"US TV presenter Melissa Bachman blasted over smiling photo with lion she 'stalked and killed'" A bit of her own medicine I say...... Dammit where is sweats when you need him!
jb so she may be but think about the next steak you eat (if you do eat meat of course) and wonder about that. being of farming stock i can see that what she's at is merely taking it too far. what gives us the right to rip into peopel online just cos we can. honestly, i know a guy in the states who goes deer hunting with a crossbow. he eats what he kills, I respect his hobby but don't agree with it. I don't have the right to rip into him do i? same for her. I don't have to agree with it to not care about her doing it. Again is she being ripped off by a quota system or are the SA government allowing their natural resources to be killed off.. nobody's told me yet. I do get the point "a taste of her own medicine" I just don't really care that this is how she gets her kicks when the reality is nobody hating on her really does anything about the extinction of rhinos for medicines or tigers etc etc. she posted on her FB and twatter, she's obviously a publicity junkie given she tired to get on tv and such so its just easy target IMO. Again, steak on a plate...... whats really the difference... just the reason behind doing it, she gets a thrill out of killing. that all? people find it distasteful that she does? Great, but equally all she's learned is people on the internet are asses and she'll be off killing something else. I simply find the whole internet shaming pointless.
Killing an innocent animal and bragging about it is distasteful. Animals die all the time whether in the wild through natures course or not, but standing over it with a weapon and proclaiming to have killed it is extremely disrespectful and lacks any morals whatsoever. Linking it to cows, pigs, lambs, etc is ridiculous. There are laws for how these animals are treated and killed, there are no photo shoots to prove the killers bravado either! I take on board what some posters have said on here about someone else having killed the Lion and she just got a photo, but if these people charge the ridiculous sums mentioned, it would interesting to find out what happened to the Lion after that photo was taken. Do they then make more money selling the meat, fur, etc? Edit: I should probably add that I'm not one to be bothered about animals being hurt, killed, etc either. I'd pretty much eat anything as well. My views are as far from 'vegetarianism' as you can get. I often ask vegetarians what the point is? Them not eating doesn't save the animal, it just means there is more for others to eat.
and that's a valid point, i find hunting foxes distasteful but i don't go disrupting hunts I merely make sure nobody goes near the old homestead. Equally I might find her attitude out of sync with my own I have a far more visceral reaction to miley cyrus or gervais than i would have to her. why cos miley cyrus' clowning has a more immediate impact on my daughters for example perhaps? Maybe i don't care about this woman as i don't see anyone i know carrying on like this ever and have put her in the tiny minority category? However my point on food v a lion is not ridiculous. simply put it is my contention that people don't think about the animal when they tuck into a quarter pounder or a filet mignon so I think they really should I simply make the point that whether that lion got shot with a high powered rifle and died instantly or over 3 hours or whether a guy rammed a bolt into a cows brain would see on the face of it to me rather not the point. We kill animals as we can, we are in control. its the two sides of a coin for me anyway. so my friend in america who kills only what he eats up in west virginia with a bow has far more respect for nature, the outdoors and the food he's made himself with the result than this woman does. I look at meat on a plate and see the animal and it doesn't bother me. All we have in reality is the few snippets on this woman we might feel its totally disrespectful in this day and age to do it but her values are different to ours so we have to also respect that if we respect the animal so i really don't care for pouring hate down on someone form on high is all. i might add lion steak is meant to be quite nice... only joking! I do think that gervais one liner about hunting is quite funny... even though i hate the guy totally and switch him off....
I'd be lying if I said that thought hadn't crossed my mind I always think of the animal when I tuck into my meat. Don't know why I do but I do. Fair enough on the rest, that's your view and I can understand the impact on kids argument too
Freely admit I have only read the last few posts so if this has been said already I apologise. I have no argument with killing to eat - it matters not if the object being killed is animal or mineral. I tend away from those 'sports' that have killing as an objective. I despise fox and stag huting but I think that has more to do with my attitude towards those that do participate in those 'sports'. I don't do much fishing and when I do it tends to be from a boat at sea - where whatever is caught is eaten. As for glorifying in the kill then I do have mixed feelings. Normally I would say that they are somewhat naff but then I think back to a picture I have of my son holding a really big sail fish that he had caught. Don't know if any of that is interesting or useful.
