Hunting Abroad

[hvj1]

Shooter
Went to MIRC greens and scoured the countryside for an hour, spotted number of male blackbucks, accompanying their females. Did'nt cotton to me much, viewed me with suspicion and showed their displeasure by twitching their tails and tossing their magnificent heads. I
saw narry a stripe, except the one taken of my pride (which is painful but thankfully not visible when I am sitting).
Lesson learnt, pardner , thanks to you, I shall not make the same mistake again, (mistaking species) not ever, in this lifetime.
By the way, I need to invest in a good wild life camera,can anybody recommend?
Regards

[eljefe]

Thats a blackie you saw HVJ. This is getting to be an intresting one...pointy shoes and cement shoes included

[hvj1]

Thats a blackie you saw HVJ. This is getting to be an intresting one...pointy shoes and cement shoes included

[shooter]

well im no photographer but have realised through mistakes that even if one likes to do "fotugiraphy" instead of photography, wildlife is one area one needs a dedicated camera rather than those wallet sized clicking devices.

Cant recommended more than what you already know.

it will be exhilirating to see the pics of the blackbucks in the full glory. Truly the most beautiful antelope in the world.

better luck with baba nahar singhji.

[Vikram]

1.I can assure you that despite the Pataudi and Salman Khan case, there are hunters, and will always be hunters who will discreetly shoot an animal. Secondly there are tribes, such as the phansi pardhis who can and do make pheasants, thompson's gazelle meat available . The point I wish to make is quite simple, it is comparatively easier to pick up the gun and hunt/poach, (if you know the area well). THAN to take the effort to CONSERVE.
2. I am saying this because, I am turning towards conservation AND it takes one helluva lot of time, money and effort. In short one needs to be passionate enough to be on the edge of lunacy to take on this job full time.
3. So with all due respects to you, if you are that keen to see legal hunting to return to India, then I suggest that you first think about conservation. And if you are that keen, then come and join us in our effort at conservation. We could certainly use your knowledge of the wild. In our life time IF we can achieve the status of conservation that you read on this thread existing abroad, then MAYBE, our children might get to hunt.
Regards

Firstly, kudos to you,HVJ1, for taking up a very worthy cause of conservation. I would like to make a few points in the light of your post.

In the present day, sport hunting and conservation cannot be seen separate.They are coterminous. Revenues generated out of permits sold for hunting could be probably one of the best sources of revenues to help maintain habitats,protect fauna,and maintain healthy numbers.All of this actively involving local communities that benefit from the sustained and sustainable economic activity.If this could be achieved in African countries with similar problems of over population,corruption,poaching,poverty etc, there is no reason it could not be done in India.

As long as the economic interests are not addressed and local communities are not made partners, conservation in India is going to be a mirage. Romantic ideas of love of the wild is not going to impress or convince hungry stomachs.I hate to say it because I consider myself to be one.

Mining industry,rail & roads, deforestation,market poaching- I would really like to see some practical suggestions.

Some of our members are involved in this.

http://wildlifee.com/wildlife//index.ph ... view&id=18
'
http://www.wasiindia.com/aboutus.html

Now, not just Masheer are thriving but due to habitat protection,other fauna too.

Best-
Vikram



Best-
Vikram

[j.jenojackson]

hi sudhaesh

[hvj1]

Hello Vikram, Kanwar 76
I am posting a new topic kindly refer to the same. By the way, still going through H.S.Pabla, very much in detail and I am convinced by his argument and thnking.
Regards

[Ticky]

Don't know how Jim Corbett's letter would matter. Would be a different thing if Corbett had written and signed on the reverse of the leopard's skin itself.

[xl_target]

Dear XL_target,
"Culling is the process of removing animals from a group based on specific criteria. This is done in order to either reinforce certain desirable characteristics or to remove certain undesirable characteristics from the group".
Nowhere in this definition does the word "Hunting" come. So we should not confuse "Culling" with "hunting".
Hunting is still considered as a "Game". Culling isn't.
For the simple reason that in Hunting you go by the rules (unwritten ethics) just like you go by the rules when you play any other "game".

