Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Shooting and Hunting => Topic started by: boomhowzer on June 08, 2021, 11:46:34 am
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I didn't grow up hunting and I'm pretty new to hunting in general, so its hard to understand the moral and ethical questions that come up when you're talking with people about it. I guess I don't really have a framework to go on because I didn't grow up thinking about it and arguing with people over it, so now I like to talk to experienced hunters about their opinions and ethics.
I was talking to my neighbor the other day, he's been hunting in our area his entire life, mostly gun, but sometimes with a crossbow during archery deer season, and he told me point blank that going out into the woods with homemade archery tackle intending to kill an animal is downright cruel. His argument was that a homemade bow can't be shot accurately enough and with enough force to cleanly kill an animal.
I patently disagree for a variety of reasons, but those are my reasons. I want to know what you guys/gals reasons are. Or maybe you agree with him in some way and want to share that as well?
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Show him what your weapon can do, maybe he just doesn't appreciate it's lethality. His broadheads probably do take a lot more power than yours, A razor sharp two bladed broadhead takes very little force. There was an article about this some time back in PA, 'Broadhead Smoke and Mirrors' I forgot who wrote it or when it was published.
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I’d say it’s a good thing to question. My perspective?
It’s all about individual accountability. New bow makers and especially stone point makers shouldn’t be in a rush. Make sure the bow, point, and personal shooting requirements is up for what is being asked. Am I taking a maximum of 12 yard shot or are my skills genuinely less distance than that, consistently? Do I have the discipline to hold off on a longer yard shot if my skills aren’t there? Staying within reasonable personal boundaries.
Knapped points are more difficult to get “hunting quality” than bows. Yeah, many points could do the job but does the point pass the “will this slice my finger open if I scrape it across it” test, that is often written about in articles? Some may say it doesn’t take that much quality...but, am I doing my own due diligence to uphold personal integrity?
Your neighbor saying “cruel” is the wrong word. Nature can be far far more “cruel” than poor hunting decisions. Responsible vs. Irresponsible skills are the question.
I’ll stop there! ;D
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I'm sure it would be irresponsible to use your bow at the range he uses his crossbow, your whole hunting setup will be for stealth at a much closer range, he may not understand that.
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A gun kills by shock, a bow by hemorrhage. I know guys that have shot through a feeding deer. The deer will flinch then go right back to feeding until they bleed to death. Very little trauma. Unless you drop a deer in it's tracks with a gun there is lots of trauma and pain.
The archery weapon one uses isn't what causes the "cruelty". It's the nut behind the string and his/her ability to make a clean kill.
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His argument was that a homemade bow can't be shot accurately enough and with enough force to cleanly kill an animal.
I only rifle hunt (so far), but he is full of it. I have seen enough animals wounded with rifles to know that it is up to the operator to use his tools properly, regardless of what that tool is. No, a bow won't kill as quickly and cleanly as a rifle, but it isn't horrible, either.
I have had people argue with me that hunting in general is cruel. They often change their tune when you explain how nature works and how humane hunting is. In Alberta the average age a deer lives to is around 3 years (according to government estimates). Their options for dying are getting hit by a vehicle, starving to death in a hard winter, dying from a disease like CWD, being torn apart by predators or being killed by a hunter.
Being shot doesn't seem so bad when you look at the choices available.
Mark
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Add these two anectdotes to your arsenal:
1) If rifles are so much more humane, why did I spend a weekend tracking and following a wounded antelope that some slob had shot at an unethical range just so I could put it out of it's misery?
2) If primitive archery is so cruel, why did my trophy mule deer buck with an arrow through both lungs stare at me for only 20 seconds before returning to trying to breed a doe and expiring in less than 3 minutes from the shot?
In both cases the whole issue comes down to proficiency and judgement. EVERY shot has to be made with proficiency and precision. Failure to do so is a failure of judgement and no amount of modernization will make up for pi$$-poor judgement.
