My Texas friend tells me Texans don't really hunt for real

[Erika]

He, a native Texan, says it is common to have Texas and Southern ranchers breed and harbor game birds, then get the "hunters" out there and they flush the farm birds out as easy targets for shooters who call themselves sportsmen.
Truly sick.

He says they do the same for deer and other hunted animals.

This is totally disgusting to me.

[Jane Austin]

1. I grew up in Texas and every man I knew hunted, mostly for birds.

My father didn't have the stomach for killing deer, probably because his Weimaraner was almost as big as some of them and that seemed creepy.

Nowadays, I don't know anybody who hunts. My husband and some of his friends like to target shoot, and they seem to really like guns, but none of them hunts.

[Name removed]

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[jody]

3. Hunting pen raised birds is big business as well as exotic game animals.

In many states, fish are raised in hatcheries and released to be caught.

Where does one draw the line between hunting and fishing for animals raised in pens/hatcheries and eating eating animals raised by various farm enterprises?

Shrimp, salmon, chicken, pork, beef, etc. are raised to be killed and eaten.

If one is a vegetarian, then I understand but otherwise I believe the line between hunting/fishing animals to be eaten and slaughtering domestic animals to be eaten is a bit gray.

[Erika]

5. My question would be the use of the word sportsman

There is little sport in executing tame animals by bullets and then calling yourself a sportsman.

[jody]

10. I agree re sports-person because women hunt also but I was simply

making a point that many people hunt pen raised birds etc.

[RoyGBiv]

4. More common with birds ...

I've heard of it happening with other game animals (and with animals it is otherwise illegal or very difficult to hunt), but mostly with birds ... oh, and fish. I find it really weird that some people who are into fishing go to over-stocked ponds (that is, stocked to the point the fish are starving and will bite a piece of paper thrown on the water or those where the fish become accustomed to being fed from that benevolent big thing above the water) and come away bragging about pulling in a mess of them.

My experience in OK with a lot of hunters is somewhat different. I know a lot of people who hunt deer as food, and it's strange becaue these are the people who do it "properly." They wait for the season to begin, abide by all regulations, and prefer to wander off into the woods and actually track. i.e. hunt, the animal. People who use bows are especially into this. Others wait for the season to begin, stock up on beer and Crown Royal, then wander off into the woods with firearms and stay drunk for a week. The only shooting that goes on tends to be at the air, or the occasional other hunter. Knew a guy who got killed this way.

[philarq]

6. sorry--not true --illegal in texas

knowing where there are birds on your property and going there and breeding them purposefully are different things

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/hunt/planning/quail_forecast/2006/

link to texas parks and wildlife quail forecast

[jody]

13. What do you claim is illegal in Texas? n/t

[philarq]

16. Raising Quail for canned hunting.--nt

I spent the afternoon going over the Texas statutes for laws regarding reporting of hunting accidents and the like (There aren't any) and Laws regarding non-resident hunting etc.

[jody]

17. Raising quail for hunting is big business in Texas. Please google

hunting quail texas and you will find many places that offer what you called "canned hunting" for quail.

You might want to read Texas law at CHAPTER 43. SPECIAL LICENSES AND PERMITS regarding "pen-reared birds".

[philarq]

25. You may want to read the whole thing ---nt

[jody]

29. Why? I read relevant portions related to pen-reared birds and that's all

I need to rebut your assertion that "Raising Quail for canned hunting" is illegal in Texas.

Did you read "SUBCHAPTER F. PRIVATE BIRD HUNTING AREAS" of Texas' "PARKS AND WILDLIFE CODE CHAPTER 43. SPECIAL LICENSES AND PERMITS"?

[Lone_Star_Dem]

19. No, that's not true

They have hunts here for both released and wild bobwhite quail.

[alfredo]

22. Do you really think they care what is legal or illegal?

Cheney didn't even have tags and got away with just a warning. You shoot a guy while you're hunting illegally and see if you get off with a warning. The laws mean nothing to the rich.

