It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
For millennia, the main use of ferrets was for hunting, or ferreting. With their long, lean build, and inquisitive nature, ferrets are very well equipped for getting down holes and chasing rodents, rabbits and moles out of their burrows.
Originally posted by blupblup
Originally posted by TheRedneck
I am a big proponent of hunting; I love venison, and like about any kind of critter we have around here: rabbit, squirrel, turtle, snake, even possum and raccoon. But I don't think I have ever killed an animal without some part of me wishing it hadn't had to be. That doesn't stop me from killing it, if it must be killed, but even putting down a rogue dog that is attacking makes me somewhat sorrowful for the animal.
But you don't have to kill them?
You have stores/shops near you I'm guessing?
So you don't have to shoot any animal, saying that you wish it didn't have to be seems like lip service, it doesn't have to be, you're choosing to do it.edit on 23/6/13 by blupblup because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by Nucleardiver
You don't think that ground beef and chicken quarters you buy at the store is picked off the "dinner tree" do you?
Regardless of how it is procured anytime you eat meat you are responsible either directly or indirectly for taking a life.
I would personally rather eat grouse and pheasant or chicken that we raise than to eat chicken from the store and same goes for our beef and lamb. Besides lacking the hormones and antibiotics of farm raised meat, there is the fact in my mind that at least the animal I kill out in the wild for food has lived a free life and been free to enjoy its life in the natural setting that nature intended it to live in.
Ever been to a chicken farm, or dairy farm? The chickens are kept in small crowded cages, sometimes millions to a chicken house, with no chance ever in their lives to move or enjoy any symblance of truly living. Same holds true of many dairy, turkey, and dairy farms. And don't even get me started on veal, those animals are treated in a way that IMO is torture.
originally posted by: camaro68ss
This weekend I went up to the family retreat for father’s day. We did a lot of target shooting and had a really fun time. At the retreat we have 140 cattle that graze in an open field. In that field are ground squirrels that burrow holes in the ground. The problem with this is the cows could take a miss step and break a leg in these holes the squeals dig. They also burrow under the house and can lead to poor integrity of the foundation. So they need to be eliminated.
So yesterday, we were packing up and getting ready to head home when a ground squirrels came out of a hole under the house and jumped on a rail and started to head to the backyard. I pulled out my .22 leaver action browning with iron sights and ran to the back yard to take him out. I was about 40 feet from him and shot him in the upper body. He fell into the dry creek, I lost him, found him after about 15 seconds and pulled one last shot to put him out for good, shooting him in his upper spine/neck.
I’ve target practiced my whole life. I’m a great shot but have never hunted before. At that moment I’ve felt the most dread I’ve ever felt in my life. I got tunnel vision and wanted to throw up but all my buddies were yelling and giving me high fives for my great shot. I could not sleep last night and all I could think about was the emptiness of death. I feel so bad, I can see the squirrels now, looking at me right before I took the shoot. I can’t justify the kill in my own head, even if they are ruining the foundation of the house and killing livestock indirectly because of their holes they dig and the cows break their legs in them. The only way I can rationalize it is, it’s better than dying from you guts melting from the poison they eat that’s out there right? And I know he did not go to waste because there is a family of coyotes out there that will eat him.
Anyways, this leads to a larger question. How the heck am I going to take down a deer in a survival situation when I can’t even shot a ground squirrels? Have you ever had hunters’ remorse? How do you get over it?
God forbid if you had to make the call to end another person’s life that’s trying to kill you or a loved one in a survival situation. I don’t know how I would deal this that after. I want to throw up thinking about it.