There is no doubt a .50 caliber Barrett with $4,000 worth of top of the line optics will cleanly and efficiently kill a deer at one mile. Duh. EXCEPT if you hand it to me. I have never shot one before. I have no knowledge of extreme distance shooting and could not figure out the shot if you gave me two hours to work out the details with the shooter's dope book and a Seal Team Six spotter behind my shoulder. That's just bad judgement. Likewise, if I handed my best bow and a set of arrows with surgically sharp arrows to your neighbor right now he likely couldn't hit a deer at 15 paces.
But this is the fallacy that has created a $3.2 Billion dollar worldwide archery tackle industry (2020 figures/Global Archery Equipment Market (2021 to 2026) - Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecasts - ResearchAndMarkets.com) "Archery hunting is difficult" and the industry is here to sell you an "edge", an advantage, a leg up on everyone else. Just buy...Buy...BUY!!! Deer die just as easily now as they did when Otzi filled his belly with his last meal of chamois meat. They have not evolved infrared eyesight, amphetamine fueled hyper reaction times, or cut resistant armor over their vitals. A primitive bow and arrows works as well as a Gilman Keasey 1920's yew American flatbow, and as well as a 1950's Fred Bear fiberglass recurve, as a 1970's first generation fiberglass limb primitive compound, or a top of the line Matthews V3 with new patent-pending Centerguard Cable Containment delivering optimal cam timing while the all-new Nano 740 damper controls post shot noise and vibration.
....but only if you have put in the time and effort. You do not buy proficiency and judgement with money. You buy it with TIME.
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Good stuff guys, thank you for sharing your perspectives.
My neighbor has never seen any of my bows or arrows, and its possible he's never seen any kind of traditional archery tackle in action. Hopefully I can show him what they can do someday.
I've never killed a deer before, so I have no large game experience to speak from, and I didn't want to challenge my neighbor's beliefs, but its hard for me to imagine it being 'cruel' to take a bow and a set of arrows made by our own hands out into the woods and become a predator in search of prey. It seems like it would be the most humane way to hunt an animal because we don't have the unfair advantage of gun powder, telescopic laser sites, and all manner of unnatural accoutrements made in a factory on the other side of the world. We are facing the animals one on one, the animal's wits against ours. Its so pure that way, there are no outside influences. Its just taking the absolute best weapon you can make out of the materials available in the forest and hunting the animals that live in the forest. What can possibly be wrong with that?
I almost feel like if any part of hunting is cruel, guns are the cruelest part. I don't quite understand the mechanics of 'shock' vs. 'hemorrhaging' kills and I don't know if a gun can kill a deer faster than a bow, but guns are just so loud. They completely disrupt the serenity of the wilderness so not only does the animal being hunted get completely freaked out (whether you've hit it or not) but everything within 150 yards craps its pants. A bow hunter doesn't make a peep, so the people and animals in the area can go about their business without having to clean out their drawers every time someone wants blast a hole in something.
Even worse, all that noise eventually forces the animals to become nocturnal and/or avoid all human contact, so its almost impossibly to get close to any game. Isn't that cruel? Forcing entire species of animals to completely change their lifestyle and basically go into hiding every year because we insist on using an unnecessary amount of fire power to harvest them? And what about the other hunters? Isn't it cruel to them too? To spend 5 days blasting away at everything that moves and then not being able to see any wildlife for the next 9 months?
Now I'm all fired up. And maybe complaining about gun noise isn't valid in a discussion about cruelty. I just feel like a home made bow and a home made arrow bringing food home to feed our families is one of the oldest and most profound developments human kind has ever made, and to call it 'cruel' is to finally relinquish that yes, we have finally lost all our connection to nature, and all that is left is the unfettered advancement of technology toward the goal of making hunting easy.
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This is my opinion and only that. Don’t persecute me for it guys.
Short answer is yes. We are cruel, as is nature.
