Eventually_Africa_Again
AH fanatic
First off, hello all!
Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, let me tell you something that I just discovered today. No it's not a pill to make your gun bigger, but it might help you with some of your anti-hunting friends. I was talking to some of my friends about my upcoming Africa trip and when the subject of hunting was broached I quickly discovered a few things, one of them being that a fair amount of anti-hunters do not live in the real world. After the initial shock (You mean this guy that owns guns want's to use them?? How horrible!) wore off I ended up fielding a lot of questions ranging from the polite "Why do you need to kill to feel like a man" to the inquisitive "So flying halfway around the world to shoot an animal is good for it??" to the inevitable rude "I can't believe your doing this".
These folks are good people, just a bit...ignorant...so I decided to attempt the impossible and educate them on how hunting and conservation really do go hand in hand. I showed them graphs of how hunting turns a nuisance animal (lets say a bush pig for example) into a profitable one fore the local community. I brought up the land that hunting saves in pristine condition as well as the massive amounts of money that go into conservation directly from the pocketbooks of hunters. Sadly this was when I learned that facts simply do not work. I was met with blank stares, and in one memorable case the question "Why not just donate the money, why kill the animal?" I attempted to answer that one, first asking why they drove a green car and didn't just donate the money they would have spent on it to a charity (more blank stares, I thought it was funny, oh well) and then by pointing out that even if I did donate money that money didn't automatically result in more space for the existing animals meaning that new animals, and herds, prides, packs, groups etc. etc. would have nowhere to go. Just because we donate does not mean that food rains from the sky, these animals still need space and X amount of animals are needed to be culled in order to ensure space is available for new arrivals. Again, blank stares (despite my generous offer to buy a 12 pack of condoms and film them putting them on mating lions to reduce population growth).
Basically no matter what facts, figures or reasonable arguments I made it was proven to me, time and again, that some people will never inhabit the same reality as you and I. So, my dear friends, in your future talks with anti's just remember that the worlds are very different, and do not cross paths very much at all.
Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, let me tell you something that I just discovered today. No it's not a pill to make your gun bigger, but it might help you with some of your anti-hunting friends. I was talking to some of my friends about my upcoming Africa trip and when the subject of hunting was broached I quickly discovered a few things, one of them being that a fair amount of anti-hunters do not live in the real world. After the initial shock (You mean this guy that owns guns want's to use them?? How horrible!) wore off I ended up fielding a lot of questions ranging from the polite "Why do you need to kill to feel like a man" to the inquisitive "So flying halfway around the world to shoot an animal is good for it??" to the inevitable rude "I can't believe your doing this".
These folks are good people, just a bit...ignorant...so I decided to attempt the impossible and educate them on how hunting and conservation really do go hand in hand. I showed them graphs of how hunting turns a nuisance animal (lets say a bush pig for example) into a profitable one fore the local community. I brought up the land that hunting saves in pristine condition as well as the massive amounts of money that go into conservation directly from the pocketbooks of hunters. Sadly this was when I learned that facts simply do not work. I was met with blank stares, and in one memorable case the question "Why not just donate the money, why kill the animal?" I attempted to answer that one, first asking why they drove a green car and didn't just donate the money they would have spent on it to a charity (more blank stares, I thought it was funny, oh well) and then by pointing out that even if I did donate money that money didn't automatically result in more space for the existing animals meaning that new animals, and herds, prides, packs, groups etc. etc. would have nowhere to go. Just because we donate does not mean that food rains from the sky, these animals still need space and X amount of animals are needed to be culled in order to ensure space is available for new arrivals. Again, blank stares (despite my generous offer to buy a 12 pack of condoms and film them putting them on mating lions to reduce population growth).
Basically no matter what facts, figures or reasonable arguments I made it was proven to me, time and again, that some people will never inhabit the same reality as you and I. So, my dear friends, in your future talks with anti's just remember that the worlds are very different, and do not cross paths very much at all.
