Hello everyone. As you know, the photos from this thread have gone viral. They shouldn't have, but as someone mentioned earlier in the discussion, anything on the internet once out there stays out there, and for a while.
My first reaction is to be sanctimonious about how beautiful wild animals were just slaughtered by metallic slugs during a wedding trip. But I'm friends and colleagues with several hunters, and as an astute commenter actually wrote on Facebook, they're amazingly not the demons ignorant posters are currently condemning them to be sight unseen. In fact, they're less different from the sanctimonious condemners than the latter are probably willing to admit (something I don't have to tell the members here).
Would I go shooting wild game? No, I anthropomorphize inanimate objects, for goodness' sake, so you know how I stand re animals. But what this couple replies is also true: being ambushed by a pride of lions & having your jugular pierced by a couple incisors and slowly have your life ebbed away whilst others break apart your limbs as you're still conscious is infinitely more inhumane than being dropped immediately by a good shot.
I also eat steak, so I can't risk being too much of a hypocrite. Temple Grandin, the humane slaughterhouse designer who claims her autism allows her unique insight into how animals feel anxiety, said something to the effect that controlled slaughter of cattle, albeit inhumane to the naked eye, is far less torture to the animal than being stalked, brought down, and having its entrails slowly eaten, sometimes while still alive, in the wild. I tend to agree. Not that you need my blessing by any means, so don't take this as some act of charity. Just letting you know that not all non-hunters are crazed tree huggers.