Killing anything that feels pain with any weapon is cruel. There is a concept that animal lack a real perception of pain or ability to have feelings, this perception is false. I am not a bunny hugger, peta sympathizer, or vegan. All that said, I know our place in the food chain. I also believe in taking what you need and do so as humanely as possible. My dad made our living in the winter from money selling hides, not much got wasted off the trap line. Hides got sold and meat was eaten. 90 percent of our meat was wild game and fish, other 10% was a hog and at times goats that we would butcher each year. Hunting season opened when dad left the house and he preached to hit deer in a big bone, shoulder or hip, if using a large caliber rifle, and head when using a .22. I never saw a deer shot that didn’t hit the ground right then till I was a grown man. Bow hunting wasn’t an option for me growing up. If the decision was made to take an animals life, there needed to be as small of chance as possible that the game leaves to suffer over a bad shot. This is why I don’t bow hunt for deer. I would be sorely upset and feel very bad over a bad shot. Pretty sure I wouldn’t feel too awful over a hog simply because of the problems they bring. I want to hunt with my bows, can’t bring myself to it. It is all cruel, one isn’t better than another, and like was said earlier, the wood bow is just as viable a hunting weapon as it was 1000 years ago. That said not all wood bows are that viable weapon even if the draw weight is in the accepted range.
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Be responsible- be sure you know your weapon - and your limits! The hunter has to respect the game, and his/her abilities! Hunting is no more or less cruel than sending animals to a slaughterhouse house! At least, the Hunter has made meat in the original way.
Hawkdancer
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Be responsible- be sure you know your weapon - and your limits! The hunter has to respect the game, and his/her abilities! Hunting is no more or less cruel than sending animals to a slaughterhouse house! At least, the Hunter has made meat in the original way.
Hawkdancer
This. Well said
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Nothing cruel about it, it's the circle of life, Good Lord gave them to us to use, as long and you treat it with respect and use it to feed and cloth you and you family nothing cruel about it. JMO ;) :) Killing for fun or sport on something just to hang on the wall is a whole other subject to me. I tell people that they have been using this stuff for thousands of years so it has to be effective, also it's a personal thing, I don't tell you , you are wrong for what you think or how you do it or what you use so Please don't tell me I am wrong for how I think,what I use or how I do it. Either way you are taking a life and should be respect that. :)
Pappy
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I saved the pics from the aftermath of a mountain lion deer kill in my neighbor's yard, for this very reason.
Nature is much more cruel than any ethical human hunter could ever contemplate. Notice the word "ethical".
This deer was raked with claw marks all over, disemboweled in several places, and then choked to death. As long as I give it 100%, no animal will die in such a horrible manner by my hands.
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Seems to me, if anyone is going to eat any kind of meat they have to be okay with causing some amount of suffering in another being. To claim that the deer or whatever you shot with whatever weapon didn't suffer is just silly-unless you blew its brains out. The idea that an animal won't suffer applies, it seems to me, to the vast minority of kills. A gun (ie long distance) helps us insulate ourselves from that reality, a grocery store even more. There is also the silly idea that animals if left to their own die fat and happy in their sleep.
For me, killing the animal myself allows me to take direct responsibility for the suffering I benefit from. And I can take steps to minimize that suffering. I can honor the animal and its experience when I stand over it, or fail to collect it for whatever reason. The book Dominion, can't remember the author, has a great bit on hunting, also how we as people apply value to that animal there but not that animal over here-and how irrational it is.
And in truth I have not been in a real hurry to actually take a shot with a bow in part because I am not sure I will be okay with being that close to the suffering I inflict...I was a vegetarian for a long time and frankly might go back to that after my first bow kill :o ::)
fwiw Paul
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You may want to finish off the venison first, but I know what you mean.
Not sure how I would handle something like that, Depending on who I learn hunting from, my first deer will quite probably be rifle killed within 40 yards, may be the best of both worlds, idk. It wouldn't be primitive, but I would learn deer patterns, not to mention how to get the deer from the woods to the skillet cleanly. (The buckskin would be in great shape to).
My first small game on the other hand will almost certainly be with an arrow.
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Yer
Earth Muffins, Bark Biters, Pecka Gnats, Wokarista’s and general uniformed monkees all gonna say that. When a wolf ham strings a cow elk and feeds on her while she’s alive seem cruel?