basically this is what i think too... I knid of just don't care about her but do care about conservation
Mito - You've made some fair points and it's helped me see where you're coming from. Given that there are many Americans who have a penchant for hunting and I accept that [as with your friend] but don't condone it - My biggest problem with this woman is her glorifying what she's done by posting numerous pictures, lion, zebra etc with captions like 'what an incredible day'. It may have been for her but the pictures go out all over the world not just to her personal family album. That makes what she's done purposely contentious and inflammatory. I am of the opinion that if you don't stand for something, you'll stand for anything and while I think signing the online petition is useless as her kills were legal in the country she was in, so what good exactly would come from a petition - none as far as I can see - I don't see anything wrong with venting an opinion on here [the poor man's twitter]
it is a good point that she either doesn't get the world wide nature of the net OR she was courting publicity as is suggested by her tv attempts. It could be deliberate. and yes everyones got a right to take a stand, for me my stand is i really just feel its a bit strong to go at her
JB is right here. It's the glorification of the kill that's the issue here. The comparisons with farm animals reared for meat & humanely killed, animals culled for numerous reasons, vermin being eradicated or people hunting for food, are all missing the point here. This woman has paid thousands of $'s to take part in a staged 'hunt' with the sole intent, being the 'glory' killing of a noble beast with a rifle from a quarter of a mile away.....the intent is not to obtain food, nor cull, nor eradicate vermin, merely to glorify in the moment of having extinguished the life of an incredible wild animal........(in exchange for $22,000) Sorry, but if you don't think that's a sick act, then I think you belong in the same envelope as the kind of beaut that pays the fee.....
Well, On farm animals: the original wild animal they were bred from are gone, what remains exists only as an almost 'man made' replica. If we all decided tomorrow that we no longer ate meat as a species then the animals we know now as pigs & cows would die out. Some variations may successfully revert to their ability to survive in the wild but it's unlikely. While we choose to eat meat (I do) that is the only reason for the existence of these animals in their current form. I campaign through my government and power as a consumer to insure they are treated as well as possible in the process and expect same government to prosecute those that don't. If a government came along that wanted to shoot everything in sight for fun I'd campaign against it. Comparing the violence of predator kills to hunting is nonsense. The predator is killing for food with the tools they have through evolution. They also have a symbionic relationship with their prey. This woman didn't bite or strangle the Lion to death to then eat it. She comes from a society that has already made a factory process of killing animals to eat so there is no justificationto kill a wild lion. That goes in my opinion for any wild animals hunted by any individual that lives in a country that has animal factory processes. I as part of my many outdoor past times aquired outdoor skills & knowledge including with various firearms. Not once did I have to kill an animal to gain that knowledge. By all means after the fall of civilisation I'll pay more attention to how to create a trap or snare but until then I'll use the advantage we've already built into the system to eat my meat. If she wants this kind of "sport", I will happily volunteer to meet her in the wild with a similar weapon and skills and we'll see how she does. If she wins then she can pose in a picture with her foot on me, I'm fairly sure she'd not like those odds though.. And frankly trips to south Africa by rich westerners smacks more than a little of the colonial rape of 3rd world countries best left in the 19th century. You name it, more gorrilas, elephants, lions (I could go on) die to give fat white westerners costs, rugs or ashtrays than to be consumed by aboriginal tribespeople. The tribes people figured out sustainability 1000 years before we built our fishing fleets.
My opinion, for what it's worth; Kill if you have to- for food, self defence or that of others, etc. Killing for "sport" is unjustifiable. All arguments to excuse it are sophistry.
Mito - I get your point about Miley Cyrus however, I know this hunter woman isn't on your daughters' radar in the same way, but let's suppose for the sake of argument that she was. I know which one I would be most worried about my kids having as a role model and it isn't the over-privileged teenager with half a shaved head, sticking her tongue out - all pretty harmless and grown out of quickly. If you're only focusing on what's in front of them now and not the bigger picture, what morals and values they will adopt in the future, you're in for a very bumpy ride.
