Comments on: Ravens Lead Rescuers To Missing Woman

In Critical Condition After Being Lost For Nearly Two Weeks In Oregon Mountains

[kaiyo4u]

All you anti-hunting advocates need to be reminded that this land was managed for thousands of years before the Europeans arrived. There was hunting, fishing and trapping done well before our input here.
Most people who hunt do not hunt for trophies, they hunt to supplement their food stocks. I am a hunter and do not advocate trophy hunting. I hunt with a rifle as it leads to less suffering for the animal than bow hunting. I also will not risk a shot on an animal that is running or the chance of only wounding it is high.

DaveGF, have you ever been to Oregon? All the material you cited comes from New Jersey. How does it have any relevance to Oregon? Which has it''s own laws and management practices...
You should see the dead deer claimed by cars every year there on the roads. I used to live there and have many friends who update me of events there. Without predation, the populations will increase and their will be deaths due to starvation, injuries, and disease. All of which are slow deaths. Would you want to wish that on anyone or anything?

I am glad the hunters were found and that they will be ok. Kudos to the off duty cops who found the woman.

[agnim]

"But if it was a g.ay deer you''''d be the first one to see it suffer and die slowly...hypocrite!
Posted by ozilot at 12:32 PM : Sep 07, 2007"

LOL
If you are talking about your ''g.ay dear'', then maybe.
BETTER DEAD THAN GAY!

[kaviz]

Venison, yum yum.

[three-o-six]

I know -- Insted of us hunters going out and "slaughtering" animals -- we can hunt for "thophy" environmentalists -- DaveCG and newster -- you wouldn''t mind giving me you true address, would you -- then the hunt can begin!!

[sugarmice-2009]

sorry - make use of the animal - typo (not make sure)

[sugarmice-2009]

Man has survived off nature ever since evolution
I do not approve of trophy hunting - that is an absolute no no to me and should be outlawed BUT for people to hunt and use the meat (my family has hunted for years and years and we would make sure of 90% of the animal we killed - we would even donate to the local Native Americans the hides or pelts (we never sold them).

[sugarmice-2009]

because even if you eat FISH you are not a vegetarian - vegans should stick to vegetables only - which if you really want to look at it at an odd point of view is still killing a living thing - you plant a seed, you nurture it to grow to adult hood (if I may call it that) and then mindlessly yank it out of the ground to consume..

[sugarmice-2009]

perhaps your version is slaughter - they were out like legally allowed to hunt deer
they weren''t out there slaughering hundreds of animals needlessly - how do you know they would have even been successful. When you slaughter, you round up or herd animals to a location and then mindlessly kill them - this was 2 elderly people against the elements - no one knows if they would ever had bagged a deer.
This story is about a woman who got lost and then was found -
so are you a vegetarian? a true vegan?

[davegf]

sugarmice, the woman got lost during a BOW HUNTING trip. All that time and money wasted searching for someone who went out in the woods to slaughter wild animals.

[nothappyatall]

THANK YOU DaveGF for saying it all, and it''s true, these hunters don''t go after the old and sick like wolved did, they go after the PRIME specimens for their TROPHY RACKS. We have learned NOTHING from the past- the more animals we kill the more and faster they REPRODUCE.
The only reason "sportsmen" support and ''protect'' deer and the like during off season or airlifting food to stranded deer in snowstorms is so they have MORE to kill later- not out of any goodness in their hearts! It''s a self serving mass slaughter industry.

If humans would mess OUT and leave nature to it''s own, and stop meddling, then we wouldn''t have the problems we do NOW as a result. We have forests FULL Of debris feet thick that when it catches fire it burns everything to the ground because of our failed management policies of putting out fires immediately and allowing dead brush and weeds to grow feet thick.
We meddle with protecting one species like deer by killing off wolves, we try to do something with honey bees to "bolster" them and now a virus imported from Australia may be THE cause of colony collapse.

