Are you a vegetarian?

[Flightlead]

Videos of the way cattle are slaughtered don't stop me from enjoying a good blood-rare steak, because I am a carnivore.

Chickens are given hormones and raised in filthy, disgusting conditions that make them helpless weak and pathetic. But I joyously lick the BBQ sauce off my fingers after a good grilled chicken thigh, and enjoy a fluffly cheesy omelet for breakfast.

Lobsters, crabs and shrimp are scavengers of the sludge at the bottom of the sea, but they are indescribably delicious with drawn butter.

Fish contain metals that will cause all kinds of diseases, but melt in your mouth fried and dipped in tarter.

I love food. All kinds of it. Hey, there is nothing wrong with a few veggies as a side dish with cheese or Hollandaise sauce. But to limit my culinary life to a few greens would be a waste of one of the greatest pleasures God gave me.

having worked in a large meat packing plant (cattle, pigs, sheep) and having seen the conditions there......I say wipe its ass, knock the horns off, and drag it to the table!

btw, the plant was spotless, even the kill room, and learning how the carcass is processed was fascinating. not a single piece is wasted except the brain and spinal cord which is incinerated. wish we could say that about death row criminals.

 

[Flightlead]

That said i detest spear fishing and glad its not legal here (on scuba at least).

I'm interested to know why.

 

[sambolino44]

...Want to see an image of a true hunter/conservationist? Go to Mt. Rushmore; he's third from the left! ...

Cary Grant?

 

[fnfalman]

I'm an omnivore. End of story.

 

[Hank49]

I'm interested to know why.

I think it's a carry over from his childhood. His grandmother used to tell him bedtime stories of how the Vikings invaded the UK and raped and pillaged and how they used spears, and...well.....

 

[wardric]

I think it's a carry over from his childhood. His grandmother used to tell him bedtime stories of how the Vikings invaded the UK and raped and pillaged and how they used spears, and...well.....

hummm, I personnaly think it's related to a secret love for Britney Spears he has a hard time to admit.

 

[sambolino44]

Or maybe it's from too many times seeing someone spear a fish, and the fish struggling for freedom and writhing in agony for its last moments, and knowing how often that effort is un- or under-appreciated by the hunter, who lets the spoils go to waste simply because it wasn't "convenient" to finish the act by cleaning and consuming the flesh.

I've accompanied spear-fishers on dives. Sometimes they get lucky and get a direct hit to the brain: clean kill, no fight. Sometimes the fish gets lucky with a missed shot. Most often it's neither; there's blood, obvious pain, and the most sickening display of the agony of a beautiful creature dying for sport.

Is this any more painful or stressful for the animal than being consumed by one of it's "natural" predators? I'm not so idealistic or naive to say yes to that, but that's besides the point. The point is, we don't need to kill fish for sport. Any comparison of our entertainment to other species' survival is ludicrous.

 

[NudeDiver]

....and so spearfishing, where the fish is fighting on the end of a stick, is somehow different from rod & reel fishing, where the fish can be fighting on the end of a hook, sometimes for QUITE a long time (think king salmon or halibut).....

 

[wardric]

How about big fish swallowing little fish. EATEN ALIVE!!!! How cruel is that???

 

[wardric]

Or maybe it's from too many times seeing someone spear a fish, and the fish struggling for freedom and writhing in agony for its last moments, and knowing how often that effort is un- or under-appreciated by the hunter, who lets the spoils go to waste simply because it wasn't "convenient" to finish the act by cleaning and consuming the flesh.

I've accompanied spear-fishers on dives. Sometimes they get lucky and get a direct hit to the brain: clean kill, no fight. Sometimes the fish gets lucky with a missed shot. Most often it's neither; there's blood, obvious pain, and the most sickening display of the agony of a beautiful creature dying for sport.

Is this any more painful or stressful for the animal than being consumed by one of it's "natural" predators? I'm not so idealistic or naive to say yes to that, but that's besides the point. The point is, we don't need to kill fish for sport. Any comparison of our entertainment to other species' survival is ludicrous.