[jody]

23. What do you mean by tags? n/t

[Lone_Star_Dem]

24. perhaps he meant the upland game bird stamp

That would be my guess.

[alfredo]

26. From what I have read, he didn't have the proper license to

hunt in Texas.

[Ksec]

7. Agreed. Canned hunts are not real hunting

Im against them.

[Erika]

11. Yes, that is the term my friend used- canned hunts

It really seems despicable to me that you would feed and offer habitat to birds and animals, then invite "sportsmen" to kill them at their weakest moment.

Truly sick.

[sandnsea]

8. My experience with Texas right wing apologists

Is that they'll say any crazy ass thing to justify all sorts of hunting from spotlighting to road hunting to canned hunts. I highly doubt the regular Texas hunter actually does any of this, just like most hunters in the rest of the country.

[alfredo]

9. Now you can understand why Cheney pushed for war with a

country that was unarmed. Fake hunter, fake war.

Not quite sure if it was a canned hunt, but that's what expect from him. They might be illegal in Texas, but then the rich have their own laws. He was hunting without a tag, shot a fellow hunter and got away with a warning. They have their own laws.

[Erika]

12. Sadly, I can equate that with canned hunting

The other side doesn't have a chance for survival.

[alfredo]

14. What's a few birds

to a man who is willing to kill tens of thousands of people.

[Erika]

15. The shock and awe was some sort of sportsman call

Wasn't it? Kind of like fishing by throwing in dynamite sticks.

[alfredo]

21. Or hunting cows with a machine gun.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

18. WTF? These people consider themselves hunters?

I love guns, I like to shoot. I would kill nothing I was not prepared to eat and I would kill nothing I could buy at Safeway. What the fuck is wrong with people like Cheney? 70 quail and one doner? Is he gonna eat all that? I don't think so. So, he just kills shit for the sake of killing? I wish he would come to my front door so I could show him the effect of a 1oz slug.

[FreedomAngel82]

20. So the whole "it was an accident" thing is pure bs?

[txindy]

27. Say what? And a so-called Texan says this?

Did he wake up afterwards, because I think he was dreaming. I don't hunt, but I know a lot of folks who do and what your friend describes bears no relation to reality with any hunter I know. What rot.

[StellaBlue]

28. I am a Texan

All the men in my family hunt, mostly deer.

They used to hunt squirrel, but no longer. Now it's mostly deer, occasionally wild turkey, dove, duck.

One of my cousins bought his newborn son a camo outfit to wear in his crib. The same little boy shot his first deer, single-handedly, last season. He was six.

Mostly, my relatives go to land they own, equipped with hodgepodge 'cabins' of greater or lesser civilization, where they cook over an open fire and drink lots of beer, and maybe play a little cards or dominoes. Sometimes they have a 'deer lease' with a group of friends, for a season or contracted over years.

My father no longer shoots, just goes out and sits in the cold-ass deer stand to watch the wildlife. He would shoot, though, if he saw a really large buck.

We have a stuffed deer head (who has a NAME) high on the wall in the living room, and, opposite it, a stuffed duck, in full flight.

If anything is killed, it gets taken to the 'deer processor', and the men get tidy deer sausages and a mounted head at the end.

No women ever go, or are invited, on these hunts.

Some of my wealthier relatives also go down to the Hill Country or, more commonly, South Texas, to 'hunt' on enclosed lands, where the animals have been bred and are in total captivity, even down to having certain species in certain fenced areas. Sometimes the bigger 'ranches' even have African game, like lions, to 'hunt'.

My $0.02 - this is barbaric and ridiculous and cruel. I really don't understand WHY anyone would want to engage in this. If you want to 'hunt' (unless you legitimately NEED the animal for immediate nutritional needs), you should go to Africa and wrestle a lion to the ground with your bare hands and then eat its beating heart. That's how animals hunt.

[Erika]

30. Stella, that's what my Texas friend says

Thanks. It never occured to me to think of tame animals being shot and the shooters calling themselves sportsmen.