[sugarmice-2009]

Since when did this story become the focus of the deer - and bow hunting?
This article is EXCLUSIVELY about the lady who was lost for 2 weeks and found thanks to mother natures'' ravens.... it has NOTHING to do with hunting and it''s different cruel ways of man (fully armed ) and animals that their only defense is they know the woods better than you.
I used to be a hunter but am no longer
My choice and not of anti hunters or any other reason other than personal.
Let''s keep to the story please and show some support for the officers that went over and above the call of duty to look for this woman on their own and for the ravens who guided these men (unknowningly) to this lady.
Thank you guys for taking time away from your family and extracurricular activities while off duty to do this and succeed. Thank you.

[tcoleman12]

I wasn''t aware this was the "Tree-Hugger"Dave board, but here goes.

Are deer/car collisions on the rise due to higher deer population as you indicate? Or are other factors involved such as more cars on the roads, more roads and less habitat for the deer?

I think some of the deer are just unhappy and throw themselves in front of cars to "end the pain" of living in the same world with people like Dave.

So, Dave, based on your logic of hunting it makes it thrive, we should put several of the animals currently listed as "endangered" on the "hunt" list for their own good. Make some good recipes for them and they will be back to full force in no time.

[kidd40m]

one one is talkin of locking them up for killing deer. if it was vick some would be screaming bloody murder!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[davegf]

Deer hunting could gradually be phased out over the next five to ten years by no longer allowing a 40% slaughter of the herds each year. By gradually decreasing the amount of deer which are allowed to be killed each hunting season, the herds would be eventually be allowed to once again stabilize themselves naturally. Problem is, a lot of people won''t like all that money lost, and they won''t like being told they can''t get their jollies killing animals out in the woods.

The good news is that despite the annual rise in U.S. population, the number of hunters is decreasing each year. New methods of effective birth control and it''s delivery have been developed. They will continue to be developed and refined, and eventually, despite the best efforts to block their use, will be used to humanely rectify what the deer hunters have done to the deer population in this country.

[davegf]

Also, on one hand, Fish and Game claims deer hunting is necessary because there are no natural predators, yet with the other hand they collect the fees from the licenses sold to kill the natural predators. New Jersey''s coyotes, like deer, have been targeted for recreational killing. NJ has both hunting and trapping season for this natural predator. One of the reasons they are being killed is that many hunters see coyotes as competitors for deer.

To sum up, deer hunting actually stimulates reproduction and has been an atrocious failure nationwide in it''s so called management of the deer population. It causes slow, painful, horrific death to hundreds of thousands of deer nationwide. Collisions with cars are on the rise. Hunters perpetuate a myth that what they are doing is necessary and good for the deer. This is simply an excuse for them to go out and do what gives them pleasure......killing.

I will say that some hunters actually believe they are doing something good, and they try to do it in a humane way. No doubt. Where they fail to escape ridicule is that they don''t bother to do extensive factual research before going out into the woods and deciding what lives, what suffers, and what dies. Ignorance is not an excuse.

[davegf]

Most of the information cited here comes directly from the New Jersey Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife, (Fish and Game). For over 100 years, Fish and Game has had complete authority over NJ wildlife. Along with the Fish and Game Council, they create the hunting seasons and decide how many animals should be killed.

The salaries of Fish and Game employees are paid for by the sale of hunting licenses. Fish and Game must sell over $11,000,000 worth of hunting licenses just to cover their salaries and benefits. It is for this reason that they must ensure that there is an abundant supply of animals for hunters to kill. This is the tragedy of it all, the very organization that should be protecting our wildlife makes its money from their slaughter. Despite the claims of hunters, NJ Fish and Game has yet to buy one acre of land to preserve open spaces.

Fish and Game clearly stated their intent in their 1990 report titled: An Assessment of Deer Hunting in New Jersey .

"Deer were re-established in New Jersey by sportsmen-conservationists for the purpose of sport hunting. Since that "restocking period" the responsible agency (now the Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife) has been managing the deer resource for this purpose." (pg.7)

[davegf]

It is horrifying to think of any living creature dying in such a slow, painful way, What makes this nightmare so much worse is that it happens to hundreds of thousands of deer in our country every year. The documented wounding rates that bow hunters inflict upon deer are appalling. In their report "An Assessment of Deer Hunting in New Jersey" (p.25) the NJ Division of Fish and Game documented the percentage of deer that bow hunters shoot but do not eventually find:

"Langenau (1986) found that archery deer hunters were estimated to have retrieved 43% of the deer hit by arrows..."