How about a big cat that brings down big Brahma Bull then moves up to his throat and clamps down on his wind pipe till dead?
Most of us wouldn't be around if we listened to the folks talking that kind nonsense. You get shot with a 25lb selfbow with a 125 Ace on it see how long ya last. Maybe cruel couple mins. Laying on gurney dying of Chine Virus is hella lot worse. Guess it all perspective.
HH~
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Earth Muffins, Bark Biters, Pecka Gnats, Wokarista’s and general uniformed monkees all gonna say that.
You forgot the granola munchers, but I agree.
Most of us wouldn't be around if we listened to the folks talking that kind nonsense.
Yep. Too much prosperity for too long has made an awful lot of soft, disconnected people who have little idea of the realities of the world and how we got to this standard of living in the first place.
Mark
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Lots of good point of views here… my first time killing a animal (bigger then an insect) was a few years ago, it was supposed to be with a rifle from about 120 yards… I was well practiced and had been shooting quite a lot before I was taken out hunting. But even still nerves and lack of experience got the better of me and I shot the deer threw both front legs…. That, that is cruel… tracked the deer down the holler and slit its throat…… that was a life changing hunt….. (14 at the time) ….
next year much better luck perfect shot the deer only went 15 yards. That deer was close maybe 30 yards out….. still rifles are truly brutal…. Nothing gentle, just horrific the damage they do.
Now…. Something I feel really really bad about… I was squirrel hunting with a bow, I was using blunts cause that’s what I was told to use on squirrels… I shot this squirrel in the back leg and certainly broke bones…. But I wasn’t fast enough to get another arrow in it before it was gone… I’ll regret that likely forever…. And probably am going to stay away from squirrel hunting from now on…. Or maybe if I do I’ll use broad heads.
But nature is cruel, people are cruel, this world is often cruel. There is no escaping that, if you eat meat, you will be taking a life. Whether you take part in that and give respect to the animal by doing it yourself is your choice. But oh boy when someone tries to tell me how cruel hunting is I just tell them to not forget where that bacon covered in chemicals and wrapped in plastic REALLY comes from.
This fall I hope to hunt with primitive archery tackle, I hope I’ll be able to get my gear and skills up to par in time.
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Being raised on the farm knowing all life is precious and death is soon understood as a part of life.Hunting is a part of harvest from a replenishable resource.
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Fox, I wouldn’t hold on to your mistakes too long. I have done the same thing. Shot a bunny with a blunt, everything I read said shoot them with blunts. I hit him right in the sweet spot, right behind the shoulder and he ran away. Now I only shoot broadheads unless it’s summertime and I’m after red squirrels or 13 striped ground squirrels.
Had a similar experience my first deer hunting season as well (last year). I had a bow but I missed 3 deer over their backs. I call them ‘free lessons’ because I was lucky enough to be so bad I didn’t injure any, but I was clearly unprepared and shooting out of my range.
Next year I also hope to be out there with my own hunting tackle, lots of practice, and a fresh perspective..
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I decided to look cruel up in a dictionary...
"cru·el
/ˈkro͞o(ə)l/
Learn to pronounce
adjective
willfully causing pain or suffering to others, or feeling no concern about it."
Certainly by the first half of definition hunting is cruel, but then that isn't considering the full definition.
Paul
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Nope, not cruel and a sharp arrow is less painful than a bullet (as testified by people who have managed to get themselves shot!)
No chance to hunt with bow and arrow here in the UK, but was a real pleasure to have Pappy take a deer with one of my bows :) a few years back.
I recently got hounded off a facebook group "Primitive Bowmaking" because I thought it was just about bowmaking... I got all sorts of schoolyard abuse from people who insisted I was some sort of vegan snowflake whinger and couldn't understand that I was actually pro-hunting... but wanted the group to stay on track and be about making. I did try to have a reasoned discussion but found it impossible, it saddened me as I've only ever met folk who were great when face to face, and I feel those on the FB group were letting down the whole hunting fraternity.
That's the beauty of this forum... I can come and read and talk about hunting on this area, or stick to the bow making it I want without people jumping to conclusions!