I must sincerely disagree with you. The definition that you have adopted for the word "culling" is a very narrow one. This definition from Wictionary is more in line with the way it is used in the US today.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cull?rdfrom=Cull

Verb
to cull (third-person singular simple present culls, present participle culling, simple past and past participle culled)
To pick someone or something.
To take someone or something (from somewhere).
To select animals from a group and then kill them in order to reduce the numbers of the group in a controlled manner.
(nonstandard, euphemism) To kill (animals etc).

What part of "fair chase" doesn't jive with your definition of "Hunting". The American Whitetail, like most deer species is no pushover. They are wily and have very sharp senses. They can hear you and smell you coming long before you are aware of their presence. They can detect a trace of even the slightest movement. What part of scouting and then working to put yourself in a position to get the best shot is not hunting? When the Department of Natural Resources in my state decides that so many Does must be culled to maintain the health of the herd, who am I to argue with them? Especially since they manage one of the most successful conservation programs in the world.

Lets try a hypothetical situation: Say you have a herd of whitetail deer in a certain area. Now the numbers of the herd must be reduced or they will exceed the carrying capacity of the land in the area that they inhabit. If you do not reduce the herd by a certain number, you might end up with a large sickly herd as there is not enough food for all of them, especially after a nasty winter. A sickly herd is prone to all kinds of diseases. So your wildlife biologists decide that X number of deer must be removed to ensure the health of the herd. Now if we follow these "unwritten ethics" of yours and If we take only males with racks, we might be left with a small number of males with stunted or underdeveloped racks. These males will probably not be considered good trophies and will be passed over by hunters who are following some "unwritten ethics" where only the strongest and the best are taken. Now all we have left are below average males with stunted racks. In a case like this, will we not jeopardize the future genetics of the herd? If this situation persists, you could destroy your herd with a couple of good hunting seasons. You could do enough damage that it will take them generations to recover, if they do recover. If enough hunters decide that there isn't a herd worth hunting out there, pretty soon your conservation dollars are going to dry up.
No Hunters=very few dollars.
On the other hand you could decide that you want to reduce X number of deer taken and allow your hunters to take a certain numbers of does and a certain number of bucks. This would allow you to preserve the size and integrity of your herd and maintain the strength of the gene pool. After a bad winter, there is no more heart rending sight than going into the woods in the spring and seeing the carcasses of hundreds of deer who have starved to death because their numbers exceeded the meager winter food supply. If you want a healthy deer population, in this case, you would have to balance your "unwritten ethics" of taking males only against the welfare of the herd. If you can successfully maintain a healthy herd, your children and their children and so on can continue to enjoy the freedom of hunting those deer. If you don't, you can kiss all that goodbye. Granted, my above scenario might be a little simplistic but Improperly managed wildlife, whether due to lack of resources, poaching, poorly thought out and emotionally motivated conservation theories (or all of the above) are what have caused a vast majority of this planet's fauna to be in the sad state that it is in now.

Proper Wildlife Conservation is a science, not a theory stemming from emotions. You can get a college degree in Wildlife Management and be taught the proper way to apply the principles of conservation. Whether you love animals or not, if you disregard the science, it is at the peril of the animals under your care.

You have said:

Culling is the process of removing animals from a group based on specific criteria. This is done in order to either reinforce certain desirable characteristics or to remove certain undesirable characteristics from the group

By insisting on only taking males with a specific criteria, i. e. big racks.are you not then (by your own definition), participating in culling? I submit to you that all hunting today, where we do not depend on the animals (that we shoot) for subsistence is a form of culling.

[sa_ali]

Now if we follow these "unwritten ethics" of yours and If we take only males with racks, we might be left with a small number of males with stunted or underdeveloped racks. These males will probably not be considered good trophies and will be passed over by hunters who are following some "unwritten ethics" where only the strongest and the best are taken.

