I have been a hunter -in my teens- , I have been a farmer who killed his own stock for the table.
I am now a vegetarian.
Drawing comparisons from other predators is facile, and ignores the fact that humans can analyse both the past and the future, and can conceive of a moral code.
Should we treat each other, as Komodo Dragons do?
We know in the past, humans were more savage, more brutal and less compassionate than we in the 'civilised' world. Even Christians were in certain ages, incredibly brutal. Witness the pogroms and witch hunts, the inquisitions.
Most of us, I would think, would like to think we are more 'civilised', more compassionate, than our forebears.
So what will our children be like? And their offspring, a thousand years from now?
If we consider ourselves to be 'better' or more civilised than our predecessors, and can see a progression where our successors are more civilised than us, why do we wait?
Why not go there now?
I have no doubt, barring an apocalypse which shunts us backwards sociologically, the very thought of killing, maiming and deliberately injuring animals will anathema to people in the centuries to come.
Who should we emulate? The inquisitors? The witch hunters?
When we look back at history, we deplore the barbarous acts and applaud those who demonstrated a morality consistent with our own.
How will history judge the 'sports hunters'?
What will your great great grandchildren think of you, finding enjoyment in killing and injuring animals and birds, for fun?
If you enjoy the natural world, take a camera. Leave the gun at home.

Nature is a cruel bitch alright. But I'm still not sold on hunting in national parks because I like to go bushwalking in them. Without hunting there is no chance of me getting shot while doing this: the hunters are asking me to accept the small but non-zero probability that I will get shot by accident. Shot as in 'shot with a bullet'. From a gun. The sort of thing that only happens to bikies and soldiers and Americans. Not to nice law-abiding gentlemen who enjoy reading and bush-walking.

My response to this is entirely reasonable: piss off. Go play with your dangerous toys somewhere where I'm not out walking. What part of that seems unreasonable to you?

Now for something that is unreasonable but quite funny. Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A92_XFvez9U

Cheers,

Tony

Well said Garry. As a boy with a rifle, I supplied many a rabbit for a baked dinner, or stew, when rabbits were a plague & money short.

It is a long time since that rifle was used for hunting. In the last 20 years apart from dispatching a couple of dogs that were attacking my stock, it has been used to put down a couple of very old, much loved horses, beyond saving, but mostly to put down injured kangaroos.

Going on the number of roos with broken hips I have found on my small property, that must be a very common way for them to go. I did call the wild life society the first time, & a quite old lady came along & endangered herself administering a tranquiliser injection, before a lethal one, to a very frightened largish kangaroo. Since then I do it more safely, & quickly myself, with the rifle.

I also have a shot gun, which I am proud to say, has provided food every time it has been fired. A few times that was only a hand of coconuts, shot down as I got too old to climb a large old palm, but it was only fired for good reason.

Grim, we can not even guess your conversion to a vegetarian, but the human has been a meat eater throughout its evolution, & I, like most, have no intention of trying to change that. Too many studies have suggested our health requires this protein.

While I respect your choice, I can not respect those who eat meat quite happily, but only when another does the butchering, & complains about hunting. That to me is total hypocrisy, & I can do nothing but despise that attitude.

Now that our population has been disarmed we have a fresh rabbit plague on the way as both myxomatosis and the calicivirus are no longer effective. Rabbits in my area are carrying 8 to 10 foetuses instead of the usual 4 or 5. Foxes, feral goats, cats and pigs are at population levels never experienced before. I also admit shooting a few rabbits will have no effect on their population spiral but it does give an appreciation of what is happening
While this is happening vegans are running around with cameras photographing and filming Indonesian abattoirs and Australian pig farms as well as egg and broiler sheds.

I always cringe when I see people catching fish & then leave them flip & flap themselves to a drawn-out agonising death on some jetty.

I agree individual, from both the cruelty & the point of view of good eating, any fish you are going to keep should be bleed & killed, by cutting it's throat the moment it is off the hook.

However I think nature is a damn sight crueler.

My son kept fish as a kid & young man. When he left home he talked me into letting him put 20 gold fish into the old swimming pool we no longer used & was going to be drained.

They breed, & 5 or 6 years later there were over 70 of them. They even mutated. Some turned a greenish white, Some remained black, the colour of the hatch-lings, & some became red & white. It was becoming interesting, & the grand kids named one Nemo, due to this colouring.

Then along can a shag. It ate a few, & I should have shot it, but didn't want to be unkind to something just following nature. But I should have, before it brought the whole flock to clean out the pool. If there are any left, I've not seen them.

However, I would rather be that fish flapping around on the jetty, than one swallowed live, trying to breath in the gut of a shag, & getting gills full of shag digestive acid. The thought makes me shudder.

I'd also rather be that fish, than my neighbours pet goats, torn apart by wild dogs, while my disarmed neighbour could only try to chase them off with a stick.

Anyone who tells you that man is less kind than nature is a bl00dy idiot.