Even this "is it cruel" discussion is courteous.
Kudos to everyone here :)
Del
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There’s Iron in yer words of life and so in yer words of death. It will be life.
Boot leather is tough on the gut. Do plants feel pain? Either way i kill a lot of those and meat bearers and fur bearers. Gut has no problems with em. When im digging potatoes i often wonder what yhem spuds, tubers are thinkin?
Hedge~
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I wonder if a field tip would be effective on small game?
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FB is the Devil himself presented as digits thru the Net.
FB monkees make the Banderlog look important.
HH~
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A field tip might be effective on a red squirrel or ground squirrel, but I’ve shot a rabbit with a razor sharp Zwickey straight through the shoulder and out it’s gut and it still hopped off, so I only shoot broadheads now. Those little critters are tougher than you think.
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Broad heads for me unless I am shooting at stumps. ;)
Pappy
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I wonder if a field tip would be effective on small game?
Nope been there with a compound twice, both I had to finish with a knife.squirrels are vicious when pinned to a tree by a field point and it makes you feel horrible.
I've only been hunting deer for 5 seasons. Killed 2 with a bow(compound) both ran about 70 yards full sprint and then keeled over. Killed 4 with a rifle, 3 were shot well and all 3 ran about 30-40 yards and dropped. The fourth one I hit a little back( misjudged the quartering angle) he trotted 20 yards and laid down, before I decided if I should shoot him again he rolled over and started kicking (got the liver) didn't take long at all. So in my limited experience a gun really isn't any faster than a bow for death, oh and I shoot a 300 win mag with a 165 grain bullet.
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I have tracked deer for many years with out a dog early on and with one for the last 15/20 years and some of the worst tracks I have been on is gun shot deer, especially muzzle loaders , but that being said none were intentional so to me that's not cruel, do you hate it, for sure you do but still not cruel. Would you take the shot back if you could, of course you would, at least I would but again still not cruel. :) I am really tenderhearted when it comes to any animal and only hunt what I plan on eating or use so I work hard on my shooting and try to only take really good shots that I know I can make, but things still happen no matter how hard you try so if you want to do this you have to be prepared to mess up from time to time no matter how hard you try and except the consequences for your action, not for every body, some would just rather get it at the market and not see how it got there. ;)
Pappy
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Agree with broadheads for small game. Velocity w stickbow is too low for a judo point to be reliable.
Your neighbor doesn't understand that people with primitive gear shoot much closer. Most modern people seem to avoid stalking up close. That is a weakness, and I am getting to despise seeing it in other hunters, and admire the trait in those who attempt stalking in on game.
Consider getting Meditations on Hunting, by Ortega Y Gasset. He is a deceased Spanish philosopher who wrote a eulogy for a friend of his, a wealthy big game hunter. Wikipedia makes him sound like the typical early 20th century socialist, but his book still applies. (As well, with anti-hunters, I first ask if they have seen a feed lot, dairy farm, hog farm, or chicken farm. Second, I ask if they ever tried being primarily plant based in diet. I have and do primarily plant based (better for my genotype), bur most modern anti's chow away and never saw modern agriculture).
one more month till AZ summer velvet season.... :)
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I think Pappy had the point.
if you eat your prey (and possibly use all the animal parts) and if you train yourself at your best and if you hunt within your limits a good part of cruel definition fails and more than that you prove you understand the value of the life you are taking.
I would stop here and be satisfied whit this.
I would not venture in evaluating how much the animal will suffer as this seems to me very uncertain and debatable
It is worth considering that many of us do not rely on hunting for living
So if you hunt for pure fun (exaggerating a bit) the topic question makes more sense
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I pretty much rely on meat for a living.
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I pretty much rely on meat for a living.
Sure. My post is not anti-hunt.
I was stating that there are also people considering game just moving targets (more or less) and that is cruel.
