http://www.facebook.com/pages/National-Geographic-NO-to-Melissa-Bachman-Series/473459186017914
National Geographic are doing a series on a girl who hunts and kills animals for fun and has pigtails and pink weapons. No joke!!! We need to do somethng about this we need a posting. I can't belive Nat Geo would do this!
I don't always agree with Richard. I am not even anti hunting per se. But to put it in this form, all pretty in pink and girly, complete with expansive amounts of cleavage on a TV Channel targeted at animal lovers is nothing short of grotesque. Shame on everyone involved.
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That is certainly a deeply horrible colour for a rifle and no mistake!
Let's put her in touch with Jon Sykes over at Hydrographics Ltd; I have an air rifle with a lovely deep purple metallic finish which would put that horror to shame; certainly he'd be able to improve the firearm aesthetics, if not the general stupidity of the entire show...
I have to respectfully disagree.
I come from a nation with a very strong tradition of hunting and fishing. I was taught these traditions by my grandfather, who lived during the Great Depression. When he was growing up, the wild meat was about all they could get. For Thanksgiving, they ate ruffed grouse, not turkey (it took several grouse to feed a family, of course).
There have been studies performed on Florida and Louisiana alligators. Alligators in Louisiana are not a problem. They have never attacked anyone. Florida alligators do attack on occasion and often wind up overpoulated in and swimming pools. A few have attacked people.
The studies have found that the reason why Louisiana has less of a problem with alligators is that it has very liberal hunting culture. Alligators are game animal-- and yes, they are eaten. I've tasted it. It's one of the finest meats. Alligators in Louisiana have reason to fear people, and their excess numbers are culled every year.
Same goes with black bears around here. They are hunting heavily, and we have almost no problems with them. We have a growing bear population, and in some parts of my state, we have more bears per square mile than Smoky Mountain National Park. The bears are deathly frightened of people, and we have virtually no problems with them. Years of hunting, including the off-season when dogs are trained to hunt them, teach the bears that we are bad news. I know of places in other states where the bears are a huge problem. They break into houses and cars and tear up kitchens.
We don't have bears like that.
And yes, black bears are eaten. I've eaten the meat. It's like a fine pork when prepared correctly. The bears around here eat a lot of oak and hickory mast and it flavors the meat perfectly.
Hunting is about managing wildlife. It's not about extermination. A show like this would be a great asset to teaching people the realities of hunting as a wildlife management tool and perhaps end all of this judgmental nonsense that hunters face all the time.
I hunt. I fish.
I am not a Republican.
I am voting for Obama.
But I don't see the need to demonizing hunting and fishing, even if it is for sport.
Keep in mind that the scimitar-horned oryx would not exist today if Texas game ranches hadn't raised them for hunting purposes. Americans would not have the vast numbers of wild turkeys and white-tailed deer if they had not been preserved for hunting purposes. And we would not have vast acreages of clean wetlands had the duck hunters not lobbied very hard for them.
The unfortunate reality is that we cannot conserve most species unless we can come up with a use for them.
It's sad to say, but if there were no market for crocodile skins, there would have never been a chance of preserving saltwater crocodiles in Australia. (See David Quammen's book Monster of God for how crocodile farming saved the saltwater crocodile.)
This is a much more complex issue than hunters are evil.
I've come to the conclusion, after reading ecological study after ecological study, that the only way to be truly green is to embrace hunting and fishing as management tools. In this way, you get more people caring about wildlife issues and appreciating nature.
Which can't be a bad thing.
I was three or four years old when I first went hunting.
It hasn't effed me up.
I don't think.
The thing that I find offensive is not actually the hunting. It is the concept of animal killing as mass armchair entertainment, and even worse the fetishising of the whole affair. Cute chick, pretty pink weapons, pigtails and death smacks of keeping the masses entertained with bread and circuses. And we all know what happened to empires who tried that particular method of social control
I actually do watch hunting and fishing shows that are much like this one. Lee and Tiffany Lakosky.
My real problem is that too many people don't understand hunting and its role in conservation.
Nature programming has done a fine job of talking about conservation and ecology, but they haven't done a good job educating people about the role of hunting and field sports in managing wildlife.
I think we need a programming that does this. Otherwise, people are going to be so anti-hunting that we'll never be able to use it as a tool in wildlife management. It's happening in the US right now. We can't control feral animals because of the anti-hunting sentiment, and if white-tailed deer aren't hunted regularly and intensely, we won't have any vegetation left.
The bread and circuses thing began with professional wrestling and it's gone downhill since then...
I personally don't have an issue with someone hunting for food. After all, if people eat meat, then they know the animal has been killed for its meat. The only difference is that most people who eat meat didn't kill the animal. And most people prefer to forget the slaughter-house process etc.
But...I truly cannot fathom why anyone can find killing an animal as entertainment. And then watching it on TV too!
Seriously, what pleasure comes from ending the life of something like an elephant, a gorilla, or a bear?
It's like people who have an animal head mounted on the wall over the fire-place. Do they think it makes them a tough guy that they killed an animal?
Shooting a deer at a couple of hundred feet, or the same with a lion? There's nothing brave about that.
And what does that achieve? A sense of bravery? Macho? A feeling of "Yeah, I'm the man!"?
Killing a living creature for fun is...well...NOT fun.
This show is not an 'asset'it is a perverstion. The idea that Nat Goe are dong something like this makes me feel sick. They dress it up as entertainment. A pretty girl killing animals for the distraction of rednecks. Nat Geo screwed up any credibility it ever had. I for one will never have anything to do with these vermin ever again.
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