Liberals and animals: Maunderings

[grampster]

I was reading the other thread about how some folks (liberals) will eat meat and otherwise take advantage of animal products but are revolted by the notion of personaly causing that meat or product becoming useful in ways other than breathing.

I have been thinking about that thread and wondering about my reaction to it when IT happened.

I was fooling around down by the lake when I noticed movement on the ground.  It was a young mole zipping around in the grass.  My first response was "get the little bastard."  So, I flipped him into the lake with the tip of my shoe.  The first thing he did was raise his head and then began to paddle furiously.  The problem was he was going in circles. But his head was up!

I immedietely felt like a *expletive deleted*it.  I watched him for a moment, wondering if he'd get to shore and then be able to climb up the concrete sea wall.  I gotta get him outa there I thought and hurried up to the house and went into the basement and got a fish net.
All this time I was thinking about how his head was up and he had a focus.  But, he was not making any headway...and that I had put him in that position.  He was going to drown and I initiated the circumstance.  I hoped he'd have the tenacity to still be around when I got back...and not pike food as well.  I felt more like a *expletive deleted*it.
I eat meat and have killed game.  I squash spiders.  (my conscience bothers me then, too.)

Well, I dipped him out of the water, placed his wet little arse on the ground, covered him with the net and went and got a glove because I had this irrational thought that he'd bite me and I'd get lockjaw. ( A well deserved bite, for that matter, I thought)

I picked the little critter up and looked around.  He was now making noises that I would ascribe as being on the level of .45 cal at the least and .410 at the most.  I had never thought about the fact that I seemed to have an a priori understanding of mole language.  What he was calling me is not fit for APS or Art's Gramaw.  What inthebloodyhell do I do with him now?  If I put him down the bastard'll tunnel my tomatoes.    Hmmmmm, I thought; put him in the neighbor's yard, he's been pissing me off lately, anyway.

So, I did.

So, what I want to know is this:

What was worse...
Flipping the little critter in the lake to drown, depositing him in the neighbor's lawn, or realizing I am, heaven forbid, a Liberal?

[Winston Smith]

I had a similiar experience.

During my duties at Strybing Arboretum (aka choppin' wood) I stopped for a smoke break. This gopher comes right up to my crotch and starts hissing. Turns out I was sitting on it's hole. So I get up, get my axe off the leather holster on my hip (more of a hatchet) and give it to him. He lies there twitching, neck 2/3rds severed. I axe him some more until he stops moving and bury him under a tree.

I felt great, then awful, then okay.

A few days later I did it again with my boots. This time I just felt awful.

I dont want to kill anything I'm not going to eat or isn't damaging my life/livelihood etcetera.

Now that includes biting bugs. Don't want welts or diseases.

Doesn't make you a liberal, just means you have a conscience.

[grampster]

Winston,

You axed your boots and buried them?!  Oh. the humanity!

[Winston Smith]

And they were on me, too. :-(

[Stand_watie]

The mole was the liberal Grampster.

[Sindawe]

What was worse...
Flipping the little critter in the lake to drown, depositing him in the neighbor's lawn, or realizing I am, heaven forbid, a Liberal?

Flipping the little critter into the lake to drown with out just cause.  He was not bothering YOU, but you had to go and frell with HIS day just 'cause you could.  Most of our species have such moments now and again.

But as Winston Smith has observed, your conscience won out in the end.  As it should.  Having compassion for another living creature does not make one a Liberal.  It is one of the characteristics of a mature soul/spirit/intellect.  Putting the mole in your neighbor's lawn was just broadening his horizons.  The mole's, not your neighbors; that was another example of the impulse you displayed initially with the mole, but to a much lessor degree.  And personally I have no issue with that level of chaosist behavior.

I squash spiders.  (my conscience bothers me then, too.)

As well it should IMAO.  Most spiders would like nothing better than to stay away from us, and they and their kindred do us a service with the number of insects the capture and consume.  If I can rescue them from the cats in time, I'll turn out those that get into my house.  Wasp as well.  Professional courtesy if you will, seeing as spiders, wasps and humans are all predators

[280plus]

I like spiders so I put them outside. My WIFE is the big squasher of the family (daughter squeals and runs)...

Hell, I hate to cut down trees. (I'm thinking maybe I can work mowing the lawn into this) But I accept necessity for what it is. I've always tried to limit my killing and risk taking to only what is necessary. That's kind of why I never turned into a hunter. It was never necessary for me to hunt. I figured the animal in the grocery store has already given up it's life for me to eat. Why do I need to take another. life? Although venison (among other wild game) IS quite tasty. This has always been a quandry for the deer.