I also recognize that it's likely that this is not happening for people in this forum as it seems they have a deeper interest in nature and, I hope, a greater respect
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Pretty much all the meat Miss Joanie and I eat is wild game but can't say I wouldn't go hungry with out it, I had just rather gather it my self than pick it up at the store,guess it is just Man's nature to want to provide for his family , weather you hunt and gather or buy. I very much agree just killing for fun/sport /something to hang on the wall or brag about ant my cup of tea. ;)
Pappy
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I just found this quote in a Tom Brown Jr. book and I think I agree with the sentiment.
"Many people today are quite lackadaisical in their approach to hunting. Perhaps this is a result of a technology that has created long-range weapons and lifestyles more separate from forests and fields. Whatever the reasons, many modern hunters stumble into their game by chance, shoot from a great distance, and take only the best parts home to the freezer with little feeling of connection to the animals they hunted. By contrast, native Americans felt intimately connected to the animals they hunted. Knowing starvation all too well, they hunted from the heart, using skills that took years to perfect. They felt a true thanks for every morsel and fiber of an animal's being."
-Tom Brown's Field Guide to Wilderness Survival (1983), pg. 146
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Hey I'll throw this out there too.
I knew a guy named Ingwe from Kenya. He was mauled by a lion. The lion had been injured a few days before, and they were trying to put it down. At the end of one day, Ingwe switched out his rifle for a shotgun to get some birds for dinner. That is when the lion attacked him. He had to wait until the big cat was on top of him, so that he could put the shotgun barrel into its mouth and kill the cat (he enjoyed telling people he was the only person to ever kill a lion with a bird gun). The cat bit him in the arm and two canines went completely through his arm, plus some scratches from the claws. The way Ingwe told the story, he never felt any pain until about 4 hours after the attack when his adrenaline starting leaving his system. He always believed that is what happens to animals when they are attacked by predators, they go into a state of shock and don't feel the pain before dying.
-Preston
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Wow, I've never thought about that before. Thanks for sharing. I've never had a serious injury before, nor have I had to defend myself against a wild animal (a few tussles with farm animals, but nothing that could eat me). I wonder if anyone on this site has some first hand experience with this type of shock after a horrific wound.
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I've survived several not quite horrific injuries and in my experience only broken bones or displaced vertebrae caused lasting suffering. Soft tissue injuries that don't involve lost skin aren't quite so bad.
Pain is something that helps prevent you from hurting yourself more by moving around too much.
A very serious injury can cause release of bio chemicals into the brain which not only deaden the pain but can produce a euphoric state.
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I was hesitant to jump in on this thread because just the title sounds like a plant from someone who is anti hunting.
I was raised on a small farm, we named all our animals except for the chickens and treated them all like pets. Not a tear was shed when it became time for one of them to enter the Krewson family food chain, us kids looked forward to the fresh steaks or whatnot, that is the reality of killing what you need for food.
I carry this forward attitude to the woods with me, I want my preys demise to be quick and painless plus I am looking forward to those fresh steaks.
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native Americans felt intimately connected to the animals they hunted. Knowing starvation all too well, they hunted from the heart, using skills that took years to perfect. They felt a true thanks for every morsel and fiber of an animal's being."
-Tom Brown's Field Guide to Wilderness Survival (1983), pg. 146
Local Indian hunters used to apologize to a Black Bear before killing it, explaining that it was necessary. They also, in pre colonial times at least, forbade use of any weapon against the Black Bear other than a warclub.
They considered the Black Bear to be a cowardly animal, but basically harmless, unlike the Brown Bears which were stone killers.
The Black Bear can be deadly under some conditions. I almost got my face slapped off by a adolescent Blackie that I mistook for a large dog rooting in a trash can. He looked to weigh maybe 90 lb. He was startled and took a swipe at me. His claws came within a faction of an inch of my nose. He stood on his hind legs for a moment, then realizing I was much bigger than he was he turned and scampered away.
On another occasion a large Blackie of maybe 300+ lb I'd been trying to get a photo of charged at me when a kid threw a watermelon rind and hit him on the head.
It stopped when it saw I wasn't going to run, though I later realized I had taken about ten backwards steps. I remained facing the bear. Quickest way to get chased is to turn and run and you can't expect to outrun a bear on its home turf.