So this means there should not be any sex discrimination in hunting.
Not trying to take of the seriousness of this topic, but this just reminded me of one of the incident which my grandfather used to narrate every time we had talk of ethical hunting.
They had gone on hunting, they had spent 2 days without any kill, reason being they were spotting young male and loads of female. So on the third day, one of the hunter picked up the rifle to shoot, the one doing the spoting said its a female, on that came apt reply, NO SEX in hunting and bam he fired on a old lady.
It doesnt end there, the lady was so old the that the meat was hard to cook too . so again there leg pulling session after it.
My apologies if i took away the seriousness of the debate

[xl_target]

I must also address some misconceptions that have crept into this thread.

In "culling" they also use SILENCER guns so that the herd is not disturbed and before you realise it half the animals are dead. Etically it may be acceptable to some but to me it is NOT.
In the US you can shoot an animal with an automatic rifle but I would always use a bolt action. Wouldnt the automatic rifle and its spray of bullets get the animal anyway. Etically this is unacceptable to me.
I would rather walk and trak an animal and then go for the biggest head. There would surely be more "fun" (if some animal lowers would excuse me) in it and satisfaction after I got it.
I would rather persue an injured animal and finish it rather than firing at 10 , getting 5 and injuring 5 others to die in the bush.

Please keep in mind that when I apply for a deer license, i am issued one tag. In some area where population densities are high, i might get two.
On one tag, I can only take one deer. In some areas, party hunting is allowed, but the total number of deer cannot exceed the number of tags issued to the party. Not only that, most people that you hunt with are going to get pissed off at you, if you shoot and fill all the deer on the tag. So for most practical purposes, I can only shoot one deer.
Say that I am hunting by myself. I am allowed one deer. If I shoot two, I am now a poacher and subject to the law. If I shoot a deer and don't follow it up and it dies and then I shoot another deer which I kill, I am now in violation of the law. Anyway, even using a silencer, I could not legally kill more than one deer so the use of a silencer gains me nothing except the possible saving of my hearing. By the way, the use of silencers in the state that I live in is illegal.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by an automatic rifle. I get the impression that you are talking about a full auto rifle. Obtaining a full auto rifle is an onerous process and very expensive. The number of rifles with a selector for full auto or burst (aka the happy switch), is pretty much a finite number. The guns that were in circulation before the 1968 arms act are all that you are allowed (with some exceptions) to own. Since there is a finite number of these arms, they are all registered and now cost tens of thousands of dollars. No collector is going to drag his precious Thompson or BAR through the woods, even if he could. The arms that the average hunter is allowed to use is a semi automatic firearms with one bullet being fired with every press of the trigger. Yes, you can probably fire an aimed shot faster than a bolt action rifle but I have seen some people who are able to manipulate a bolt very fast. Good luck on spraying bullets at a running deer at any distance, though. I'm not saying that people don't try but unless the deer are very close, you are limited by your ability with the rifle.

-- Sat Jan 30, 2010 4:43 am --

So this means there should not be any sex discrimination in hunting.

I didn't say that at all. There are many people who will hold out for a big buck. There is nothing wrong with that if that is what you want.
However, saying that any shooting of a doe is unethical, is just plain baloney.
One thing, though , does are much better eating than a big racked buck. To get a big rack, the buck will have to be several years old and might be pretty tough and stringy.

[prashantsingh]

Like I mentioned "ethics are different for different people" . I live in India and the "ethics" (the older family members in the family followed) was never shoot a female. Doesn't mean that hunters (in India) never shot females (when hunting was legal in India). They DID. Infact my grandfather recalls seeing Cheetal females , fawns and males of all age groups being loaded in a truck in the Terai ....to be transported to a closeby city many many decades ago.
I do not agree with you when you say "Does are much better eating than a big racked buck. To get a big rack , the buck will......pretty tough and stringy."
THE MEAT (venison) depends on the TYPE OF DEER YOU HAVE SHOT. My father tells me that he prefered the Kakar to Cheetal meat . With a Sambhar they only made Kebabs . The meat of a Sambhar was "Pretty tough and stringy" while the meat of a Kakar (barking deer) was very tender inspite of the Kakar being a"big rack" amongst his own species.
I have experienced this first hand in Africa. I shot an Orix and also a Steenbok. The Steenbok was tender while the Orix was tough and "gamey".
The reason why MY family members advocated hunting only big males had a conservation aspect to it. Once while driving through Punjab (preindependence United Punjab) my grandfather had to stop for about half an hour to allow a massive herd of blackbuck to cross the road.
We had blackbucks at our farm in Moradabad. Today you hardly see any. The older generation had seen our wildlife being plundered and thereby made their own rules.
In Africa there are some species (like the Orix) where both males and females have horns. In fact many females grow longer antlers than the males. Inspite of knowing this I went for the MALE. Because of the simple reason that I HAVE been tough to shoot Only Males and I knew that the day MY family members would have known that the Orix in my room was a female ....they would have been dissapointed.


