot, shovel, shut up.
LOL!
Shoot bullets at their feet with two 6 guns?
And talking of BIG RATS, most of the English papers have been carrying a story and pictures lately about a monster rat which was killed by an old guy out walking. He said he hit it on the head with his walking stick. Pictures show it was about three feet long.
Anyway this ‘violent’ pensioner was soon visited by the local police, the RSPCA and the local authority. Reportedly the incident is being investigated as a possible case of cruelty to a wild animal. How windyperson would have laughed and scorned!
Actually the dead rodent was a coypu, relic of a large population of this south american swimmer which built up in wetlands of eastern England around the fifties – until a lot of banks gave way (no not ones which which caused the financial crash) and it was realised the coypus, originally from fur farms, had been exercising their tendency to burrow a lot, resulting in local flooding from collapsed river banks
The coypu was soon declared a pest, most were killed and people soon forgot that a few of them had held on to breed again, but this time not in destructive numbers. However you wouldn’t choose one of these as a cuddly pet for your kids, trust me.
We have coypu in the United States. They are wrecking wetland ecosystem. They were brought over as “nutria” (otters) that were going to be used for fur farms. They never sold, so they released them.
That’s okay because we sent the Southern Cone beavers, and they are destroying their forests.
I don’t wish to get pedantic about semantics but here in England “nutria” was a name given to the musk rat, another mammal unfortunate to be destined for making fur coats ( what you vain women are responsonsible for, eh) Otters don’t have that name here. I haven’t heard of the Southern Cone Beaver. But talking of other beavers, we have recently had the european beaver reintroduced to Scotland where it has been observed starting to breed and and create river diversions just like beavers are supposed to do. To start with a few suitable saplings had to be planted for it but now the lodges are appearing (just about the only new houses being built right now)
Of course this is a different species to the one in north america and guess what – our beaver is bigger than your beaver, so there!
Nutria is Spanish for otter. The animal we call a nutria is a coypu.
Muskrats are native here, and they have been introduced all over Europe for fur reasons.
Along with our mink, which is a mink, which is beating your mink, which is a type of polecat. (It makes hybrids with ferrets and polecats. Our mink does not.)
Actually our european mink is I believe a proper mink just like the american mink (incidentally, where did you get the information that european mink hybridise with ferrets and polecats, not saying it’s not true just never heard of it) and they they are almost identical in appearance you may have noticed.
The American mink is one of the worst introductions so far. Fed up with the awful confined conditions in their fur farm cages (or released when the farm went bankrupt) the americam mink soon found their ways into the river systems.
And because at that time a few decades ago our otters had become rare south of the Scottish and Welsh borders, the american mink had nothing to naturally control them. Normally the otter is the uber predator of our river systems. Anyway the american mink set about killing our water birds, water voles etc. Fortunately we got wiser and cleaned up our rivers to a high standard, stopping the dumping of waste in them, replanting reeds and rushes etc until miracle of miracles, salmon are once more swimming up under London bridge and on to the upper reaches to spawn. The otter came back and are now present in every British river. The final bonus – the otters bully out the american mink and so a better balance is being achieved naturally.
The one permanent casualty is the european mink which is likely to get wiped out as it does not compete well with its American cousin. So the mink niche is occupied by a different mink these days. At least you inherited our sparrows and starlings though ironically our local populations of those species are a bit on the decline.
The thing is our mink is phylogenetically distinct. It’s closest relative, the sea mink, died out in recent times. It’s the only North American carnivoran to have gone extinct since the Pleistocene.
The other mink is a type of polecat. I would suggest calling it the water polecat or the water ferret.
So tell me how is that little guy getting along who lives down the burrows of prairie ‘dogs’ you know him with the cartoon bank robber mask a sort of ferret I’m struggling here, help me out. He was just about extinct not long ago and was being bred in captivity last I heard. Forget its exact name just now but a very pretty animal who was unfortunately hard wire to eat a species of rodent itself in almost terminal decline. Maybe he will be the second American carnivore to bite the dust?
Black-footed ferret. It is a polecat.
They almost went extinct, but there are now 600-700 in the wild.
They are also being re-introduced to Alberta and Saskatchewan too.
Well that is great news to see a specialist in decline now rising in population, and so good to look at. Obviously someone knows what they are doing, spreading him out. I must remember – black-footed ferret don’t know how I forgot. I recall all the publicity some years ago when the rescue attempt began. Presumably that implies good news for its prey species too? Yes he’s an obvious polecat in appearance.
It’s very similar to the steppe polecat of Eurasia.
There are areas where they have preserved grasslands and prairie dog towns, and that’s where the black-footed ferrets have done well.
That surprises me, but that would make your blackfooted ferret close to our ferret which is basically a steppe polecat. Our ferret is not such a specialist eater as the blackfoot. I would bet they are well diverged those two species, but someone studying the blackfoot might know this definitively. Find out if you get time – and report back if you do – please.