The state agency that promotes and supports hunting admits that bow hunters do not find 57% of the deer that they wound. In the 1998-99 hunting season, bow hunters killed 20,975 deer. The 57% wounding rate for hunting with bow and arrow means that another 11,956 deer were shot and wounded. Some of these wounded animals made their ways to roads where they were hit by cars. Others, no longer capable of feeding themselves, starved.

Bow hunting is barbaric entertainment that best deserves to reside in the dark ages, not in the 21st century and not in a country that deems itself humane.

In the 1998-99 deer hunting season, shotgun hunters killed 29,189 deer. Taking the 19% wounding rate into account, an additional 5,546 deer were shot and left to die in the woods.

[davegf]

By its'' nature, shooting an arrow into a living target is an inaccurate and vicious way to kill that animal. In fact, bow hunting is centered on wounding the creature who then bleeds to death. Hunting magazines are full of articles that teach bow hunters the rules of the game, such as when they should begin to track an animal that they just pierced with an arrow:

"The rule of thumb has long been that we should wait 30 to 45 minutes on heart and lung hits, an hour or more on a suspected liver hit, eight to 12 hours on paunch hits, and that we should follow up immediately on hindquarter and other muscle hits, "to keep the wound open and bleeding"." Glenn Helgeland - Fins and Feathers Winter 1987.

"For a bow hunter to easily recover a wounded deer, the blood loss must be extensive. A deer will have to lose at least 35 percent of its total blood volume for the hunter to recover it rapidly." Rob Wegner - Deer and Deer Hunting August, 1991.

[davegf]

Deer hunters do not kill the sick and weak deer, they go for the big strong bucks with as many antler points as possible. Despite what hunters say, these bucks are not old, but are usually only 2-3 years of age which can be found out by the condition of their teeth. They do not kill the does because an amputated doe head does not look as cool as a buck''s head with large antlers....to a neanderthal. They kill mostly bucks. This practice is not mimicking the natural selection process. Without human interference there would be approximately one doe for every buck. Now, there are almost eight does for every buck. As deer are not monogamous, the stage is deliberately set for a population boom.

Using NJ as an example of how ridiculous the "deer management" arguement is, and how hunting is truly a joke, the population of deer in NJ at the turn of the 20th century was almost zero. Deer were introduced for "sport". Due to the so called proper "management" policies that some seem to think are necessary and work so well, deer population has done nothing but grow and grow to it''s current level of 150,000. 60,000 deer will be killed this hunting season, all to be replaced as described above by next year (and increased). The hunters can then once again promote their decades long failed "management policy" which is truly just a ridiculous excuse for them to go out in the woods and get their jollies killing animals.

[davegf]

Without hunting, deer populations stabilize themselves based upon the amount of food and water present, land available, and natural mortalities. When conditions are bad, deer respond with decreased pregnancies, and death among the weakest members. Within these conditions, there is no increase in the size of the population. The herd remains stable and healthy. This is how nature regulates wild animal populations. However, when hunting is introduced to a stable deer herd, everything is thrown out of balance. When a large number of deer is removed from a herd, competition for food, water, space and breeding opportunities is reduced. The reaction of the herd to the sudden kill is increased breeding. With plenty of food to go around, more does are likely to get pregnant, and twin and triplet births often occur. This added nutrition will also allow new born fawns to gain enough weight by the time they are 6 months old to become pregnant. Normally, they would wait 2 to 3 years. This new, high birth rate not only replaces those that were killed, but it adds significantly to the size of the total population.

This has ben proven countless times in studies nationwide. This is also what happens under the same circumstances with countless other species. This is pure science and fact. What grandpa told you when you were sittin'' on his knee, or your cousin'' Billy Bob hen you were drinkin'' a beer out back on the porch doesn''t mean a *** thing if you live in the real world.