Any more non-hunters out there?

[LEM]

Sorry, you're not - I'm 10 years younger

 

[Vaino]

Possibly gun restrictions, lack of land that's available to hunt and the expense of hunting in the UK all contribute to the low numbers of hunters? All of the above reasons that make hunting difficult contribute to a lack of motivation or an impossibility of hunting?.....Fred

 

[TFoley]

Not really lack of motivation, Sir, around half of my fellow gun club members [that's about 150 or so] go deer-stalking/feral hog/wild goat. After all, mainland UK DOES in fact have huge [by comparison with equal-sized countries] of tracts of open land, especially in Scotland. Average spreads up there are around 20000 acres, but some are many times that.

It's just hunting is not something that has ever happened much here since feudal times.

Deer-stalking in Scotland and the wild places of mainland UK is actually pretty popular among certain people and for sure we have real over-population of deer here, if the BASC and British Deer Society are to be believed. We don't have a tag system like you do, either, so it's not a matter of a tag lottery. If you can afford to shoot here, then you can afford to go deer-stalking too, having done the necessary course run by the British Deer Society. If I wanted to, I could live on venison all year round.

I take the point about the numbers being small, but there are only 1.6M firearms certificate holders in the entire country, and that includes EVERY kind of rifled firearm and all air rifles over 12 ft lbs m/e, and shotguns with more than three rounds capacity.

tac

 

[Vaino]

Many European countries and I don't think the UK is an exception, have very restrictive rules and regulations that discourage people from hunting. Obtaining a hunting license in Germany or Austria entails very extensive testing and mainly is done to discourage hunting. All the land in the 2 above countries is privately owned and to gain "admission" to these lands is expensive.

You mentioned Scotland as having "open hunting land"....but does this land contain game animals? Have viewed this "hunting land" on TV and didn't see any game animals....w/ such sparse cover, where are they hiding?

It's a known fact that hunting is for the rich in the UK and the European counties, w/ possibly the Scandinavian countries being the exception due to low populations.

Hunting is a natural instinct of humans....afterall, it was the reason for "our" survival. So, through the years, this urge or instinct has been repressed for many obvious reasons in the UK and most European countries.

No doubt my opinions are influenced by the "welcoming attitude" of hunting in the US....as opposed to the tenet that "only the rich" are allowed to hunt" in the UK and other countries that have gov'ts that discourage hunting by the masses......Fred

 

[coloradoclyde]

According to the World wildlife Fund....
"Populations of vertebrate animals””such as mammals, birds, and fish””have declined by 58% between 1970 and 2012. And we’re seeing the largest drop in freshwater species: on average, there’s been a whopping 81% decline in that time period."
https://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/living-planet-report-2016

Speaking strictly for myself, I have personally seen the disappearance of more than half a dozen species from my area in that time frame....

 

[coloradoclyde]

You do the math - 65,000,000 citizens v 160,000 hunters.

Roughly 0.24%....compared to the USA with 5.2%
Although America has been declining in recent years.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

I am not an anti or anything like that. I grew up hunting and there was a time I spent every spare second in the woods, both in and out of hunting season. I have not actively hunted in about ten years. Back about 15 years ago, I started to experience too many slob hunter problems. I decided it would be wiser to just stay home. Even on my with my property posted, I have had to contend with nut jobs spraying the woods with a semi auto rifle. (Illegal for hunting in PA until perhaps this year.) Folks telling my I am trespassing, on my own property. I was hunting small game with a double barrel muzzle loader shotgun and some self appointed jerk follwed me around screaming how muzzle loader season had ended two weeks earlier. Well for deer it did, but small game was open. Then there was the kid that crept in to my property and fired his shotgun at my house when it was quitting time. Had a cracked window and a few dents in the old aluminum siding. The cops refused to do anything. Had a trespassing hunter build a wooden tree stand in my biggest cherry tree nailing 2x4 steps up the trunk. I was told it did not matter who I may catch up in the stand, unless I could prove who placed the stand, the cops refused to do anything. I cut the tree down. Had fences cut, people drive across my field on the other side of the hill that I cannot see from the house. Too many inconsiderate and dangerous slobs out there. I have my own little range and I shoot when I want.

 

[hanshi]

It's a sad fact that as the population grows (we're already obscenely overpopulated) there will be more extinctions and fewer non-human critters sharing our planet. Since I was born the world population has tripled, close to quadrupling, and the US population has more than doubled. With pollution, green spaces bulldozed and millions of houses being built in formerly rural areas, the outlook is sad for animals AND humans. Each block removed from a stack brings us closer and closer to everything crumbling.

 

[Henry2357]

I don't hunt, but used to. I mostly enjoy shooting MLs because they challenge me more than other rifles.

I don't condemn hunting, but I don't care for deer meat and my grandkids think squirrels are dear little creatures. (I do like squirrel.) My back yard is full of them and I can get within 10 feet of them without alarming them. I might take a few after the first cold spell kills all the wolves in them.

So my shooting is at paper. This makes me quite happy. Am I alone here?

While I hunt, I don't normally kill. I enjoy getting out, sitting in the woods, watching what I can see. Does this mean, I won't shoot at game, no, it just not what I'm out there for.
Most of my hunting is on paper targets.