Hunting show ethics
My 7 year old girl has gotten the shooting bug. I'm starting her off now with a bow to just get some of the very basic elements of safety in her mind...we'll probably move to an airgun next spring and from there on.
She's actually interested in hunting, which surprises me somewhat. This fall we're going on a 'hunt' with a camera (well before bow or gun season), and i told her i'll give her 5 bucks if she can get me a picture of a deer. I'm trying to teach her that there's absolutely nothing wrong with taking game as long as you have a purpose and you're not just piling up maggot farms.
There was a show on OLN yesterday, called Beretta History or something like that. It was a hunting show, and i asked her to come in to watch it a bit. They were hunting caribou and it was a pretty good quality show. They showed them taking a pretty good size one, and were kind of going over rack, pulling velvet off of it and stuff. Fairly educational and my girl was interested and respectful of the whole event.
Then they just cut to a scene where the guy is hauling the sawed off rack out of the field! My little girl said 'uh, Dad, aren't they going to eat it?' and i just said 'uh, sure, they're going back to get it' Maybe i'm getting a little too soft, but it just turned my stomach. Then they spent 10 minutes showing two guys parked under the migratory path for canadian geese in central Canada (can't remember the province). They just laid in their little camo huts, calling the geese, and dropped what seemed like two dozen of the things. I know canadian geese aren't exactly endangered animals, but it just seemed excessive, and given that there were probably 5-10K birds flying overhead, i'm not sure exactly what it proves. Like fishing with dynamite.
Anyway, just thought it was poor tv.