MUCH HAS BEEN TALKED ABOUT THE WHITE TAIL Conservation in U.S.A.
May I please ask my dear American friends about the Conservation efforts regarding the Wolf and the Bison which once roamed the length and breath of their beautiful continent.
You guys live in Developed Nations . India is way way behind.


No doubt their populations are growing today......But were these animals not "overhunted" in the earlier centuries with NO regard to the Age or Sex of the animals.


I have mentioned somewhere on IFG that "If left alone ......Animals in the wild can live without Man". You don't need some officials to decide how many white tail you have to "cull" to maintain the balance if you have the natural predator (the wolf) in the same jungle.

[shooter]

hi sudhaesh

What part of "fair chase" doesn't jive with your definition of "Hunting". The American Whitetail, like most deer species is no pushover. They are wily and have very sharp senses. They can hear you and smell you coming long before you are aware of their presence. They can detect a trace of even the slightest movement. What part of scouting and then working to put yourself in a position to get the best shot is not hunting? When the Department of Natural Resources in my state decides that so many Does must be culled to maintain the health of the herd, who am I to argue with them? Especially since they manage one of the most successful conservation programs in the world.

I do not agree with you when you say "Does are much better eating than a big racked buck. To get a big rack , the buck will......pretty tough and stringy."
THE MEAT (venison) depends on the TYPE OF DEER YOU HAVE SHOT. My father tells me that he prefered the Kakar to Cheetal meat . With a Sambhar they only made Kebabs . The meat of a Sambhar was "Pretty tough and stringy" while the meat of a Kakar (barking deer) was very tender inspite of the Kakar being a"big rack" amongst his own species.
I have experienced this first hand in Africa. I shot an Orix and also a Steenbok. The Steenbok was tender while the Orix was tough and "gamey".

You are right that in general the bigger the species more stringy the meat eg. sambar, gemsbok, elephant. BUT within a species, the doe is more tender. so if u see red deer, one with a big rack will be tougher, same with white tail, black tail mule deer, goat, sheep etc etc.

Therefore:

One thing, though , does are much better eating than a big racked buck. To get a big rack, the buck will have to be several years old and might be pretty tough and stringy.

I'm not saying that people don't try but unless the deer are very close, you are limited by your ability with the rifle.

but personally would prefer bolt action. MOA says thats because i havent tried semi-autos/autos.

I could not legally kill more than one deer so the use of a silencer gains me nothing except the possible saving of my hearing.

If enough hunters decide that there isn't a herd worth hunting out there, pretty soon your conservation dollars are going to dry up.
No Hunters=very few dollars.
On the other hand you could decide that you want to reduce X number of deer taken and allow your hunters to take a certain numbers of does and a certain number of bucks. This would allow you to preserve the size and integrity of your herd and maintain the strength of the gene pool. After a bad winter, there is no more heart rending sight than going into the woods in the spring and seeing the carcasses of hundreds of deer who have starved to death because their numbers exceeded the meager winter food supply. If you want a healthy deer population, in this case, you would have to balance your "unwritten ethics" of taking males only against the welfare of the herd. If you can successfully maintain a healthy herd, your children and their children and so on can continue to enjoy the freedom of hunting those deer. If you don't, you can kiss all that goodbye. Granted, my above scenario might be a little simplistic but Improperly managed wildlife, whether due to lack of resources, poaching, poorly thought out and emotionally motivated conservation theories (or all of the above) are what have caused a vast majority of this planet's fauna to be in the sad state that it is in now.