[Art Eatman]

Well, 280, I'm a natural-food freak.  That's why God invented deer and quail and dove and javelina and mountain lion.  Yummy tasties.  I ain't into fried grasshoppers, though.

Maybe the farm/ranch part of my childhood and youth inculcated a lot of my attitude:  Pragmatism about critters.  "If they're not bothering my chickens, I won't bother them."  The majority of my gratuitous killing is rattlesnakes around the house.  I will pop the occasional coyote, but that's because I'm doing my own balance of nature thing about quail--so, back to the food thing.

But putting the mole onto the neighbor's turf is broadening life's experience for the neighbor as well as the mole.  Two good deeds in one!

, Art

[charby]

I'm a hunter or fowl and fur, I fish catch and release and also for food.

I like to eat rabbit and squirrel but as future Mrs Charby told me the other day when I was picking up 25lbs of bird feed and 25lbs of squirrel mix that I feed the neighborhood. I like to wake up and see the birds, rabbits and squirrels in my backyard out the kitchen window.

I also used to lie in ambush picking sparrows off my feeder with a pellet gun but then I realized I'm not eating them and they need to eat too.

I live in harmony with my spiders in my house, only one rule no spiders in the bed, so I just shoo them away if they get in there. When I started no squishing spiders I noticed a reduction of incests in my house. Same for the centipedes in the basement, they stay there and no one gets hurt. I also chase the occasional wasp out of the house if needed.

I can't explain why I do this. I still hunt and fish as much as possible and don't think twice about shooting a critter for food. I'm not a liberal either, kind of consider myself a Teddy Roosevelt Republican.

-C

[mtnbkr]

When I started no squishing spiders I noticed a reduction of incests in my house

:/

On a serious note, I try to live the same way.  I don't kill animals that don't get eaten or don't need killing.  Critters (that aren't causing problems) in my yard are pets, the same critters in the woods during hunting season may end up being food.  I try to safely remove spiders because they do have a role to play.

Chris

[mfree]

Hrmm. Mole out in the open, leave it alone. Mole in the tomato patch is fair game.

I'm more impressed with the gopher that got axed and then had to be boot-stomped the next day. (continuity).

Yeah, I avoid killing things unless it's "necessary", that's not liberal, that's human. I'm going to hate chopping down two very healthy maple trees in my yard soon, but I'll do it... the onus for their deaths isn't on me, it's on the moron previous owners of the house who planted them so close to the house that they're lifting the foundation.

[charby]

When I started no squishing spiders I noticed a reduction of incests in my house

I need to proof read a little better

-c

[Tallpine]

Rattlesnakes, porcupines, and gophers are fair game around my place

That's just the way it is - my "live and let live" attitude towards them lasted about a month after we moved out here on this place.

Going up on the neighbor's ranch and spending some time with a .22 rifle shooting gophers is great target practice, and they get rid of a few pests in the process.  The damn things really destroy a pasture

[Leatherneck]

As I noted on the second page of the crab thread, I now think the distinction is city-raised vs. country-raised mor than liberal vs. conservative.  There may be some correlation, based on my own observation. An aversion to unnecessary killing is a normal, moral human trait, I think. "Sport" hunting and fishing are OK if the ruins get eaten. Killing of varmints and dangerous critters is just part of keeping your environment safe. On my property, black snakes and garter snakes are fine, but any copperhead that comes my way bites the dust. I gave up hunting after the war, but I have no aversion to killing when necessary. Strange creatures, we humans...

TC

[mhdishere]

Last year I posted on this forum about killing a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest, couldn't find the nest and didn't want it to starve or get eaten, so I killed it quickly with a shovel.  I wondered if I'd done the right thing afterward, but decided I did since it probably wouldn't have survived anyway.

As for the mole, moles are pests in a garden.  If you have to kill them you do, but you owe it to the animal to do it as quickly, cleanly and painlessly as you can.  Just like you would if you were hunting or otherwise getting your own meat.  If you want my opinion tossing him into the lake wasn't providing a very quick or clean death, so your conscience was right to bug you.  Doesn't make you a liberal, just a decent human being.

