Julia take a deep breath and just hang on. I am a slaughterman (abattoir chain line and solo kill) and I could not agree more with Prawn, the amount of people that tell me I'm awful for the work I've done while chowing down on a chicken sandwich blows my mind.
Please don't tell me to take a deep breath or anything else. I'm entitled to hold whatever view I do.
You, in the above paragraph, are completely misinterpreting what I have said. I have not objected to the industry which kills animals for food. People want to eat meat. Therefore we need such an industry.
I am not ignorant of the processes in abattoirs: my husband worked in one as a medical student.
I am, however, critical of any killing process which causes the animals unnecessary distress or pain,
something referred to later in this thread apparently as being "mushy", probably sentimentally stupid.
Too bad.
What I have been responding to essentially is the suggestion in the guns thread that hunting animals is fun for the whole family, a great day out in the fresh air etc. That just sickens me.
I also qualified my comments by saying an obvious exception is any creature that is in nuisance proportions and/or is a threat to other animals.
I will be very interested to see what other board members have to say on this issue. Always seems to be a contentious topic!
It is. And most of us who make any contribution to the topic do so because our views, on both sides, are strongly held. That is no reason to be rude or to make personal attacks. I suggested earlier that it's a topic which will never end in happy agreement.
Dad was a butcher
Brother still is.
I used to go shooting all sorts of things when a kid.
One night chasing rabbits in a ute across a field on a hot summers night
3 of us gunning down rabbits as they ran everywhere until one poor bugger was left being shot at
by 3 of us.
I can still hear the screaming of terror from that poor rabbit.
I stopped everyone from shooting and from that day forward havent shot or been interested in terrifying another living creature.
If I had to to survive then Id do it.
And that was my point. When people had to kill to provide food for themselves, of course it's reasonable.
I understand people on farms killing their own food.
But Prawn's comment about demonstrating respect for an animal by killing it just makes no sense to me, especially as I know he lives in a city which undoubtedly has plenty of food available for purchase.
We are talking about food now stay on topic!
We are also talking about the provision of food. My contention is that if you do not have to provide your own food (i.e. you have access to purchase of all kinds of food) why would you want to kill an animal unless it's for fun (what you probably call sport) or in an attempt to reduce overpopulation of a species.
Prawn advantages of killing your own food:
knowing how to handle yourself in the event of an unstable collapse in the economy/country
Oh goodness, I'm sure the total depletion of the entire food supply of Australia is just around the corner!
Me too. Whenever i kill an animal (not that it is often nowadays) there is always that feeling of empathy and respect knowing that it died at your hands.
????? This is what I will never get. How can you be demonstrating respect for an animal by killing it?
If I come to your home and kill you, would you appreciate that I was doing it out of respect for you?