Proper Wildlife Conservation is a science, not a theory stemming from emotions. You can get a college degree in Wildlife Management and be taught the proper way to apply the principles of conservation. Whether you love animals or not, if you disregard the science, it is at the peril of the animals under your care.

Now if we follow these "unwritten ethics" of yours and If we take only males with racks, we might be left with a small number of males with stunted or underdeveloped racks. These males will probably not be considered good trophies and will be passed over by hunters who are following some "unwritten ethics" where only the strongest and the best are taken. Now all we have left are below average males with stunted racks. In a case like this, will we not jeopardize the future genetics of the herd?

I agree. but having said that we must also remember that the "big rack" stage isnt reached early in life. in fact it is reached after the mating age and in all probability the male has passed on its genes of big racks by mating. Please remember that the size of rack depends on the age but the genetic configuration (of big or small racks) remains the same throughout life (please dont argue about telomeric mutations).

I firmly believe in culling. here in britain we have a similar system in that we have quotas for culling etc. there deer management exams and courses. It involves does and hinds in addition to stags both big and small.

I think what prashant is trying to say here is about a code. it is a very old and quite British 'code'. The hunters (i.e.) the lords and the royalty shot big bucks (trophy) the management was left to their gamekeepers. They introduced the same 'ethics' in India. So wealthy Indians who rubbed shoulders with the British who's who "learned" the same "ethics".

In indian states there was a Shikarkhana (wildlife dept) whose officers did the controlling but when "darbar" (his highness) came to play shikar, he would go for the big racks only.

Because of the deprivation of two generations of shikar, half the story comes into the picture and passed down but the 'behind the scene" work doesnt.

A lot of people in India whose ancestors hunted were from the former background and hence they know about these "ethics".

For eg. I know of people who take assistants to put baits on the hooks and then pull the hook out of the fish's mouth. They have been bought up with this sort of fishing practice. maybe in a few generations their descendants will think thats the way to fish.

Same way a lot of shikaris wouldnt go out hunting without their 'gun-bearer' or i have heard of hunts being cancelled as the person who goes and picks up the deer and carries it back to the jeep is unwell.
In that select population group it was absolutely unacceptable for the shikari to pick up the deer.

British lords shooting ducks on river ganges or other rivers would send a "native" to retrieve as it was against their principles of animal loving to risk the life of their pet dogs in the crocodile infested waters.
Imagine if they stopped hunting overnight. their kids would grow up on ethics "a mans life is worth risking over a dog's". (yaj please, no comments)

Even today where the millionaires are the new royalty, one can see the big millionaires shooting 'trophies' only and the culling is left to us lesser mortals. one might give some examples of millionaires hunting non trophy males and does and hinds but these examples are few and far in between.

[hvj1]

So this means there should not be any sex discrimination in hunting.
Not trying to take of the seriousness of this topic, So on the third day, one of the hunter picked up the rifle to shoot, the one doing the spoting said its a female, on that came apt reply, NO SEX in hunting and bam he fired on a old lady.
It doesnt end there, the lady was so old the that the meat was hard to cook too . so again there leg pulling session after it.
My apologies if i took away the seriousness of the debate

Anecdotes lighten up the thread, otherwise it gets too ponderous!

[xl_target]

I think what prashant is trying to say here is about a code. it is a very old and quite British 'code'. The hunters (i.e.) the lords and the royalty shot big bucks (trophy) the management was left to their gamekeepers. They introduced the same 'ethics' in India. So wealthy Indians who rubbed shoulders with the British who's who "learned" the same "ethics".

Absolutely, I understand that different people have different codes of ethics. I don't believe I said anywhere the Prashant's code was wrong for him. Most of my posts were trying to get across the idea that people can have different ethical beliefs and none of them has to be wrong. I was trying to show that you have to take the time, place and circumstances into consideration when you consider different viewpoints.

The British code of ethics worked for them. In fact, after 200 some years of British Rule, the state of the flora and fauna in India was in better shape when they left than it is now. In the years since Independence, we have let our wildlife and our forests deteriorate to that point where they are today. We can't blame anyone but ourselves for that.