As for the neighbor, I'm reminded of the old Star Trek series (the original) where the Enterprise was full of Tribbles, Mr Scott didn't beam them out into space because that would be inhumane, so he beamed them into the Klingon ship "where they'll be no tribble at all".  Somehow I don't think the Klingons would be concerned about being inhumane, and your neighbor just might toss the critter in the lake.

[grampster]

Holy Mackerel!  A forum full of blood-in-the-street, shoot first and ask later gun people and every blinking one of you so far has a soft spot for just about any kind of critter, especially spiders (shudder) and wasps.  Even the pesky critters that cause trouble are afforded the dignity of a quick and sudden end.

I think I'll cut and paste this thread to the Brady Bunch web page and cause a little thrombosis amongst those critters.

Actually, all your comments don't surprise me one bit.  The Good Book said it best regarding this group.  "To whom much is given, much is expected."  Youens fit that mold pretty well imho.

The neighbor is not around much, so brer' mole will have a long and productive life ridding his lawn of grubs.  I'm going to try and relocate spiders from now on. (shudder)

[BillBlank]

It's simple Gramps, like all of us you do things without thinking but when push comes to shove you are not a dumb sadistic F***. Compliment yourself that you did not require me to be there to cuff you round the back of the head and ask you what in tarnation you thought you were doing.

As for the neighbour, heehee.

[mhdishere]

Gramps,
It's simple really, like the gardeners definition of a weed: a plant that's growing in the wrong place, if you've got a tomato plant growing in your corn plot you'd remove it.  St Francis' mistake wasn't in loving Brother Louse, but in believing that the human body is an appropriate habitat for him (neither of those are original, but I can't recall where I read them).  A mouse living out in the woods is fine and I won't bother him, a mouse living in my kitchen is not and will be relocated or eliminated.

Last year we got a mouse in the house (despite THREE cats).  I hate glue traps, I think they're cruel.  I've seen mice get caught in spring traps and not be killed, so I didn't like that idea either.  I bought a humane trap, but once trapped I felt funny about flushing mr mouse so I took him to some nearby woods and released him.

[USP45usp]

I've always thought of it as there was no need to kill just for killing sake.  There are critters that I don't like (spiders) but I don't kill them (oh, and also folks, most house spiders will die if put outside), I just let them live as long as they stay out of my way (if it touches me, it's dead, sorry).

Wasps are a danger to my life, so yes, they and other bees are killed if in the house or anywhere near the house (their hives).  I don't go out of my way to kill them, just when they get too close.

I used to "hunt" birds but after awhile I really started to feel bad about doing it.  I wasn't eating them, I was just taking a life that I had no right to take so I stopped.

I will hunt for food but I will not kill something just to kill it.

Wayne

[Tallpine]

"I bought a humane trap, but once trapped I felt funny about flushing mr mouse so I took him to some nearby woods and released him."

When we catch a mouse in the live trap, we take the trap outside and open it in the presence of one or more of our cats  ("give it a sporting chance" )

[280plus]

Yea, I think it IS the difference between city and country. If you grow up thinking meat comes in little plastic wrapped packages with no connection to it's source...

Plus maybe parents too. In my case guns were verboten by Mom. We couldn't even get a TOY gun for Christmas. A BB gun or even just a pop gun. No way man. Dad had a couple but they were kept way back in the closet and hardly ever came out. Until the day Mom was home alone and thought she heard a prowler. Suddenly guns were good. I got home to find her puzzling over why a 30-06 round wouldn't fit in a .22 rifle.

[280plus]

LOL... It would have been funnier if she was trying to put a .22LR into the 30-06. Do you think she mighta figured out why the bullet kept falling out the end of the barrel?  LMAO...

[mhdishere]

Tallpine,
Well, I found out that my three cats aren't mousers, or at least two of them aren't.  Two cats had the mouse cornered in the kitchen, but it got away, they looked after it, went "D'oh" and went to their food bowls.  The one who I suspect might have caught it was asleep at the time.

[trapperready]

When we catch a mouse in the live trap, we take the trap outside and open it in the presence of one or more of our cats

Do you surprise the cats, or do they get to yell "Pull!"?

[Tallpine]

When we catch a mouse in the live trap, we take the trap outside and open it in the presence of one or more of our cats

Do you surprise the cats, or do they get to yell "Pull!"?

Yeah, that's pretty much the way it works (are you thinking of "Secondhand Lions" ?)

We call the cats into a little circle and then turn the mouse loose.

Several of our cats are pretty good hunters.